By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — The Sniffen Road neighborhood, with split-level houses and raised ranches built in the 1950s, may not look like a typical historic district. 

But to some of the area’s homeowners — and members of the Westport Historic District Commission — it has a rich history and deserves to be preserved.

“There is nothing else like this in Westport right now,” Scott Springer, the commission vice chair, said at a recent meeting. “I support this 100 percent.”

An application to demolish a house at 30 Sniffen Road by property owners, 30 Sniffen Road LLC, ignited the movement by a handful of the street’s homeowners to protect their properties by proposing establishment of a historic district.

“People want to live in a place where construction of McMansions is not allowed,” commented commission member Martha Eidman during discussion of the proposal at the Feb. 14 meeting.

The historic district proposal was brought to the commission by Amy Zipkin, owner of 31 Sniffen Road, who  initially won support from four other homeowners on the street. 

Zipkin’s  research shows that more than 80 homes in the neighborhood were part of a development project called Flower Estates at Westport, built on the site of the former Fillow Flower Co.

She said the request to create a historic district in the neighborhood was based on the Historic District Commission’s criteria and, in a report to the commission, she listed how the neighborhood conforms with the requirements:

• Buildings must be more than 50 years old and the house design “indicative of a significant architectural style or period,” according to HDC criteria. 
• The requirement the “property is associated with events or persons important to the development of the Town of Westport,” she linked to the role of Stanley Banks Fillow, who in 1935 was granted one of the first patents for a flower, Zipkin said, and who had greenhouses with as many as 50,000 plants on the property.
• The homes also were “designed by a significant architect,” her report said, naming architects Ryder, Struppmann and Neumann of New York City, which won first prize in a competition called “Houses for Ten Million Families,” to help families recover from the Depression with well-designed, but modest houses.

Although commission members complimented Zipkin for the hours of research she did on the property’s history and significance, it appears to be too late to block razing the house at 30 Sniffen Road, commission Chairman Grayson Braun said, even if the area is eventually accepted as a local historic district.

The waiting period on the demolition permit expires in May, and it would likely take a year or longer to complete the process for designating the area as a historic district, Braun said. The houses must first be listed on the town’s Historic Resources Inventory. The inventory is a compilation of properties in Westport with historical significance, but is not as regulated as a historic district, and before that happens a study committee must be formed.

Some property owners in the area questioned the benefit to homeowners of creating a historic district, including Joan Ryan of 27 Sniffen Road, who told the HDC meeting that she intends to withdraw her property from the proposed historic district. She decided to withdraw after learning there were only four owners considering the application. The district would impose restrictions on owners without benefits if it is so small, Ryan said.

Braun explained that a historic district designation is not as limiting as some property owners believe. The property owners within the district are required to get approval from the commission only for changes to architectural details on a structure that are visible from the street, she said. 

Property owners within a district can add to their homes in the back, repaint the structure, or install a backyard pool, she said.

Eidman, a real estate agent who lives in the Kings Highway Historic District, said that although property owners worry that a historic district designation may affect the market value of their homes, the historic designation also can raise property values. There can be benefits and value added for homes located in a historic district.

“There are people who will want to be in it and people who will not because of their individual needs, but it is of value to many to be in a historic district,” she said.

It is Zipkin’s intent to get more owners in the 80-plus home neighborhood who meet the criteria to agree to support the Sniffen Road historic district proposal. That, however, will take time, she said. 

Zipkin made a plea to the commission to stop demolition of the house across the street from her property while she contacts other property owners. She asked for the proposal to be tabled until one of the commission’s March meetings.

“The demolition delay is just a stalling tactic,” she said. She is “waking up every morning looking at this demolition sign … On May 21, a big flatbed truck is going to roll down my street with a big crane on it and we’re going to spend the next interval of time watching a house [get built] that can rise as high as 35 feet. Between now and then, I would like to feel that we have done something constructive.”

Commission members agreed that more research is needed on the Sniffen Road historic district proposal. The application is listed on the agenda of the commission’s March 14 meeting.

How to establish a historic district

Braun also suggested that anyone interested in learning more about procedures for creating historic districts check the commission’s website. Designation of a historic district in Connecticut also must follow state regulations.

There are at least five steps that must be taken: 

• A historic district study committee is appointed to investigate a proposed historic district, and evaluate the historical and architectural significance of the properties being considered.

• The historic district study committee sends its report to the state Department of Economic and Community Development and the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission for comments and recommendations.

• The study committee will hold a public hearing, and then incorporate any changes, if needed, to the proposal before submitting it to the Representative Town Meeting for review.

• Ballots are mailed to every property owner in the proposed district.

• If two-thirds of the property owners within the proposed district agree to be included in the district then the proposal goes to the RTM, which can accept the report and enact an ordinance to create the historic district; reject the proposed historic district, or return the report to the study committee for amendments and changes.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist and journalism teacher for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman newspaper for 10 years and teaches journalism at Southern Connecticut State University.