By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT–The Architectural Review Board unanimously approved two projects on Tuesday: an addition to the Saugatuck Rowing Club that would provide a more fitting entrance to its restaurant, and an office-to-apartment-building conversion at 50 Post Road West that the board sent back to the drawing board in July.

The Boathouse

Diners on their way to The Boathouse restaurant inside the Saugatuck Rowing Club, 521 Riverside Ave., currently have to pass by the gym in the interior of the club to get to the restaurant, said Jon Halper, an architect and member of the ARB, who presented the plan, but did not vote on the project.

“The restaurant has suffered for the past 25 years, really, because . . . it was a private club . . . then it turned into a public restaurant,” Halper said. “The only way in is through the front door, up the stairs, past the gym with sweaty rowers working out and then they’re into the dining room.” The proposed new addition to the club building will provide a more gracious entrance to the upscale restaurant, he said. 

The addition would include an entry vestibule, coat check, and “a formal, grand staircase” up to the restaurant. There will be a reception space on the second floor with a window “and a reconfigured dining room with a proper bar you can sit at,” he said.

The proposed addition will require three parking spaces to be eliminated outside the club. However, the club has purchased property across the street where a hair salon had been located. That building has provided administrative space for the rowing club, and a yoga center, along with more parking for the rowing club and restaurant, Halper said.

In order to place the addition with the new entrance adjacent to the original building, an air conditioning unit will have to be moved. Although the plan is to screen the AC unit with landscaping, landscaping doesn’t always last, said Vesna Herman, vice chair of the ARB.

After Halper agreed to place better fencing or other screening around the AC unit, the ARB unanimously approved the addition to the rowing club.

The Greek Revival at 50 Post Road West

A 17-unit apartment project at 50 Post Road West, that had been sent back to the developers by the ARB on July 22, got approval the second time around at Tuesday’s meeting. 

At the first meeting, board members were concerned about the design of a smaller four-unit building on the property,  the look of some dormers planned for the main building, and the need for better lighting inside. Property owners Botero Property Management LLC will comply with all the ARB recommendations, Tomas Botero told the ARB on Tuesday, showing board members the adjusted plans.

The developers said they would keep the Greek Revival style of the now dilapidated building.  Cedar shingles will be used on the new roof of the building instead of asphalt or a synthetic wood product, in line with the period style of the original building, he said.
“I agree with everything – functionally and architecturally. You did a good job,” Vice Chair Herman told Botero before the unanimous vote was taken.