By Dave Matlow
Two Westport families which joined together to purchase a neighboring property watched today as the house at 18 Sue Terrace off Crescent Road was demolished.
The house at 18 Sue Terrace in Westport came down today. Featured as the WestportNow Teardown of the Day on June 14, 2006, it sold in May 2006 for $432,000 to two neighboring familes. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
Other neighbors joined the families of the property’s new owners, Ed Moeller and Andy Tsilfides, to observe and celebrate the demolition of the 2,246-square-foot corner house built on .40 acre in 1954.
The owners said the purchase was made to allow them and not someone else to determine what is to be built in their neighborhood.
“Andy and I purchased this run-down property with the intention of building a house on it that will help to beautify the street and our neighborhood,” said Moeller.
The Moeller and Tsilfides families have much in common. Neither family has moved since purchasing their homes on Sue Terrace 18 years ago.
The Moellers live at No. 20 and the Tsilfideses live at No. 22. Neither family had any children at the time but each now has three children who attend Westport schools.
“This is a wonderful neighborhood for kids,” Moeller said.
He said he and Tslifdes are planning to build a 3,100-square-foot house at No. 18 that will be desirable and affordable for a young couple with children. 
Neighbors joined the new owners of 18 Sue Terrance to watch its demolition today. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
Moeller said that both families would like to keep the neighborhood alive with children.
Construction of the new barn-style house will start soon as part of the plan to enable the prospective purchasers to enroll their children in the local schools for September, he said.
According to Moeller, their neighbors applaud what they are doing and supported them by attending many of the town regulatory meetings that were required for the demolition approval process.
The proximity of this property to a nearby stream required approvals by several town bodies.
This house was the WestportNow Teardown of the Day on June 14, 2006. The property changed hands in May 2006 at $432,000.
Congratulations to each of these families for having the forethought and community spirit to do this. Great news for their neighborhood that these families will help keep it so. It is also fortunate that the two families had the wherewithal to accomplish this costly way of dealing with “rampant development”. I, for one, am hoping that new P & Z regulations, of some sort, will stave off mansion-size homes on relative postage size properties. While selling an existing house to a devloper for a tear-down price may be great for the people moving elsewhere, those remaining in the neighborhood will be living with whatever the builders put up there.
“While selling an existing house to a devloper for a tear-down price may be great for the people moving elsewhere, those remaining in the neighborhood will be living with whatever the builders put up there.”
It’s called freedom, and if you want to leave in a homogenous, every-house-the-same town (just like the neighbors’ houses, as you seem to wish) then I would direct you to the oh-so-lovely sprawling subdivision towns where you have two housing styles to choose from in three colors, and deed covenants forbid you to do anything else.
And THAT, Ms. Ruggerio, ain’t Westport. We have colonials, we have capes, we have contempories, we have victorians, we have federals, we have ranches, we have raised ranches – all in various sizes, perhaps getting larger (the av. house size has gone up nationwide for the past 20 years, it isn’t a Westport phenomenom) And if I should buy the lot next to you with my hard-earned money, I am free to build the style house and size house I want and can afford, subject to lot coverage restrictions and building height restrictions already in place in our very detailed zoning regs, which do vary by Zone (and thus lot size.)
I am so glad we agree that having the freedom of differences is very important. I am just waiting for a developer to build that next cape on spec!
Westport is a town composed of folks with different views and outlooks – and I , too would like to keep it thaty way. So let’s hold on to some of those Victorians and ranches and capes before they are all torn down.
I would welcome you as a neighbor, if you do take your hardearned money and build a house for you and your family. Just like my neighbors and I did.
Architecture hath three conditions: Commodity, Firmness and Delight. So said Sir Henry Wotton a couple hundred years ago. Why does everybody today think that the main problem is with commodity? Why is nobody speaking of the lack of Delight that today’s faux “style” houses evoke. There has not been a decent piece of architecture erected in this town, large or small, (with a few precious exceptions) since the 20’s. And why is it that these older homes are presumed irreplaceable? They are only irreplaceable if people keep buying the contractor/developer dreck that so lack anything resembling charm. Beautiful architecture is definitely replaceable—competent classicists abound—if we are just not so lazy as to look for it from the same guy who’s swinging the hammer.
Bravo! Sorry that Mary has to be the lone person to speak for so many of us, but the people who want variety in this town are not wanting every house to look the same. But once we lose the Victorians, the capes, the farmhouses, they can NEVER be replaced! Let’s have some balance in Westport, something that has made it charming since we arrived in 1946, when there were tiny houses, very stark & modern homes, Tudors, farmhouses, but many built on the ends of lanes so that one didn’t see HUGE staring them in the face when they drove down each main road. There were huge houses, but they had a lot of land around them. And teeny houses were allowed to coexist with large homes, and there were really close friends from both in a neighborhood.
It can be done, so let’s aim for a town that cooperates like these families did.