WESTPORT–The owner of a historic Westport home at 125 Riverside Ave. has reached an agreement with the town that would preserve the saltbox structure and split its property to allow another house to be built on the newly created next-door property.

The plan, approved unanimously last night by the Planning and Zoning Commission, resolves a dispute over the commission’s Oct. 27, 2025, rejection of an earlier proposal for the property that could have included tearing down the house, which was built in 1810, according to planning documents.

The settlement must be approved by a Superior Court judge in Stamford, Town Attorney Ira Bloom said. 

“I think that the applicant has done an excellent job with their attorney to come back to us,” commission Chairman Paul Lebowitz said in last night’s Zoom meeting. “We looked at what they proposed, and I think everybody was pretty much happy that this solves it to the extent that it can be solved.”

The agreement splits the .46-acre site in two. The historic home, which is a little more than 1,000 square feet, would remain on a .12 acre site. The new home of almost 2,000 square feet, with a pool, would occupy the new .34-acre property, which would become 127 Riverside Ave.

The homes would not conform with zoning laws for setbacks and coverage in the case of 125 Riverside and lot size for 127 Riverside, according to the agreement. But they would be permitted under town regulation 32-18 permitting exceptions that preserve historic homes. The law was amended in February 2026 to give owners of historic structures incentives that include the ability to subdivide their properties. 

“It’s obviously a key historic residence in Westport, which is why we believe the commission is justified in granting these incentives, allowing some setback in coverage and lot area relief in order to preserve that house and allow my clients to be able to build a new home on there,” said Eric Bernheim, attorney for the owner, architect Lucien Vita. 

The agreement would place a preservation easement on the home that the town could enforce “ensuring that it is preserved in perpetuity,” Bernheim said.

The proposal drew praise from former Historic District Commission member Wendy Van Wie.

“It’s been a long, hard road to save this historic house, but it looks like we’ve done it,” she said.

But not everyone approved of the settlement. Representative Town Meeting (RTM) member Louis Mall, District 2, wrote to the commission yesterday that he could not attend the meeting, but opposed the agreement.

“What was wrong with NO in the first place?” he wrote. 

When the commission rejected the earlier plan in October, also with a unanimous vote, several neighbors and RTM members were concerned about flooding on the site as well as the potential loss of the historic home.

“The natural flow of the river goes directly into this basin and floods at high tide, full moon, during hard rain, Nor’easters and hurricanes. Let the buyers beware,” Mall wrote in yesterday’s message to the commission. “As I have said before, where are the preservationists, the conservationists, the sustainability folks? Westport talks a good environmental game, but when it is time to saying STOP, protect the eagles and the habitat along the Saugatuck River, we fail to act. Talk is cheap.”

Vita has been attempting to develop the property since early in 2024, originally proposing a text amendment that would have allowed properties with structures 100 years or older to be subdivided. The commission rejected that idea in part because it would have applied to 171 Westport properties.