One thing he can’t do, though, is prevent the cutting of trees on private property.
One view of Santa swinging from the branch of a tree overhanging Mark Donovan’s property …
Yesterday, “06880” reported that a near-1oo-year-old oak tree in the setback near Mark Donovan’s Prospect Road home was felled.
Developer Joe Feinleib of Coastal Construction bought the property that the trees sit on. He is cutting a number of the trees there, before building a new residence for his family.
As of this morning, Donovan says, 3 of the 5 oaks — whose branches overhang his property — have been cut down.
Awaiting the inevitable, he hung a swing on one of the major branches. Santa stopped by to lend support.
… and another.
Meanwhile, Donovan invites interested Westporters to visit him, enjoy coffee and cake, and watch the final trees come down.
He and his family will be at 22 Prospect Road, behind the barn.
Just seconds after I posted a report from Prospect Road — noting that a tree crew was on hand to cut a stand of old oak trees, overhanging Mark Donovan’s Prospect Road property, with the Donovans sitting underneath attempting to stop it — Mark sent me a video.
It’s just 35 seconds long. At the start, a contractor uses a chainsaw on one of the trees.
Just 3 hours after this morning’s “06880” story about the possible destruction of a stand of grand oak trees hanging over Mark Donovan’s property on Prospect Road, a work crew arrived with chainsaws.
They were ready to cut the trees, to make way for a developer’s new home.
Donovan — who is concerned about environmental and esthetic impacts, along with effects on the stone walls supported by the trees’ root systems, and possible changes to water runoff — and his family reacted quickly. They sat underneath the canopy, on their own land.
Concerned for safety, the crew has not yet begun cutting.
The Donovans, meanwhile, served coffee and cake to the work crew.
The tree-cutting crew, near the Donovans’ property line at Prospect Road.
José Feliciano’s buoyant, jangly tune is 51 years old. Now — just in time for Navidad — a documentary about the life and music of the longtime Weston resident will be screened just a couple of miles away.
The Norwalk Film Festival will screen “Behind This Guitar” on Saturday, December 18 (7:30 p.m.) at the Wall Street Theatre. The movie follows Feliciano’s journey from growing up blind in Puerto Rico, to his 9 Grammy Awards and international acclaim. Click here for details and ticket information.
But several other Westporters were big contributors too. Hats off to Judy and Scott Phares, Eunice and David Bigelow, Kate and Bob Devlin, Joyce Hergenhan, Anna Czekaj-Farber, Mary Ellen and Jim Marpe, Christian J. and Eva Trefz, and Stacy and Howard Bass.
The show will go on — thanks to some very generous neighbors!
(From left): Shoshana Bean, Brandon Victor Dixon, Gavin Creel: stars of “Stars on Stage.”
It’s one of Westport’s most visible: Riverside Avenue, at Treadwell.
The intricate, whimsical fence — designed by Andrew Hamilton Reise — was the subject of an “06880” Photo Challenge in July.
As many readers knew, the owners are Pietro and Janine Scotti. He’s the owner/chef of the former and still beloved Da Pietro’s restaurant, just down Riverside (and across the street) closer to town.
If your property has or is adjacent to wetlands, a watercourse or a pond, all residents and contractors should “call before you dig.” If you’re unsure whether the property contains wetlands, call the Conservation Department: 203-341-1170.
The last year has seen an increase in violations. resulting in unpermitted building, cutting, clearing and filling of wetlands.
Violations cause owners having to cease work, appear at public meetings, pay fines and post bonds. Violations are also part of the public record.
It helps if he or she loves the New York Knicks. But a fan of any team — or any sport — can appreciate the passion of Fred Cantor. The 1971 Staples High School graduate and longtime “06880” contributor recently wrote Fred From Fresh Meadows.
It’s a loving account of the ups and downs of fandom, sure. There’s another reason to buy it though: All proceeds go to the John Starks Foundation. The Stamford-based nonprofit helps high school students afford college.
Click here for more information. Click here for last night’s News12 story on Cantor and the book.
Screenshot from last night’s News12 interview with Fred Cantor.
