Newtown nixes subdivision proposal for 26-acre property with private airstrip
NEWTOWN — Plans by a ridgetop estate with Fairfield County’s only private airstrip to legalize several buildings by dividing the 26-acre property into conforming lots have been grounded by the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission.
While the commission’s unanimous decision to ground the subdivision request by New Canaan entrepreneur and aviation enthusiast Santo Silvestro doesn’t affect the viability of his federally approved 2,000-foot-long grass airstrip in Newtown, which has existed since the 1940s under the name Flying Ridge, Newtown’s decision does raise questions about what happens to the unpermitted homes on the estate.
On Friday, Silvestro’s wife said the only thing that was certain is she and her husband love the Newtown estate where their daughter lives, and they plan to move there when her husband is less busy with his multiple auto and airplane businesses in New Canaan and at Danbury Airport.
“It is what it is,” said Lynda Silvestro on Friday, one day after Newtown rejected plans by the Silvestros to divide their estate into four lots. “We don’t know what our next step is yet.”
The denial by Newtown’s land use commission ends the latest chapter for Flying Ridge — a famous property once owned by renowned inventor and world traveler Robert Edison Fulton Jr., but the story
continues about the property’s adventurous and industrious owners, who love to fly.
Like Fulton, whose achievements ranged from film-making to inventing the “Airphibian” flying car that today is on display in the Smithsonian, Silvestro is a man of multiple enterprises that range from limousine and autobody businesses in New Canaan to two aviation companies at Danbury Airport to a resume of acting credits that include “Law & Order” and “The Sopranos.”
“Santo is an aviation enthusiast, so when were
told about that (Newtown) property and heard it had a private airstrip, that’s why we bought it,” Lynda Silvestro said, adding that the only time she flies is when she’s in the passenger seat.
The Newtown property, which the Silvestros have owned since 2015, also has an observation room in the main home Fulton built on Orchard Hill Road, overlooking the turf runway.
“Fulton wanted it to look like a control tower from the inside,” Lynda Silvestro said. “The room has beautiful views — you can see for miles.”
Part of the property’s beauty is an oblong 18-acre parcel of woods that Newtown bought the development rights to from the Fulton estate in 2009. That 18-acre property nearly bisects the property now owned by the Silvestros.
Part of the subdivision deal that was on the table until Thursday night was that the Silvestros would convey a thin connecting parcel of their property to Newtown, giving the town access to the 18 acres of open space from Platts Hill Road.
In the end, the town’s land use commission wanted
the Silvestros to pay for more infrastructure on the property, as its regulations require for a subdivision.
The Silvestros felt the extra money for driveways and fire suppression was unnecessary since they planned to continue owning the estate for their own use, Lynda Silvestro said.
For example, the family rejected one suggestion from the town to create a new driveway to the home from Orchard Hill Road, because the driveway would cross the turf airfield and void Flying Ridge’s permit with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The family was not about to do that on a property where the owner has been landing planes since the mid-1940s — a full decade before the FAA was created.
The family was not about to lose its distinction as Fairfield County’s only private airstrip, in spite of
the fact that Santo Silvestro no longer lands his plane there.
“You can land other planes there but not his — his is too fast,” Lynda Silvestro says. “He lands his helicopter there.”
Instead, Santo Silvestro flies in and out of Danbury Airport where he has two companies, including Business Aircraft Center.
On Friday, the family’s engineer said the Silvestros were only trying to follow the town’s guidance to bring the unpermitted homes into compliance.
“If we have to take the cottage down, we will,” said Steve Trinkaus the family’s Southbury-based engineer.
Lynda Silvestro agreed. “We’re going to go with the flow,” she said. “As the old saying goes, you can’t fight city hall.”