Recasting Westport Inn as a Boutique Hotel

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.

His new tack in the face of a stormy economy—a more modest $2.5 million revamp scheduled to be completed in April. It includes renovating the inn’s 115 rooms, putting in a restaurant, creating a ballroom for 250 people and making major landscaping improvements.

He says he will even give up 17 parking spaces in the front for plantings and eliminate some vertical parking to dispel any semblance to a motel.

“It’s going to be a tremendous change,” Stein said.

Why such and investment, especially for the original building if his ultimate plan is to knock it down?

“When the world is upside down, you have to do what you have to do,” he said.

For example, he said, many newcomers do not realize that the inn’s reception area is in the new building. As a result, he said, “We get more than 100 people a week” who instinctively come to the front building when they want to register.

Stein’s solution is to move the reception area to the front. Directly behind it in the same building will be a full service restaurant managed by Ranger Properties. Next to it will conference room in an area now used to serve breakfast.

The rear building will undergo major transformations, too, he said. In addition to moving the reception area, rooms are being remodeled with new furniture and furnishings.

Stein showed one currently under renovation. New wallboard, still unpainted, framed the bedroom. Windows had been moved, a new one over an area designated as a coffee station. The bathroom boasted a marble counter top and a newly tiled shower.

The rear building’s rooms, which currently overlook the pool, will also garner more privacy, facing a hallway instead of an open area, he said.

The privacy will be needed as the pool area, scheduled to be relocated to the basement, transforms into a grand ballroom for weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs.

“I always liked Westport, and I think this is a fabulous opportunity, and that the hotel will do amazingly well when it’s done,” Stein said.

“We’re really going to reinvent this place as a boutique hotel with a higher level of customized service.