Angelo “Cookup” Veno — a true son of Saugatuck — died earlier this month, after a long and happy life.
Born in Saugatuck in 1928 to Louis and Mary Veno, he went through the Westport public school system. After school each day, Angelo manually set pins at the bowling alley downtown.
He was a 3-sport athlete at Staples High School, starring in football, basketball and baseball. After graduating in 1946 he played semi-pro football with the Westport Advertisers, and basketball with the Saugatuck Veterans, Westport YMCA and Clam Box 5.
Angelo also took up boxing, and had a 12-2 record as a pro. In 1986 he earned a Sportsman of Westport award.
In 1951 Angelo joined the Navy. He served for 4 years on the USS Howard D. Crow as an engineer. He joined the fleet’s boxing team, and lost only one fight.
Following his service he came back to Westport and helped coach the Westport PAL football team. He and his first wife, Judith Lissberger, had 2 children, Timothy and Belinda. Both remember their trips to New York Giants’ exhibition games in Pittsburgh, then straight to the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy for dinner.
Angelo married Theresa Karutz in 1984, a former Miss Atlantic City winner. He enjoyed spending time with his stepsons Wallace and William Karutz.
Angelo had a long and successful career in the world of construction as president and CEO of his company, AJ Veno Construction. He started the business as a window replacement company, and grew it into a full-fledged construction company. He built corporate buildings and residential homes for many years.
Angelo made friends and made people everywhere, from the local pizza restaurant to nurses caring for him. He loved spending time at Compo Beach, with friends or alone feeding birds.
Angelo is survived by his brother Joe and sister Theresa (Richard Valentine). He was predeceased by his sister Ida Lockwood. He is also survived by his children, Timothy Veno (partner Gwen Purcell) and Belinda (Richard Benincasa); grandchildren Richard (Nora Benincasa), Ryan (Noelle Benincasa) and Morgan Benincasa; many cousins, nieces and nephews, and his recent great-grandchild, Ryan Casey Benincasa.
A funeral is set for Monday (December 13, 10 a.m., Assumption Church) for a Mass of Christian Burial. Interment with full military honors will follow in Assumption Cemetery on Greens Farms Road. The family will receive friends in the Harding Funeral Home on Sunday (December 12, 2 to 6 p.m.) Click here to leave online condolences.
The family of Joel Hallas has announced 2 options for donations in his memory. Click here for the Connecticut Food Bank; click here for the American Radio Relay League, for ham radio operators.
It’s already gone. But yesterday morning’s snow provided the perfect subject for today’s “Westport … Naturally” photo, from Bob and Karen Weingarten’s lawn:
Next Thursday (December 16, 6 p.m.) the Planning & Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on a text amendment involving fences.
A new proposal would require that the finished side of a fence be installed facing the adjacent lot or street. The idea is for the more attractive side of a fence to face outward, toward the neighbors and street.
A new text amendment would mandate that the “bad” side of a fence (shown here) would have to face the property of the homeowner who built it.
There’s an exemption for lot lines adjoining a non-residential lot, or a lot line directly adjacent to wetlands.
To see the full amendment, click here, then scroll down to Text Amendment #806.
The December 16 public hearing will be livestreamed at www.westportct.gov, and is available on Optimum Channel 79 and Frontier Channel 6020. Comments can be sent prior to the meeting to PandZ@westportct.gov. Residents may join the meeting to offer live testimony.
Agendas for the Historic District Commission are straightforward affairs.
The one for its next meeting — Tuesday, November 9, 7:30 p.m., Zoom (click here for the link) starts out like most others.
After approving minutes, the group will “take such action as the meeting may determine to oppose the issuance of the demolition permit” for 171 Compo Road South, 3 Sunrise Road and 5 Minute Man Hill, and “require the full 180-day delay.” The agenda item is mandatory, for houses more than 50 years old.
The next 8 similar items, though, may be contentious. Th language is the same. But the properties are 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 and 47 Hiawatha Lane.
One of the Hiawatha Lane homes on the demolition list.
Those homes would be torn down to make way for Summit Saugatuck’s 157-unit development, off Saugatuck Avenue by I-95 Exit 17.
