By John Schwing

WESTPORT — Plans to renovate a historic Post Road West property, once home to a seafarer from a well-known Westport family, have been withdrawn.

Rick Redness, of Redniss & Mead, a land-use consulting firm, notified the Planning and Zoning Department this week the contract purchaser of 50 Post Road West has decided to withdraw a proposed text amendment needed for the project to move forward.

The proposal, if the amendment had been approved, envisioned using the main building at 50 Post Road West, and a new, smaller structure behind it, to create up to 12 apartments, some of them classified as “affordable.”

Redniss, in his note to zoning officials, said the buyer decided to drop the plans after “evaluating the challenges in achieving a redevelopment that enhances the historic building and navigates the complex lengthy local and state approval process …”

Financial aspects of the project also were a factor, Redniss said. “While trying to achieve a successful balance of costs and benefits it has become clear that taken as a whole, the effort does not ‘pencil out’ at this time,” he wrote.

The decision to withdraw the proposal comes after the Planning and Zoning Commission gave the plans a largely positive reception during a non-binding, pre-application review in February.

The main structure at 50 Post Road West was built by Capt. Frederick Sherwood between 1835 and 1845, with wings added sometime after 1880. In more recent decades it was used as office space.

Sherwood’s family had a homestead on an island that is now part of Sherwood Island State Park. His wife was a Burr, another well-known name from Westport’s history.

The Post Road West building had two wings added, probably after 1880, according to a Historic Resources Inventory report from the town’s Historic District Commission in 2011.

Capt. Frederick Sherwood was a son of Daniel and Catherine Burr Sherwood, according to the town’s historic inventory report: “Frederick was one of the triplets born in the Sherwood House on Sherwood Island. The house was landscaped with plants from China.”

“This is a prominent Greek Revival Temple form building on the Post Road West with a view of the Saugatuck River where Captain Sherwood could keep a watchful eye on his packet boat business located on the west bank of the river next to [south] of the Westport bridge.”

In 1874, Sherwood was elected foreman of the Vigilant Engine Company No. 3, according to the history report. That building on Wilton Road now houses OKO restaurant.

John Schwing, the Westport Journal consulting editor, has held senior editorial and writing posts at southwestern Connecticut media outlets for four decades. Learn more about us here.