Having purchased the 11 Harding Rd property in January of 2003, Lynnette and I started thinking about a "home improvement" project sometime around the middle of 2005. Over some three month period we invited several builders to the house to give us suggestions on expanding/remodeling the existing structure. In each case, the advice was the same- "knock it down". Loathe as we were to join Greenwich's flock of upwardly mobile residents intent on knocking down perfectly good houses, we knew in the end that it was the most cost effective solution. We set out to interview and hire both an architect and a builder.
Sometime
in early 2006 Lynnette and I were visiting Lynnette's mother up in Stafford
Springs, CT and we passed a striking victorian house set up on a small hill just
beyond a pond (pictured right). On what we both would agree is a rare
occurrence, Lynnette and I expressed our mutual admiration for the house and
something was spoken to the effect of building a house like the one we had just
seen. Not having a camera with us at the time, we returned a few weeks later to
take this picture of the house at 227 East Street in Stafford, CT.
Around the same time, Lynnette and I were busy interviewing various architects and builders. I forget now who provided the reference, but we had the good fortune of hooking up with an architect by the name of Steven Odams and a builder named Bob Davis. As they had done several past projects together, they visited us as a team- but made it clear there was no requirement that we retain both their services. Lynnette, who has better instincts than me, liked them immediately. Not overly focused on their personalities, I liked the fact that they both had businesses outside of Greenwich borders- thus raising the possibility that I could avoid the premium I implicitly associate with Greenwich professionals. Steven Odams Architects, LLC operated out of Newtown, CT while RE Davis Construction LLC was out of Stamford, CT.
In May of 2006 we hired Steven Odams as our architect for the project. Steve and his wife Wendy, also a licensed architect and interior designer, run a small but thriving business from their home in Newtown, CT. We conveyed to Steve our desire to style our house after (without replicating), the one we had seen up in Stafford. Steve let us know that getting inside the house would make this task much easier as it would allow him to get a three-dimensional perspective on the house rather than just viewing it from a photograph. Somehow, Lynnette worked her magic and with a few phone calls and a few emails, she managed to contact Chris and Denise Woolfenden, the owners of 227 East Street and arrange for Steve, Wendy, their daughter and the two of us to visit their house and take some measurements. We learned that the house was called the Park House and was indeed of historical record. Just to put things in perspective, the Woolfendens, who are very gracious and hospitable people, were not altogether crazy about the idea of someone copying their beautiful, unique and historical home. Denise and Chris are retired and spend literally all of their free time working on the house- they take a lot of pride in their home and are an inspiration to every "do-it yourselfer" out there. But over the course of our visit, Steve made a several points that I think helped assuage their concerns 1) we were building a house that was considerably smaller than theirs (3500 vs 5500 sq ft) with considerable height restrictions. This meant altering many of the architectural features that simply would not be feasible with a smaller/lower house 2) the interior layout would be designed independently and therefore not resemble theirs and 3) with an 80 or so mile distance between us, there was little chance of anyone noticing and 4) No matter how hard we tried, there was no way we could replicate the charm of their original, 150 (or so) year old house. In the end, Chris and Denise were the most gracious of hosts, even providing us with some old architectural drawings that Steve reprinted and sent back to them. That year, they sent us an invitation to their Christmas party which we attended.
From the start, Steve was the consummate professional, completing every stage of the project on or before schedule, conducting an efficient bidding process among perspective builders and getting prints out to service providers (engineers, town hall, builders) whenever called upon. I'm sure we benefited from Wendy's design expertise for what they came up with was both creative, functional and handsome. This link shows the elevation from each side of the proposed house