Area residents have filed a lawsuit in Bridgeport Superior Court to stop construction.
In the frenetic day-to-day life we call Westport, it’s hard to stop and smell the roses — or the people who plant them.
Judy Patterson Lanyi does. Along with all the other flowers. She writes:
“I moved to Lincoln Street almost 3 years ago. Here is a photo of the house across the street, as it looked when I arrived.
“Since then, the a new family moved in. Urszula Solowinska has transformed the entire front lawn into something lovely. It adds so much beauty to Lincoln Street.
“Urszula does all the work herself. And the flower garden contains fabulous veggies too!”
Thanks, Judy, for the photos. And thanks too, Urszula, for the transformation. You are this week’s lovely Unsung Hero!
(Do you know an Unsung Hero? Email dwoog@optonline.net)
Over the years, I’ve written dozens of stories about teardowns. I’ve warned of the impending demolition of historic homes. I’ve lamented the loss of our classic streetscapes. Just this past Monday, I remembered a visit to a special house on Compo Cove.
But as much as I loved those houses, and mourned their passing, it was always about someone else’s property.
Today I’m writing about mine.
At least, it was mine from the time I was 3 years old, through college. It stayed “mine,” in the sense that my parents continued to own it, for decades after that. My sisters and I continued to visit, for holidays and special occasions (Sue’s wedding! My 50th birthday party!). And of course, to use the pool.
My mother died there — in the bedroom she’d lived in since 1956 — in 2016.
It was not a special house: 2,400 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a basement and patio. It was the 5th house built on High Point Road during the post-war baby boom. Although each home on Westport’s longest cul-de-sac was different, it was just another suburban home.
34 High Point Road
Except, of course, every house is special to those who grew up there.
Like any home, this one has stories. My parents told us their move in. A St. Patrick’s Day blizzard buried the driveway. So my mother and father spent their first night in Westport sleeping not in the bedroom of the first home they owned, but in the back of the moving van.
A neighbor down the street was Rod Serling. He’d been a friend of my father’s at Antioch College (and helped persuade my parents to move not just to Westport, but High Point specifically).
Whenever his in-laws showed up, Rod “escaped” to my parents’ house. Who knows which “Twilight Zone” or “Playhouse 90” shows were written downstairs?
When my youngest sister Laurie was born, my parents turned the attic into my room. It was big, and on its own floor. Years later my mother asked, “Did you feel bad you weren’t near the rest of us?”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “It was right by the front door. I could sneak out at night!”
“You snuck out once?” she wondered, surprised.
“Um — more than once,” I said.
High Point Road was a great place to grow up. Nearly all 70 houses were filled with kids around my age. We rode bikes, wandered into each other’s houses at will, and played soccer, touch football and baseball at Staples High School, which was in the backyards of the homes across the street.
Our house sat on an acre of hilly land. My mother had a hand in much of the gorgeous landscaping. (I never forgave her for taking down my favorite apple tree.)
Beautiful back yard landscaping.
Perhaps the most unique feature of the house was a large window. I’ve never seen a larger window in any home. It faced east, framing beautiful sunrises, spectacular autumn leaves in the dozens of trees filling the yard, and animal tracks in newly fallen snow.
The view from the large window in fall …
… and winter.
Several months after my mother’s death, my sisters and I sold the house. We thought it would be a teardown then. But the new owner decided to renovate it himself.
It was a good idea. The kitchen needed updating; removing a few walls would create the open floor plan craved by owners today.
For whatever reason, it didn’t work. For 4 years, the house was in a constant state of disrepair. He took down dozens of trees; the lumber sat on the ground.
I drove by every so often, just to look. One day, a former neighbor flagged me down.
“What’s your mother doing to her house?” she asked.
“Well, she died,” I said. “It’s not hers anymore.”
“Oh, thank god,” the woman said. “It looks awful.”
It did.
Last spring, the house was sold again. The new owner — only the 3rd in its history — is a builder.
He had no intention of finishing the renovation. He would build a new house on the property.
Demolition permit
After watching our old home “ruined,” I was ready for the decision.
