Location: Old Westbury, N.Y. Price: $6,475,000 The Skinny: Designed by Ulrich Franzen in 1977, this Long Island home combines two completely disparate styles, because, hey! What goes together better than Brutalism and a historic 19th-century country estate? Actually, anything, really, as this interesting but somewhat jarring design makes crystal clear. Franzen, champion of blockiness that he was, demolished the original home except for the salon and drawing room, and then built a brick monolith and connecting structure which looks for all the world like it’s devouring the old estate. The grounds (which were designed by Frederick Olmsted) were also preserved, but the graceful curving lawn and the blocky new home are an awkward fit, with neither truly complementing the other. It’s not that the home—which is asking $6.475M—is awful: it’s a perfectly nice Brutalist residence. But all parties involved may have been better served if the teardown of the original, once started, had been completed.

http://curbed.com/archives/2014/02/25/brutalist-country-estate-on-long-island-asks-65m.php