In 1957, the Todds exchanged their glamorous Park Avenue penthouse for a seven-bedroom, sixty-four-hundred-square-foot home at 175 Long Lots Road in Westport, Connecticut. Elizabeth’s great uncle, Howard Young, owned a home in nearby Ridgefield, so she was likely familiar with the area.

When Elizabeth and Mike arrived in Westport to house hunt, their realtor didn’t have any properties to show them. He desperately called Westport real estate developer Nat Greenberg and asked if he could show the Todds his house, which, at the time, was one of the town’s “largest and grandest homes”.

The Todds fell in love with the 3.13-acre property, which is across from the Fairfield County Hunt Club, and features a swimming pool and tennis court. “They loved the house and asked if we’d consider renting it for a year,” recalled Greenberg’s widow, Lee. “My first reaction was, ‘Of course not!’” However, the Greenbergs thought it over, and decided to move to Switzerland for a year.

Nat called Mike to tell him the house was theirs. “He was deliriously happy,” Lee said. “In fact, he offered to pay — besides the year rental — for all 6 of us to go to Switzerland. And for our chalet.”

When they moved in, Elizabeth was pregnant with their daughter, Liza. The home’s interiors served as the backdrop for Toni Frissel’s photo session commemorating her arrival, which famously appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine.

At the time, the town of Westport still retained a rural feel. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Martha Stewart, and even the fictional Ricardo family of I Love Lucy would call Westport home at one time or another.