I knew that teardowns are part of the Westport real estate lifecycle. I’ve heard about so many, and written about plenty.
But I wasn’t quite ready for my house to be demolished.
I hadn’t realized how many machines would be involved.
I hadn’t thought about how quickly they would reduce wood, concrete and plaster — or, more personally, a roof, walls, floors, rooms, and (more romantically) memories — to (literally) dust.
I hadn’t imagined seeing only the foundation remaining. Then the next day, it too was gone.
After the first day, only the foundation remained.
I did not know that the swimming pool would be filled with detritus. Or that even more trees would be pulverized, exposing the home behind that had been shielded for so long. Or that the topography would be altered so much, so quickly, that I could barely recognize the land.
The front yard.
I did not think that things would change so dramatically — in less than a week — that the only thing left was the mailbox, and an outside light fixture.
(All photos/Dan Woog)
Yet that’s what happened. It’s the same thing that’s happened to countless Westporters. This time though, it happened to me.
34 High Point Road has joined the long list of local teardowns. Soon — within weeks, maybe — a new home will rise somewhere on the newly leveled land.
It will be bigger than “my” house. In many ways, it may be “nicer.”
I’ll try to refrain from making a value judgment. I probably won’t succeed.
I am sure of this: I hope the new residents will love it, like my family did. I hope they live there — like my mother did — for 60 wonderful years.
On the one hand, it was just another in Westport Journal’s continuing coverage of teardown homes. Last week, they reported that 70 Compo Mill Cove will soon be demolished.
The website noted the facts: “Built in 1922, the 2-story cape has 1,000-square-feet of living space, four bedrooms, one and a half baths, piers, a deck and a finished upper story.”
It’s just one more loss of an old house — though more visible than most, to anyone gazing across Old Mill Beach, while walking on Hillspoint Road.
70 Compo Mill Cove (Photo courtesy of Westport Journal)
But this is a particularly historic house. It belonged to longtime town historian — and beloved civic volunteer — Allen Raymond.
It also was the scene of one of my most memorable moments as publisher of “06880.” In the early spring of 2014 I was privileged to be with Allen, as he made his last visit to the home that had belonged to his family since 1922.
He was 91, and dying. But as we sat in a sun-filled room by the water, his eyes shone.
It was both a difficult piece to write, and an easy one. The words flowed, but I knew they had to be right.
The unique, beautiful spit of land drew his parents to Westport nearly a century ago, and kept Allen here ever since. (He added a house on King’s Highway, which is perfectly fitting. It’s the most historic part of town, and no one knows Westport’s history better than Allen Raymond.)
Allen is 91 years old now, and his heart is failing. This afternoon — the first sparkling day of spring — he visited his beloved Old Mill home. It’s rented out, but he sat on the porch, gazed at the rippling high tide and spectacular views of Compo Hill, and reminisced.
Allen Raymond this afternoon, in the Compo Cove home he has loved for 91 years. (Photo/Scott Smith)
Allen spoke about his childhood days on the water, his summers growing up, and the life he’s lived here — and loved — ever since.
What a remarkable 9 decades Allen has spent in town.
You can click here to read the rest of the story, and learn more about the amazing Allen Raymond. (Spoiler alert: He’s one of the main reasons the town owns Longshore today.)
We should not forget people like him — the men and women who made Westport what it is.
And though it soon will be gone, we should not forget the small homes like his, which nurtured his lifelong love for the town — and contributed mightily to its beauty.
A group of neighbors on the road, off Saugatuck Avenue near I-95 Exit 17, has filed suit in Bridgeport Superior Court.
The plaintiffs ask the court for a “temporary and permanent injunction enjoining the Defendant from constructing greater than a one-family house on any of the lots owned by the Defendant in the Subdivision in violation of the One-Family House Restriction.”
The neighbors claim that a covenant on the property restricts all development on land owned by the defendant — Summit Saugatuck — to one-family houses only.
The plaintiffs also cite health and safety concerns related to increased traffic, along with runoff and flood issues.
The redevelopment plan for Hiawatha Lane. Click to enlarge.
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