New Canaan NEO-CLASSICAL 

Chosen as one of the best contemporary homes of 1958 by Architectural Record, the Warner (Bridge) House was also featured in the New York Times, House & Home, and Architectural Design. It was recently sold for $5,000,000. Sited so that the Rippowam River bisects the lofty living room in a way that

PRIMORDIAL SYMBOLISM

The Bridge, whose symbolic meaning is found in the departure from one reality to another... The suspension of both space and time while crossing the span, and finally the descent to the other bank representing a new reality, heretofore beyond our comprehension. The updating of this time honored image of the arch spanning the stream, is today the experience of air flight.  

The bridge is the transitional area between the different domestic zones of the house - kitchen, master bedroom, etc. One ponders with fascination the unending flow of the stream passing beneath, as representing the continuity of the life force.   - John M Johansen

After exploring ancient Athens, Vicenza, and Pallidio, Johansen asserted in 1955 in Architectural Record: 

Palladio’s qualities and principles can be as well carried out in space frame and plastic, as in bearing wall. Palladio himself stated in Quattro Libri, I:  ‘Although variety of things new may please everyone, yet buildings out not to be carried out contrary to the precepts of art.’  In a sense we go forward, and back. We need not fear the backward look nor be embarrassed by similarity with earlier types, but rather be proud; for art which is profound and fundamental in appeal has its precedent and its parallel.

The idea came to me to make a bridge when the client showed me the property they had… I said what about the land next door [across the water], is that for sale?  They said “oh yeah that’s for sale.” You’re going to live here looking at a house and you’ll hate each other.  You better buy it.  So he bought it, and that of course in my mind said this is your big opportunity. And then not only was it neo-classical but it was one of the great primordial symbols. The forest of columns, the labyrinth, the cave…this then was the bridge house. The bridge represents in mythical forms the leaving of one region familiar to you. Throw yourself on a bridge and you are separated from time and space and then you find your way down to another reality hitherto previously unknown to you.  This is big stuff. That’s what I tried to bring back to architecture.  

    -   John M Johansen from article by Gwen North Reiss

perfectly aligns with a vault in barrel-vaulted ceiling... The ceiling is of gold leaf that has burnished to a bronzy, autumnal tone that reflects the glints and dappling of the water below. On five landscaped acres, the 4,500-square-foot Bridge House has six bedrooms, four full bathrooms and a gorgeous stone pool and pool terrace. - from Inside Stories by Lily Oliver