A total of 1.963 acres of a 4.8-acre estate on Long Island Sound is being set aside and won’t be built on, according to an agreement made with the Darien Land Trust and filed Dec. 18 in the Darien Town Clerk’s Office.
UPDATE: Jan. 1, 2016:
A view looking east on Long Island Sound from the 1.9 acres of now protected land at 203 Long Neck Point Road. The Darien Land Trust expects it to be mowed seldom, if at all. (Photo taken by Shirley Nichols of the Darien Land Trust)
Preventing intense development on the 4.8-acre property at 203 Long Neck Point Road was a major reason Darienites Paul “Flip” Huffard IV and his wife, Kimberly, bought the property earlier this month, said Shirley Nichols, executive director of the Darien Land Trust.
Neighbors and others who were concerned about preserving open space on Long Neck Point peninsula “were hoping to garner support to purchase the whole place,” particularly after a subdivision into four lots was approved by the town, Nichols said. The entire property was put on the market, and in May 2015 various people concerned about preserving the land met to discuss buying even part of it, but “deals kept falling through.”
Finally, the Huffards came forward and bought it in a transaction that took place Dec. 7 for $11,416,667, according to land records in the Town Clerk’s Office. “He [Paul Huffard] was just getting frustrated that all the other deals were falling through.”
Huffard could not be reached for comment Thursday.
An easement giving the Darien Land Trust rights to keep 1.9 acres of the property along the shore from being developed was also filed with the Town Clerk’s Office, and Paul Huffard wants to restrict development on the rest of the site, as well, so that fewer houses can be built on it, Nichols said.
“We’ve, hopefully, achieved a situation that could’ve been four houses, and now we’ll only have one,” as well as a protected meadow, Nichols said. “For us, the benefit was in the preservation of a coastland, a habitat type that’s fast disappearing in most of the world.”
The land set aside for preservation is largely a grassy meadow by the shore. It had been mowed last July by the owner at the time when Nichols visited the site and took pictures (shown with this article). The Darien Land Trust wants the meadow unmowed and free for growth in order to allow the land to support wildlife (especially birds, because the area is along a migratory pathway) and to preserve its attractiveness.
Even with the mowing, she said, “There must’ve been 30 or 40 swallows and house martins and masses of insects.”
The meadow is visible both to people on the water and along the shore as far as Rowayton, Nichols said. She recently saw the shoreline of Long Neck Point peninsula from another point nearby on the coast and that meadow and land near it “was the only empty green space all the way out there,” she said.
The land, formerly owned by John D. Crimmins, who bought it in 1891, and his descendants until just a few years ago, was the site of the Firwood Mansion until the family sold the property and a new owner tore down the old building. The Crimmins estate had once been 15 acres, but was subdivided over time until the mansion stood on a 4.8-acre property.
Original article, Dec. 30 (with revisions on Jan. 1):
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Correction: A previous version of this article said the property owners had subdivided the land. The subdivision was effected by a previous owner, not the Huffards. The version below has been changed.
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A part of the tract where the former Firwood mansion stood at 203 Long Neck Point Road, the acres on the eastern shoreline of the Long Neck peninsula might be mowed occasionally, and they won’t be owned by the land trust, but they’ll be free from construction and wildlife can use them, according to documents connected to the easement.
Image from the Darien Land Trust website. The tag line states: “Preserving and protecting open space in Darien, Connecticut — Forever”
Paul Huffard IV and Kimberly Huffard of Darien bought the 4.8-acre estate on Dec. 8 for a total of $11,416,667, according to documents filed with the clerk’s office in mid-December.
A previous owner subdivided the property into several smaller tracts which could be sold individually. The Huffards intend to reverse that subdivision, reducing the number of houses that could be built on the site.
The easement to the Darien Land Trust, for which the trust paid nothing, could be the basis for an appeal to the Darien Board of Assessment Appeals for lower property taxes.
According to the document filed in Town Hall, the easement doesn’t grant the public access to the protected beachfront property, which has a stone wall parallel to the beach and, on a map, forms an irregular shape something close to a trapezoid, 327 feet along the shoreline, about 330 feet inland and 372 feet on the side opposite the shoreline.
The neighborhood is one of the most expensive in Darien, with five of the top 20 taxpayers on Long Neck Point Road, according to the BlockShopper Connecticut website. (The rankings on that list may be inaccurate, but it shows that the street is well represented among the top taxpayers in town.)
According to a description of the easement, the extent of the direct public benefit (aside from keeping it available to wildlife) is limited to people who are boating nearby in anything from a yacht to a kayak — they can see it without seeing buildings on it or even so much as a tennis court, or anyone who can see it from other spots along the shore.
The documents filed with the Town Clerk’s Office focus on the protected property’s benefits to the environment as conserved land:
“The protected property is situated on and prominently visible from Long Island Sound, a national estuary, being on the easterly side of a peninsula known as Long Neck Point and is south of several of Darien’s main coves.
“The adjacent estuary areas, including Scott’s Cove and Ziegler’s Cove, are frequented by many boaters, kayakers, paddle boarders, fishermen and others who will benefit from the preservation of undeveloped and scenic vistas of the protected property.
Conserving the property without further development “protects a significant ‘natural habitat of fish, wildlife or plants or similar ecosystem.’ The protected property is within the migratory flyway in close proximity to Long Island Sound and within an area which Grantee [the Darien Land Trust] has determined is of substantial scenic, aesthetic and ecological importance to the town of Darien.
“Grantor [the Huffards] intends that this easement will confine the use of the protected property to such activities as are consistent with the purpose of this easement.”
The document does not make the case that the land is anything like virgin forest or meadow. In fact, Long Neck Point peninsula is one of the oldest areas ever settled by Europeans in Darien, in Connecticut or, for that matter, in the United States.
A little less than four centuries ago, Colonial settlers took advantage of the water on three sides of the peninsula to make it pasture land for cattle, horses and other animals — it was relatively easy to fence off the short neck of the peninsula to keep the animals from getting away. Other peninsulas on Connecticut’s jagged coast served the same purpose.
Trees on the peninsula would have been cut down and brush removed so the animals could graze. Until the late 19th or early 20th century, that area — like most of Darien — was made up of meadows, not woods. Stone walls that now course through woods were, back then, sometimes the only landmarks for boundaries.
The property owners intend that the land in the easement “shall be maintained as a coastal meadow” mown not more than twice a year, and with no mowing from May 1 to Aug. 15. Under the terms of the easement, the owners of the property will be responsible for it and will keep it insured.