Noel Coward's House, Sasco Hill Road, Fairfield, Connecticut
Playwright Noel Coward (1899-1973) once wondered, "Why am I always expected to wear a dressing-gown, smoke cigarettes in a long holder and say 'Darling, how wonderful?'" It was all part of the image he projected, and the houses he collected all seemed designed to fit perfectly within that world.
There were Goldenhurst Farm and White Cliffs in England, Chalet Covar in Switzerland, Spithead Lodge in Bermuda, and Firefly in Jamaica. But first, this is Pebbles, his Connecticut summer home.
Pebbles is an ironic name for this grand Georgian Revival estate. It was built in 1926 and sits on three acres.
Coward entertained luminaries here like Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Tyrone Power, Christian Dior, and Richard Rodgers (even though he found Rodgers and Hammerstein's music "careless").
Pebbles was built in a nod to English style by Norwegian craftsmen. They installed Norwegian pine paneling, wood garlands, and marble fireplace surrounds.
It has been on and off the market since 2017, so you know what that means...old listing photos! Below you can see that the foyer used to have tonal striped wallpaper:
It's fun to compare the changes in the living room. Here is its most recent iteration:
Here's how it looked in 2020:
Here's how it looked in 2017:
Which version is your favorite? I like the 2017 room best -- it's soft and comfortable, yet that contemporary painting hints at its colorful past.
Here's how it used to look:
Again, I prefer the older look. It fits the sunroom-like feel of the room.
Here is the family room currently:
Here is how it looked in 2020:
The kitchen and butler's pantry haven't changed over the years, as you might expect:
Here is the breakfast nook area with an office area:
In 2020 it also had a couch and TV:
If it were mine, I'd bring back the TV, but add a lot more style, like this:
{Miles Redd}
Pebbles has seven bedrooms, and seven full and three half bathrooms. It has 7, 225 square feet.
Now let's take a look at the other fabulous places that Coward used to call home. He first bought Goldenhurst Farm in Kent in 1926. It was originally four separate structures, including a barn, but he had them joined to make something a bit grander.
But by 1951, Goldenhurst had become too expensive to maintain. He also was unable to live there during World War II, because it had been requisitioned by the army. Instead, he lived here:
This is the appropriately named White Cliffs, nestled against the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent.
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It inspired Coward to paint this...
and inspired the next resident, Ian Fleming, to write Moonraker.
Meanwhile, Coward was also living and working in this Gerald Road house in Chelsea from 1930-1956.
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In the 1950's Coward sold his properties and ended his leases in England and spent his time abroad. This is also probably when he stopped summering in Connecticut and started spending summers here:
This is Chalet Covar in Switzerland. He reportedly wanted to name it Shilly Chalet, but chose Covar instead, as a variant of his last name. He kept it from 1958 until his death in 1973.
He summered there and wintered here, at Spithead Lodge in Bermuda until 1958:
That's when he bought his last house, and the one probably most associated with him, Firefly in Jamaica.
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The interiors have remained untouched since 1973.
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It used to be called Lawrencefield -- Coward changed it to the more poetic Firefly.
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His guest list only became more illustrious during his moves. Both Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mother visited him here and enjoyed that spectacular view as well (while wearing a spectacular hat):
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Coward found it easy to write there, saying, "the sentences seemed to construct themselves, the right adjectives appeared discretely at the right moment. Firefly has magic for me." No wonder he was so prolific, with so much inspiration constantly surrounding him no matter where he called home.
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The listing for Pebbles is here.
