[not verified in body] As the first director of the Bauhaus, Gropius was concerned with combining modern technologies with consumer needs, while placing equal emphasis on architectural integrity and decorative arts.

Fellow architect and prominent Bostonian Henry Shepley convinced philanthropist Helen Storrow to provide land and fund the design and construction of a home for Gropius.

[4] As to my practice, when I built my first house in the U.S.A.—which was my own—I made it a point to absorb into my own conception those features of the New England architectural tradition that I found still alive and adequate.

This fusion of the regional spirit with a contemporary approach to design produced a house that I would never have built in Europe with its entirely different climatic, technical and psychological background.In 1931 Gropius was asked to write an article describing the ideal livable small home for Architectural Forum.

Instead it is to be of light construction, full of bright daylight and sunshine, alterable, time-saving, economical and useful in the last degree to its occupants whose life functions it is intended to serve.

Hence, no artificial symmetry, but a free functional arrangement of the succession of rooms, short, time-saving passages of communication, moving space for children, clear separation between the living, the sleeping, and the housekeeping parts of the house, and finally, proper utilization of the ground and especially the sunny aspect.

The bedrooms need morning sun (facing east) the living rooms should have southern to western light, and the north side is left to storerooms, kitchens, staircases and bathrooms."

[citation needed] Gropius wanted the outdoor space around the home to be equally "civilized" and created a lawn extending twenty feet around the entire house, with a perennial garden expanding to the south by the porch.

Although the house sits on a rather flat plot of land, by keeping the woodlands well maintained, the Gropiuses retained broad views to the south, east, and west.

The Gropiuses also added "rescued" boulders and wooden trellises adorned with pink climbing roses and Concord grapevines to flatter the New England landscape.

After a trip to Japan in the 1950s, Ise removed the perennials and covered the ground in a layer of gray gravel, where she planted azaleas, candytuft, cotoneaster, and one large red-leafed Japanese maple tree.

Loud complained about being "surrounded by chicken coops," referring to the Gropius House disparagingly, as he felt its modernist design clashed with his own home's Colonial Revival style.