For years, I’ve wondered about the house that sits at the corner of Wilton Road and Red Coat Road.
Who owns it? How has it existed in such decrepitude for so long? What must people think as they come off the nearby Merritt Parkway, and see it as one of their first glimpses of Westport?
But it’s not the only area house in such disrepair.
Half a mile away, on Partrick Road, is this:
There was a bad fire there, a year or two ago. But why haven’t the owners done anything? Is there a problem with insurance, building permits, or something else? Isn’t it dangerous for a burned-out house to sit like that?
And — remarkably — just a few hundred yards up that same beautiful Partrick Road is this:
The word on the street about this one is very interesting. Apparently there was a bad divorce 20 or so years ago. The husband didn’t want his wife to have the home — but he didn’t want to live there himself. So he pays taxes faithfully every year — and does nothing else.
It’s looked like this — abandoned and forlorn — longer than most residents have lived nearby.
How oddly comforting to know that in a town with such a tear-it-down, build-it-back-bigger mentality, at least 3 traditional homes remain standing.
Sort of.