To the editor:

This letter to the editor pertains to the Longshore Improvement Plan, in particular to the Longshore Inn Architectural Review Board meeting on April 23 and the upcoming P&Z meeting on May 6.

As longtime residents in Westport, my husband and I were taken aback by the planned massive radical changes being planned for the Inn at Longshore by Ken Nadler, the architect from Mount Kisco, N.Y.

When asked by an ARB member at the April 23  meeting if there has been any study given to the building’s history, Mr. Nadler said he tried but hadn’t been able to find historical photos. 

Looking at the present architectural drawings, the familiar iconic facade with the dome structure harmoniously connecting to the Great Lawn on the Sound is gone. The new facade is sterile, institutional strip architecture — a facade found in hundreds of places in the country. This is mostly my husband’s opinion, who worked with architects and engineers on small and big building projects all his life.

Besides the architectural aesthetics of the new inn design, there is an even more serious problem emerging now as more details from the architect come to light. 

It is the ALCOHOL issue in the recreational public environment of Longshore. In the ARB meeting, Mr. Nadler said part of the program is seating 200 PEOPLE on the patio for cocktail hour. This is alarming to us!  By not being a Westporter, Mr. Nadler may not be familiar with severe alcohol problems the inn had in the past and recently.

Since we are living for a long time in the residential section of Longshore close to ihe inn, we experienced several times where alcohol consumption at the inn got out of control.  

The last time it happened was in 2017. The combination of the beautiful view of Long Island Sound from the outdoor patio, the alcohol drinks and amplified music is very seductive to create an uncontrollable chaos. The word got around and the inn became the “Watering Hole” of Fairfield County and beyond.

The town went to the Superior Court and the judgment was in the town’s favor. However, the chaos carried on. Finally, the town ordered the lessee to place tables and chairs on the patio and serve alcohol only in conjunction with food. At this time the patio area was SMALL and had about one dozen tables.

Now Mr. Nadler is planning for 200 SEATS for cocktail hours, apparently without mandatory food consumption. We do not know the legal liquor regulations in public recreation settings in Connecticut. It may be worth finding out because the lease is for 30 years — a long time. 

Common sense tells us that alcohol only a few yards away from young Westporters learning paddleball or attending sailing school is not a good idea!

There will be many more managers for the lessee and many more Westport administrations to come in the next three decades. If the extensive alcohol program proposed by Mr. Nadler is not curbed, there will be more chaotic alcohol-related incidents like the one in 2017 in the future.

According to an early project narrative by Landtech, the original intention of the Longshore Inn improvement plan was to update the building and mechanical systems (kitchen, etc.) to make it compliant to current code requirements. 

Now this ballooned into a monster project where the existing inn is stripped down to the skeletal structural framework and rebuilt by a mediocre new and bigger building, which has no resemblance to the current iconic landmark Longshore Inn.

Is this what Westporters want?

Irmi Streidt

Westport