"I'm always identified as being the best architectural photographer in the world," declares Shulman. "I disclaim that. I say, 'One of the best.'" The photographer paid $2,500 for his two-acre property, and $40,000 for the Raphael Soriano–designed studio and house, into which he moved in 1950. "All in cash," Shulman says. "My mother taught us, 'Never have a mortgage.'" Over the ensuing decades, he says, "I planted hundreds of trees and shrubs, to emulate how I lived as a child [on a farm in Connecticut]."