The building was built as the meeting place of the
Sphinx Head Society, a
Cornell University secret society formed in 1890. The society had discussed building a meeting place since the early 1900s, and bought the site in 1908. At the time, the site was far away from campus, secluded by trees, and lacking neighbors across the gorge. After raising $25,000 they hired local architect J. Lakin Bainbridge, who also designed the Tompkins County Courthouse. Ground was broken in 1925, and the building was finished in 1926. The design was intended to resemble an Egyptian tomb, perhaps partly as a delayed expression of the popularity of
Egyptian Revival architecture in the late 1800s, perhaps partly as a resurgence in popular interest in Classical Egypt after the opening of
Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, and perhaps partly because of similar structures at
Yale University and
Dartmouth College, the
Skull and Bones tomb and the
Sphinx, respectively. The second phase of the renovation, which was to include a series of additional buildings terraced above and below the tomb, were never built. A popular (and inaccurate) local rumor was that there was a secret tunnel between the house and Cornell, so that Sagan could drive his Porsche to campus unmolested. In November 2024, Sagan's widow,
Ann Druyan, sold the house to scrap metal mogul
Adam Weitsman "for $2 million, far above its assessed value of $585,000". ==References==