Blue Mercury 2 cosmetics has opened at Westport’s 57 Main St., an expansion of its original store across the street at 62 Main St. The location was formerly occupied by Douglas Cosmetics. An employee at the newest location said that the two stores differ in that each sells separate brands “although some brands exist in both shops.” (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

By James Lomuscio

When Sheldon Stein bought The Westport Inn three years ago this month, he planned a total redevelopment, one that would involve knocking down the front building facing Post Road East and replacing it with an elegant boutique-styled inn designed by Westport architect Peter Cadoux.
Sheldon Stein’s plans include a ballroom for 250 people. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) James Lomuscio for WestportNow.com

Two-and-a-half years later, Stein, managing principal of New York City-based Ranger Properties, got all the Planning and Zoning Commission approvals required.

There was just one problem—the economy had gone into a tailspin.

“Our intention is still to go ahead with it, just not immediately,” he said Wednesday as he walked between the two buildings, the one constructed in 1965 near Post Road East and the one behind it built in 1985.

Connecticut employers will benefit from a new financing partnership with the Ex-Im Bank of the United States that will help them strengthen and grow their export business, according to former Westport First Selectman Diane Farrell, a member of Ex-Im’s board.
Diane Farrell: partnership will create Connecticut jobs. Contributed photo

The Connecticut Development Authority (CDA), the state’s quasi-public business financing arm, will now be able to provide international trade financing to small businesses thanks to the partnership, an announcement said.

“This City-State Partnership –  Ex-Im Bank’s first in Connecticut – will give us the opportunity to provide many more Connecticut small businesses with the competitive financing tools they need to successfully compete in the global marketplace, and create Connecticut jobs,” Farrell said in a statement.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell said the partnership fills a financing need of Connecticut small exporters.

The controlling shareholder of financial publisher Value Line Inc., former CEO Jean Bernhard Buttner of Westport, is making a grab for about half of her company’s remaining cash, Crain’s New York Business reported today.

It said the publisher of the Value Line Investment Survey said late Friday it would pay shareholders a special dividend of $2 a share on Nov. 12 instead of its regular quarterly dividend of 20 cents per share.

The special dividend amounts to $20 million or almost half of the company’s $43 million in cash on hand, Crain’s said on its website. About $17.3 million of this dividend will go to Buttner, who controls 86.5 percent of Value Line’s stock, it said.

Buttner, 75, stepped aside last year at the company started by her father in 1931 after the SEC barred her from the brokerage business.

Westporter Tina Gaudoin, editor in chief of The Wall Street Journal’s glossy luxury magazine WSJ, signed off in the issue out today and said she is heading back to her native England.
Tina Gaudoin: sold Westport home in June. File photo

Gaudoin, who sold her Edgewater Hillside house in June for $325,000 less than she paid for it almost three years ago, has been editor of the magazine since its launch in September 2008. (See WestportNow Jan. 28, 2008)

“This has truly been – to use an Americanism – a growth experience, in the best possible way,” she wrote in today’s editor’s letter.

Gaudoin, who announced her resignation in June “for personal reasons,” told readers she will move to a “new berth” with The Wall Street Journal in London this month. She told WWD in June her husband had remained in London and “it was just not sustainable.”

Westport’s unemployment rate in September was 6.1 percent, unchanged from August, the Connecticut Department of Labor said today.

The highest rate this year was in January when it was 6.6 percent. The department said the number of unemployed in September was 773, down 16 from 789 in August.

The Department of Labor said the September labor force in Westport numbered 12,774 persons with 12,001 employed.

The Westport labor force number dropped by 201 persons in September from August, the department said, with 185 fewer persons employed in September compared to August.

Cucina Modo Mio, 5 Bridge Square in Westport’s Saugatuck area, has closed. The sign on the door of the 14-table italian restaurant (whose name translates as “Kitchen My Way”) reads, “Restaurant is closed.  Thank you for your patronage!” Cucina Modo Mio was the creation of Felton Weller, who has been a restaurateur in the area for many years and who owns Felton’s Fish Market in the same complex. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com