The revolving house of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Foster, Wilton, Conn. | architect: Richard Foster

On a pastoral Connecticut hillside, at the end of a driveway marked by a rural mailbox, a breath-taking house perches amid breath-taking scenery. Resembling a giant glass-and-steel space ship, it creates a stir in the quiet landscape literally and figuratively: At the press of a button, all nine rooms of the house spin around, re-orienting to any point of the compass. Yet it was not an infatuation with technology but a simple love of nature that prompted the design of this imaginative house that architect Richard Foster created for his own family. They couldn't make up their minds which marvelous view they liked best among the several surrounding their six-acre site: the apple orchard, especially delightful in spring; the distant hills, so flamboyant with color in the fall; the meadow and pond, or the reservoir, both as lovely by day as under moonlight. After discarding several plans for sit-still houses that necessarily sacrificed some views, Mr. Foster came up with his well-why-not solution: a carousel house from which his family could catch the golden ring every time around.

For the Fosters and their three sons, who range from highschool to medical-school age, the revolving house is a marvelous experience in pie-in-the-sky living. They can select the scene and direct the sunbeams, the moonlight, even the breezes, when and where they want them. From the same kitchen window, Mrs. Foster can watch the sunrise while she fixes breakfast and enjoy the sunset while she prepares dinner. And Mr. Foster is probably the only father in the U. S. who can awaken a sleep-late teenager on a Sunday morning by turning the house so that the sun streams into his room and onto his pillow.

The Fosters' imaginative castle in the air consists of a circular series of pie-shaped rooms that revolve around a stairway core enclosed in a fixed pedestal. The rooms ride on a giant ball- bearing circling the stairway, which is powered by a 12-horsepower motor-approximately the energy needed for a large window air conditioner. The house can revolve clockwise or counterclockwise at ten speeds ranging from a baby snail's pace of five turns a day to a top rate of one turn in fortyeight minutes. So smooth-going, so well concealed is the mechanism, that even when the house is turning at top speed, you are hardly aware of the motion unless you concentrate on a tree or some other fixed point outdoors.

While the rooms revolve, everything else goes on as usual. The dishwasher runs, you can use the telephone or turn on a light, for architect Foster has worked out spectacularly ingenious de- vices that permit uninterrupted services. (Other structures such as restaurants revolve but rarely take bathrooms and kitchens for the ride.) He forecasts that variations of his prototype rotating system will some day revolve ski huts, beach houses, individual rooms, or even parts of rooms.

In addition to playing its own special kind of roulette, the Fosters' house meets admirably the needs of a family with almost grown children, including a large dressing room and a two-part bath for the boys. For rough-house activities and hobbies that are hard on housekeeping, the family uses the 24-by-30 foot lower level of the detached two-story garage. In the future, this space, in addition to housing an art workshop, may be turned into a party room with kitchen and lavatory.