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Westport Teardowns: Creating a Digital Record
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In Westport, Connecticut, the online news, Westport Now, features the teardown of the day. In addition there is a map where you can research the past and future homes that will be demolished to make way for larger homes.

Westport has two problems. One is the very deep history that is preserved in some of the housing stock. Some of these houses go back to the 1700-1800s. Their other problem is that they are a most desirable place to live.

Once again, the conflict arises. The charm that attracts residents is disappearing one property at a time. Because of the incredibly high property values, these homes are being replaced with huge, expensive structures. An area that had several types of housing stock -- estates (think Martha Stewart, Paul Newman), historic, modest, and rural -- has reached a time and place where land values and demand override all the other qualities.

What is going to happen when the next generation looks back and wonders where the green space is, or how 5000 sq ft houses made sense? In the 1980s, the big houses of the early 1900s were being divided into apartments. Now those neighborhoods have been restored to single family homes, with much gratitude that these lovely old buildings were preserved. In Raleigh, Cameron Park, Oakwood and Boylan Heights have all been saved. Now these are the hottest areas for attracting denser residential development on their commercial borders.

As the next neighborhoods down the historical timeline become ground zero for tearing down and rebuilding, these concerns emerge anew. So what is the plan, Raleigh, for preserving Hayes Barton, Bloomsbury, Anderson Heights, and Roanoke Park from the wrecking ball?


From Westport Now:

With the pace of Westport teardowns at a record level, WestportNow decided to feature some of the demolitions that are causing such an upheaval on the real estate scene. We welcome reader contributions to this occasional photo feature, which is intended to create a digital record of some of Westport's history. This house was at ...

Today's WestportNow teardown is at 34 Newtown Turnpike. A demolition permit has been applied for. The Westport Historic District Commission imposed a 60-day delay on demolition at its Feb. 8 meeting. The house, built in the 1760s, is also known as ...

Comments

I very much appreciate your coverage of antique homes being torn down in Westport. I happened to live in that home for 32 years, and other familes for about 170 years before us. I find it sad in general and heartbreaking in specific. ...

A distressing reminder that house by house, bulldozed one at a time, Westport is starting to look like just another late 20th suburban development.

From personal experience, I urge buyers of old homes to live in their house for a year or two before doing any substantial work: make friends with the house, the property, and learn the vernacular of the neighborhood. ...

Thanks for showing these old houses. I read the Historic District Agendas and try to visit the places they consider for demolition permits but sometimes I can't find them or it's too late. The topic of tear-downs is one that is discussed almost every day among my friends, old-timers and new-comers alike. ...

I drove by this partial teardown a week or so ago, and our digital camera was off being fixed so I had no way to take a photo. I had the same reaction: we need to document these wonderful homes (old and new) that gave Westport it's character. ...

Ten years ago you'd drive down a street and there would be an old farmhouse, a small, pristine cape, a modern house set back, a Victorian home from the 1800s, and it was so charming. We are ALL going to lose if there is just stone fence with 4' high wooden fence atop it, hiding any views, for mile after mile in town. We've solved bigger problems: any ideas about what we can do? Lovingly from someone who moved here in 1946 to Roseville Road (originally called Poor Town Road, according to my late-102-year-old neighbor!) ...

Its not that things are changing, its the rate at which things are changing. Westport's real estate is undergoing the natural (and sometimes unfortunate and disconcerting) state of evolution. Whose fault is it? Should the seller pre-qualify the buyer and demand that the buyer only renovate rather than obliterate their home? Do we seek to regulate (ugh!) in an attempt to control this remaking of our residential landscape? Or do we accept this change as the natural progression of our town and our society and try to move on? Kindda reminds me of the Town's struggle with the Long Term School Renovation/Building Program and the many other Town-wide issues surrounding those who advocate for change and those who don't. Yet this one is centered on our individual rights to own and maintain our personal property. ...

I happen to know the person who now owns this house and she has done everything to try to save it. Her engineer and her contractor both said that it was too far gone. She got demolition permission from the Historic Distric Commission as the house had historic designation, and she must rebuild so the the outside of the house looks just like the old one. She even called me before demolition so that I would not think badly of her. (I live in a 1740's farmhouse which she sold me when she was a RE broker) I remember well how excited she was when she bought the house and we talked about how much fun it would be to restore it. This is not a case of disregard for an old house. It is a case of too many people letting it go until it was too late. ...