The stately 1889-built structure at 51 Main St. in New Canaan, property of the Red Cross for more than 60 years, is under contract with a new owner.
The ‘Red Cross building’ at 51 Main St. in New Canaan is under contract with a new owner. Credit: Michael Dinan
New Canaan resident and builder Arnold Karp of Karp Associates confirmed with NewCanaanite.com that he’s a member of a partnership that is hoping to close on the 2,600-square-foot building and .38-acre property next month.
The new ownership group in the early going believes it will return the building to a residential use, though in any case the structure itself will be restored and preserved, Karp said.
“We want it to continue as a character piece of New Canaan,” Karp said.
He added: “We are not looking to ‘brick’ or ‘stone’ it.”
“Part of the reason we bought it is that I actually personally like the building and would like to see it keep its char in New Canaan for next 50, 100 years. So that is one of reasons we thought of turning it back into residential: People who buy residential homes, older homes, understand that they are the holder and tend not to change them.”
Red Cross officials could not be reached for comment.
A handful of bidders had shown interest in the property—owned since 1952 by the Red Cross, according to tax records—and the town was not among those bidding on it, Karp said.
“This is an interesting building and at the right number we are going to buy it to maintain it and come up with something creative,” he said.
Though the structure’s roof is sound, it’s been many years since the “Red Cross building” underwent any substantial capital upgrades and it needs work, Karp said.
One of 21 structures in New Canaan’s Historic District, the Red Cross building last summer had come on the radar of the volunteer commission that oversees the district, mostly revolving around its collapsing front porch.
It’s one of two buildings in the Historic District that Karp intends to acquire and restore, along with 4 Main St., a long-vacant Greek Revival-style residence at the top of God’s Acre. That home, in foreclosure, currently is tied up in courts.
“Both of these are sort of character pieces in New Canaan, so our thought is not to rip them down but to keep them as they have been,” he said.
Karp also is part of a different ownership group that earned approval from town officials in November to build Merritt Village.
Is this “Karp” the same as, or related to, the “Karp” of New England Development, who bought up most of downtown Nantucket and gentrified it, and now, over the past ten years or so, has bought up 50 percent of downtown Newburyport? Just askin’.
No a completely different family—that’s Douglass Karp with two S’s, son of Stephen Karp.
Arnold is a Stamford High School graduate and New Canaan resident who has been involved with a number of local causes and organizations, including Stamford Hospital, Mill River Park and CT Challenge.
The “Red Cross house” was built by
St Mathew’s Episcopal Church as the rector’ manse, when the church was in the now-Lutheran Church. It is important architecturally as well as the only example in Town of the fashionable English Queen Anne Style. Its peaked roof slopes all the way down to the porch eaves and gives it a vernacular English cottage look. A gem! I wish I knew who the architect was.
Can anyone tell me?