The Times Weighs in on Easton

In case you missed it, here's the Times write-up of our town a week or so ago. Nice job by the writer, C.J.Hughes.




Living In | Easton, Conn.
Town at One With Country
Wendy Carlson for The New York Times

TRANQUILLITY This 18th-century home on Adams Road is set back from the road, like many Easton historic buildings.
*
By C. J. HUGHES
Published: November 11, 2007

A RURAL, landlocked town in north-central Fairfield County, Easton has well-kept antique homes, high-performing schools and areas with close-knit neighbors.

More often, though, its residents define themselves by what they don’t have.

For instance, they don’t have the types of developments that sprang up in the 1990s next door in Weston, which the 2000 census found to have 169 homes per square mile. Easton, population about 7,000, had 92 homes per mile in that census. Since then, 437 have been added, according to the town clerk’s office; the average is now 107.

Also, density isn’t expected to skyrocket anytime soon. Almost 40 percent of the town’s 28.6 square miles is protected open space, and another 44 percent is watershed land, which has development restrictions.

What Easton also isn’t, residents say, is Fairfield, which has streetlights, highways, strip malls and car-packed business districts. Indeed, Easton’s zoning code, unchanged in 66 years, bans commerce altogether, save for the random cafe or gas station whose lot predates World War II.

Together, these factors result in a community that is strikingly rural, where working farms coexist with suburban tracts, and where quiet is prized.

“After 10 o’clock at night, the cars kind of stop, and you hear nothing but crickets,” said Scott Spurr, a resident. “And because there’s not so much ambient light, you feel like you are out in the country, even though you’re like 50 miles from New York.”

Ranking Easton comes easily to Mr. Spurr, who has lived in Newtown, Westport and, most recently, Fairfield, where he owned a three-bedroom colonial. It had 1,450 square feet and a one-third-acre lot, but with the family growing it felt cramped. Also, he said, it was on a noisy street near Fairfield’s downtown.

A brief search led him across the border to Easton, where he bought a 1932 colonial with three bedrooms, two baths and 2,400 square feet of space. Though the lot is only half an acre, it feels much larger, because the lot next door is empty, said Mr. Spurr, who works for a financial services company.

The house, which he shares with his wife, Liz, and a son and daughter, cost $525,000 in 2004, but the couple invested $50,000 to replace the vinyl siding with cedar, remove old wallpaper and repair the garage doors. The house could sell today for $700,000, Mr. Spurr said, basing his estimate on recent sales nearby.

“I’m not against all development,” he said, “just want to keep the rural character. I’m glad the farmers here resist selling out.”

What You’ll Find

In recent years, however, some properties have changed hands, like Running Brook Farm, a 28-acre patchwork of fields about half a mile north of the Merritt Parkway.

But the zoning board has been resistant, too. Two developers who first offered plans for the farm site, Toll Brothers and AvalonBay Communities, were rejected over concerns about density.

Then, last year, after a local developer, Philip DiGennaro, bought Running Brook from its original owners, the board rejected his proposal as well. He wants to build 72 two-bedroom condominiums on the site, with about a third of them designated as affordable.

Board officials based their rejection on concerns that wastewater could harm the trout in the Mill River, which abuts the property, according to Robert Maquat, the zoning chairman. The developer has appealed, and is taking his case to court next spring, said Matthew Ranelli, his lawyer.

Not that Easton’s agricultural heritage seems threatened. On a recent afternoon, a blue tractor rumbled down Center Road, while across Sport Hill Road, children strolled away from Silverman’s Farm cradling pumpkins. To pick up organic beets from an unsupervised roadside cart, buyers were trusted to put $1 in a metal box.

Farmhouses, too, are numerous, especially 18th- and 19th-century center-chimney colonials, accented by low stone perimeter walls, peak-roofed wells, and a red barn or two. Unlike homes in nearby historic towns, most of these sit a comfortable distance from the curb, whether along Church, Adams or Judd Roads.
age 2 of 2)

Cul-de-sacs that radiate off these streets are laid out with homes built over the last decade, as evidenced by three-car garages, hipped roofs and Palladian-style front windows. The newer houses also often have eye-catching views — for instance, the homes at the end of North Park Avenue overlook Easton Reservoir, one of three sizable reservoirs in town.


People seeking a more close-together community head to Easton’s southern section, south of Beers and Flat Rock Roads, where Capes, split-levels and ranches line neat lawns. Here, extended families can be found settled a short drive apart.

