1908 New Canaan House Coming Down, Barn Staying

 

A 1908 barn near downtown New Canaan will be preserved though the house it has stood beside for more than a century will come down to make way for a far larger, new home.

Despite concerns from neighbors that a new Federal-style home planned for 22 Green Ave. is out of character with their short street (it runs between Church and Oak), town officials last week felt compelled to approve a special permit that will—effectively—preserve a 525-square-foot barn on the property. (The special permit allows the site plan to go beyond the allowable size for structures on the .28-acre lot—since the new house, said to include a first-floor footprint of 2,373 square feet—will take up all of that space.)

Dan Conlon of Georgetown-based Daniel Conlon Architects didn’t mince words when a member of the Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday asked whether it would be possible to just make the house smaller so that the barn and house together fit into the allowable coverage area.

“That’s certainly possible,” Conlon said at the commission’s meeting, held in the Visitors Center at the New Canaan Nature Center. “However, given the zoning regulations, given the desire of the owner for what they would like to have there and given real estate values these days for the land value, our intent is that we’re going to build a house that pretty much will utilize most of the available area under regulations.”

He said the house has structural problems.

“We did consider [renovation] and for the programmatic concerns of the owner, it didn’t work,” Conlon said. “We did go through and do a survey of the house and it does have some structural issues, and there were a number of things about the configuration of it that just weren’t going to work for this owner.”

Neighborhood opposition

The two-story Colonial that stands at 22 Green Ave. includes 2,649 square feet of living space, tax records show. The property was purchased in January for $1 million. (Before then, it’d had one owner since 1972, when the property sold for $170,000.)

Conlon said the owner wants to keep the barn and use it for storage.

“We would like to keep it, we like the way it looks,” he said. “We like the historic connection to the property that the structure affords.”

Kimberly Norton lives across the street. She spoke out against the special permit, saying that if the property’s owners—one of whom was at the meeting, Sheila Clemente—were interested in historic preservation, they’d renovate the home, not raze and replace it with something double the size.

“Green Avenue has moderately sized homes, with green grass front lawns, sunlight beaming into every house, birds and even for town, some wildlife,” Norton said. “Building a huge house with even more square footage by allowing a barn-garage to remain on the lot does not fit with the character of our street.”

Another Green Avenue resident, William Butler, said he was concerned about storm water drainage (since the site plan includes a paved driveway in front, where a grass lawn now exists) for the neighborhood, and that the structure would be approximately 57 percent larger than the average house on the street.

“It’s going to be very large. It’s going to stick out like a sore thumb on the block,” he said.

Conlon said that the home itself conforms to zoning regulations—and some commissioners voiced support for his plans (in fact, one neighbor also wrote to the commission in support of the proposal), saying most of the added square footage was in receding from the street, not running the width of the property.

“The subject of our application is to preserve the barn, it’s the coverage of the barn that is not conforming, so whether the barn stays or the barn goes, this house conforms with the zoning regulations,” Conlon said.

At issue with regard to the barn is an attached for the new house. The neighbors noted that the barn itself could be used as a garage, as it has in the past, and that most houses on the street have a similar look and feel, with a front lawn and narrow driveway leading to a detached garage.

Clemente said she explored the possibility of erecting a house that would attach to the barn itself, but it wasn’t conforming.

“It’s not a builder’s Colonial box like a lot of the new construction going up,” Clemente said of the site plans. “It’s pretty tastefully done.”

Historic significance

Town resident Mimi Findlay of the New Canaan Preservation Alliance (which on Thursday is running a Historic Register Workshop) spoke in favor of preserving the house and barn, both.

“This is a very historic house,” Findlay said at the meeting.

Referring to information supplied in a Historic Resources Inventory sheet on file with the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, Findlay said the home has been identified as the house of Leroy Ellwood and that it began its life as “quite a charming Queen Anne style house.”

Here’s the information from the sheet itself, prepared by Connecticut-based preservation consultant Rachel Carley:

“This house, which is identified as the residence of Leroy Elwood in the 1905 New Canaan Directory, began life as a Queen Anne style residence, distinguished by a wraparound porch at the northwest corner and a turret at the southwest corner. (An entry in the September 1905 Messenger noted that the cellar had been excavated.) At some point after 1927, the porch, tower and a rooftop balustrade were removed, and the present Colonial Revival entry and bay window were added. The site is part of a residential subdivision known as Oakhyrst, also including Oak Street, laid out by C.W. Hodges and New Canaan real estate agent Francis E. Green (namesake of Green Avenue). Green Avenue was cut through in 1904. Leroy Elwood and his brothers Robert and Winfield established Elwood Brothers in 1889 as general contractors. After 1911, Leroy ran the firm in his own name, establishing a reputation for erecting quality homes in the New Canaan area before the firm closed in 1935.  See page 3. The barn/garage is original and a contributing resource to this property.”

The vote

The commission voted 8-1 in favor of approving the request for a special permit.

Said Dick Ward: “I understand the opposition but that is not really a decision for this committee—on the nature of the new house—the decision here is on the barn. If we approve the application, the barn will continue to exist. If we do nothing or deny it, the barn goes.”

Commission member Dan Radman said the plans drawn up by Conlon are a “good attempt to try and diminish the scale of house as it faces the street.”

There’s precedent for approving special permits in similar cases, Radman said, including for properties where plans for a house exceed allowable coverage areas.

“I think the way the architect addressed it is the best way possible—given the program, given the site conditions,” Radman said. “I just think there is nothing we can do to condition the size of the house, it is purely the barn discussion. And we have approved many other barn special permits to allow for the barns to stay for special coverage.”

At Town Planner Steve Kleppin’s recommendation, the commission included a clause saying that if the property owner at 22 Green Ave. wanted to use the barn for something other than storage, he or she would be required to return to Planning and Zoning for permission.

Here’s where the property is: