FAIRFIELD — Ellen Leeds Sturges had been getting the phone calls, and hearing the helicopters and planes flying overhead, surveying the 5.5 acres her family homestead occupies on Warner Hill Road. They wanted it — bad.
But Sturges, who grew up in the house known as “Restmore” was not about to turn it over to developers. “Over my dead body,” she said Monday at a small celebration marking the home’s inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places by the National Parks Service.
It could easily, a visitor pointed out, be subdivided and at least two “McMansions” built it its place. “Not anytime soon, though,” Todd Bryant, the researcher who wrote the application for the home, said. Restmore, which took two years to build, was the home of Dr. Ira DeVer Warner Sr., head of what was later known as Warnaco. He only lived one year in the house though, before dropping dead of a heart attack in 1913, according to DeVer G. Warner.
Ellen Sturges’ parents, Fuller and Muriel Leeds, bought the Cape Dutch Revival house in 1948 from the Dartis Corporation, which was formed by Dr. Warner’s son in order to subdivide the estate after his mother’s death.. The Leeds moved in in January, she said, in the midst of a blizzard. They parked on the street and skiied in, she said. Twenty-two years ago, after both her parents had died, she inherited the house, and it has always been a dream of hers to save and restore it. “Besides being the house in which I spent most of my childhood, its distinctive architecture and prominent grounds make it an historic property to conserve and treasure,” she said.” It was a lot of really good, old-fashioned research that did it,” her husband, David Sturges, said after getting the plaque for the house from First Selectman Kenneth Flatto after a three-year approval process. The home’s selection provides the owners with certain eligible federal tax provisions and allows federal tax deductions for charitable contributions to conservation efforts. It also means Restmore is qualified for federal grants, though right now, such funding is not available.”
I have been able to take only the first steps toward Restmore’s preservation and it is now very much a project in progress with the outcome still to be determined,” Ellen Sturges said, but that first step provides added protection. She said she’s confident that together with the town and other preservation-minded people, they will succeed. “My family and the Warners have been its stewards for a total of 100 years,” she said, “and we owe no less than our best effort for their memory.”
The home, with its 11 rooms, was once the main house of a 200-acre estate which included a working dairy farm. The dairy farm, however, didn’t last very long when after about a year, the entire herd died. Based upon Groote Shuur, the former residence of Cecil Rhodes in Capetown, South Africa, the design is a “rare, mostly intact, example of a locally unusual architectural style,” according to the NPS application.
It was to be Dr. Warner’s country house, and he and his wife were very active in the business and social life of Bridgeport, where they also owned a mansion. In his capacity as president of both the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company and the Bridgeport Gas Company, he had water and gas mains extended to service the new home.” This really is a great tribute to the community,” Flatto said, of the national register designation.”I hope it will be a model for other people in the community. Flatto said he believes there are at least three other buildings in town that are on the register.