The James Cutler–Designed Home of Best-Selling Author Richard Preston Asks $3.5 Million

For some potential buyers, it’s probably enough that this four-bedroom, four-bathroom house for sale near Princeton in Hopewell, New Jersey, comes with 76 acres (including a picturesque creek), draws energy from its own solar panels (enough to achieve net-zero in summer months), and features a striking blend of wide-open, contemporary architecture with traditional natural materials.

Yet that’s only the beginning of the story—perhaps appropriately, given the seller is longtime New Yorker writer and best-selling author Richard Preston. The tale involves classical antiquity, Frank Lloyd Wright, an abandoned factory in Duluth, Minnesota, and flying squirrels.

Richard, who with his wife Michelle commissioned Cutler’s design in 2001, has made a career writing about outbreaks—real and fictional. His 1994 bestseller The Hot Zone explored the danger of ebola virus long before the term was familiar (the book was adapted into the 1995 movie Outbreak). His 2002 book Demon in the Freezer chronicled the eradication of smallpox.

During the real-life Covid-19 pandemic, Richard’s house—with its ample grounds and outdoor gathering spaces—made an ideal nesting spot.

Cutler, long based in Bainbridge Island, Washington, is perhaps best known for designing the Seattle mega-mansion of Microsoft founder Bill Gates in 2005. But he’s also a Pennsylvania native who studied under iconic midcentury modernist Louis Kahn (who made a career of utilizing masonry to poetic effect)—and this semirural house was a chance for him to return to his roots.