Joan Winter, a freelance writer, lives in a 1950s house with four bedrooms, three bathrooms and 3,000 square feet, on just under an acre. In 1996, the property cost $275,000, but Ms. Winter and her husband, Alpheus, spent $200,000 on an addition, a new roof, an oil tank replacement and a driveway.

Today, the house, which the couple share with their two daughters, could sell for $600,000, Ms. Winter said, based on the fact that “neighbors tell me they will buy it for that much.”

But she wouldn’t sell, because it’s such an ideal place to raise a family, she said. “You have neighbors, so you don’t have to import your kids’ friends.”

What You’ll Pay

The average sales price in Easton from January through October was $856,000, said Jonathan Deak, an associate with Prudential Connecticut Realty, who cited data from the Consolidated Multiple Listings Service. This will buy a four-bedroom colonial built in the 20th century, with three and a half baths and about 3,200 square feet.

Despite nationwide slowdowns, prices in Easton are holding their own; 2006’s average sales price was $834,000, Mr. Deak said. Activity has also been strong, with 72 transactions this year through the end of October, matching that of all of last year. And homes are selling slightly faster, with an average time on the market of 101 days, versus 105 in 2006, he said.

With such high price points, Easton doesn’t offer many starter homes; buyers tend to be trading up from earlier properties, according to brokers. They also tend to work in New Haven or Danbury, though there are New York commuters drawn to houses about 30 percent cheaper in Easton than in lower Fairfield County, they say.

Indeed, a 5,000-square-foot house in New Canaan can cost $3.5 million, Mr. Deak pointed out, while a similar-size one in Easton might go for $1.3 million.

Taxes, though, are slightly higher. Easton’s mill rate, the basis for calculating taxes, is now 21, versus 17.1 for Fairfield. The annual tax bill on a 3,000-square-foot Easton house would most likely be $8,000, while a similar one in Fairfield might be $7,000, brokers said.

The Schools

In 2005, students at the Samuel Staples Elementary School began the year in a new 121,000-square-foot structure with a gambrel roof, rising from the middle of a former corn field.

Last year on the Connecticut Mastery Test, 91 percent of fourth-graders met or exceeded standards on the math exam; 84 percent did so in reading and 81 percent in writing. Statewide, those numbers were 62, 57 and 65 percent.

Grades 6, 7 and 8 are taught at Helen Keller Middle School. (Keller used to live at the house at 163 Redding Road.) Enrollment is 377 this year.

Joel Barlow High School, which serves Redding and Easton, offers 14 Advanced Placement classes, including studio arts, statistics and biology. Ninety-seven percent of graduates go on to college, according to Allen Fossbender, Easton’s school superintendent. On the SAT last year, Barlow students scored an average of 558 on math, 557 on reading and 561 on writing, versus 512, 510 and 511 statewide.

What to Do

Easton is laced with walking trails, many on the 1,017 acres of the Aspetuck Land Trust, which includes Trout Brook Valley. Or you can always drive to the Aspetuck Reservoir by way of a turnoff along the Black Rock Turnpike, to behold a body of water glittering like a jewel in a thickly wooded valley.

Still, Easton residents pay a price for their wilderness: the closest supermarket to southern Easton, Shaw’s, is a 10-minute drive away in Fairfield.

Nights out, too, require trips down the road. One option in Fairfield is Barcelona, a Spanish restaurant located in the Merritt Parkway Motor Inn, also known as the Hi-Ho Motel. It is open year-round, but its heated outdoor terrace stays open late into the fall.

The Commute

Easton does not have a Metro-North Railroad stop. For many residents, the closest one is Fairfield’s, on the New Haven line. Permit parking, which is open to non-Fairfield residents and costs $170 for a six-month pass, is difficult to come by; the waiting list for a spot was 3,377 names long on Oct. 16, said Cindy Placko, manager of the Fairfield Parking Authority.

On weekdays, five trains leave Fairfield between 7 and 8 a.m., with the fastest arriving at Grand Central in 71 minutes. A monthly pass is $308, slightly less if bought online.

There are plans for an additional Fairfield station, to be built closer to Easton by late 2009, Ms. Placko said.

The History

At dawn on Dec. 14, 1807, a fireball tore through the skies over Easton (which was then part of Weston), followed by three explosions. It was North America’s first recorded meteorite strike, according to Benjamin Silliman, a Yale professor who studied the event.

But he had a tough time finding pieces. Residents thinking they contained gold had subjected them to “all the tortures of ancient alchemy,” he told a local paper in 1807.
* 1
* 2