Houses from the 1950s could be new historic district in Westport
WESTPORT — The Flower Estates at Westport might become a new historic district.
Currently, only five houses on Sniffen Road are applying for the historic district designation. However, according to documents from the applicant, the goal is to include multiple properties on Sniffen Road, Loren Lane, Calumet Lane and Fillow Street.
Historic District Commission Chair Grayson Braun said the process to establish this as a historic district could take six months to a year. Twothirds of the property owners would have to vote in favor of being in the district, as well.
“It’s a really interesting piece of history about a part of Westport that I think doesn’t get enough credit,” Braun said.
Resident Amy Zipkin, who presented the nomination to the HDC this week, said there was a possibility of making the area into a village district, but to do so would require a shopping mall. The small shopping mall at the intersection of Main and Canal streets was too far though and so the neighborhood did not qualify since there wasn’t a way to connect it to the already established village district, according to the Planning and Zoning Department.
According to documents from the applicant, the more than 80 homes in this area were built in the mid 1950s by Ryder, Struppmann and Neumann, on top of the former Fillow Flower Company, called the Flower Estates at Westport. At the time, those homes cost, $20,950, or about $232,000 in today’s terms.
It says there were two styles of houses available: The Caddy, which was a three-bedroom model and the four-bedroom New Englander model, which was similar to a colonial or farmhouse.
The documents state that the Fillow Flower Company had been a historic landmark in Westport since before World War II, and the Fillow family had lived in Westport since before the Revolutionary War. Stanley Banks Fillow and his brother-in-law Joseph H. Sniffen were the co-owners of this greenhouse and nursery, and received one of the first patents for a giant pansy flower in 1935.
They remained in Westport until 1953, when Fillow died, Zipkin said.
“They have really, in all aspects, created a close-knit community that has endured here for more than 70 years, and quite frankly, is unlike anything in Westport,” she said. “The small houses on small lots with a modest environmental impact contributed to the social and economic diversity of the town that, perhaps, made Westport a more vibrant community than it might have been otherwise.”
Now, almost 70 years later, some residents of this area are requesting a study from the commission for
the Flower Estates at Westport. The document says their objective is to have the homes added to the Historic Resource Inventory and eventually designated a historic district.
Zipkin said the style of the houses in this area had an “impact in the post WWII period, when Westport evolved from rural, agriculture community to modern, commuter suburbs.”
One of the properties in
that area is being considered for demolition and a new build, though it is under a 180-day delay period until May.
If the houses are given a historic designation, the HDC has purview over design changes to the houses. However, it may not include the property already considered for demolition, due to the timing, Braun said.