John Black Lee moved to New Canaan in 1951, joining the architectural practice of Eliot Noyes, one of the Harvard Five who had been building Modernist houses in New Canaan. Lee's first house was built for his family the following year by Ernest Rau, a local building contractor who went on to build many more of Lee's designs in the town. He sold this house in 1954, building a second home for the family on Chichester Road.