Innisfree, the West Mountain estate that has views extending to the Hudson River Valley, and a 10-bedroom brick manor house. Photos by (clockwise from top left) Greenwich Aviation, Alan Goldfinger, David Everson, Alan Goldfinger, Alan Goldfinger.
Innisfree, an 1895 Georgian Revival mansion described as “one of Ridgefield’s major architectural treasures” in the town’s survey of significant buildings, appears to be slated for demolition.
The brick mansion, a centerpiece of an 88-acre property that is one of the last of Ridgefield’s grand old estates, is reportedly in disrepair and unsafe. The 25,000-square-foot structure is to be replaced with a new house of similar size in the same location on the property.
“It’s so sad to see another one of Ridgefield’s beautiful buildings come down,” said Kay Ables, town historian, after the building’s fate was discussed at a recent meeting of the Ridgefield Historical Society.
The estate, said to have been named after the William Butler Yeats poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree, has views from West Mountain into New York state’s Hudson Valley, and was sold for $8.2 million at the end of 2012. In addition to the mansion house, the property at 153 West Mountain Road included a pool, tennis court, and numerous outbuildings — barns, kennels, a chauffeur’s house, a cottage, garages, a greenhouse, a gatehouse.
The buyer back in 2012 was a limited liability corporation that listed as its principal another corporate entity, Ridgefield CT LLC, care of a New Haven law office, Withers Bergman.
The town building department said this week that a demolition permit had not yet been issued or requested for the property.
Plans to take the building down — and the need for the demolition — were described by architect John Doyle last fall at an Oct. 6 Zoning Board of Appeals hearing, where he sought and obtained a variance needed to proceed with the work. The variance was required only because the estate is a legal non-conforming property with four structures on one big lot.
Minutes of the Oct. 6, 2014, meeting say, in part:
“Mr. Doyle explained that the property consisted of over 89 acres and had four legally nonconforming dwellings. The board had granted a variance in 2013 to reconstruct the chauffeur’s cottage on the property, and that work had been completed.
“The new owners had also restored many parts of the grounds and now were turning their attention to the main house (manor house).
“They had looked at restoring or renovating the house but it had a multitude of problems, delineated by Mr. Doyle in a letter to the board, including many hazardous materials, no insulation, brick facing attached to a wood frame, and a foundation that was falling apart.
“Thus they had decided it would be better to demolish the existing house and build a new one. The new house would be a similar size, approximately 25,000 square feet, and in a similar location. There would be selective demolition of the interior as the owners wished to preserve some of the rooms.”
In the letter he wrote to the board, Mr. Doyle said, “The legally non-conforming main house was apparently constructed in the mid-1800’s with major renovations performed between 1938-1940. …
“Our firm and consulting engineers have been retained to evaluate all aspects of the structure. It is clear that the existing building has fallen into disrepair creating unsafe conditions, many of which do not meet current building, health or fire codes.
“Major renovations from 1938-1940 resulted in substantial undermining in the soundness of the structure. In addition the house as constructed/renovated used a substantial amount of hazardous materials including the presence of extensive asbestos and lead, foundation failure, roof structural damage, exposed and unsheathed electrical wiring, no exterior wall insulation, exterior brick veneer failure and site drainage infrastructure failure.”
Mr. Doyle told the appeals board that the owner strongly wished to keep the 88-acre estate property intact, but that at one point in the past previous owners had proposed a 30-lot subdivision for the property.
No public comment was offered for or against the petition at the hearing, and the variance was unanimously granted.
A listing from the David Everson Group at William Raveis Real Estate, before the 2012 sale, described the property vividly:
“The main house with 10 bedrooms, nine baths is of grand detail and scale. First floor features: grand staircase with sweeping curve; double-tier crystal chandelier; wideboard floors; front-to-back gallery; French doors.
“The master bedroom suite” on the second floor has “two offices, two baths with dressing rooms” and the bedroom “has a marble fireplace flanked by French doors leading to a terraced balcony with views of pool, lawn and Lake Waccabuc. There is also a private hallway and sitting area offering a secret view of incoming visitors.”
Another feature of the house is a secret stairway connecting the third floor to the wine cellar.
Although the real estate listing dated the 10-bedroom brick Georgian mansion to 1939, and Mr. Doyle spoke of the mid-1800s, the Ridgefield Inventory of Historic and Architectural Resources says the main house was built in 1895, with a note adding that “the building was vacant a number of years. A major restoration-cum renovation occurred in 1939.”
Local historian Jack Sanders said the property was owned by a prominent New York city physician, Dr. Bache McEvers Emmett, in 1912 — suggesting that he may have been the person who had it built in the later 1800s.
A nine-page illustrated entry in the town’s architectural resources inventory was written by the late Madeline Corbin, who documented many of the town’s significant properties for the survey originally undertaken by the Ridgefield Preservation Trust.
“This is the earliest Georgian Revival in town,” she wrote. “Its plan, with the east wing angled wide, is a McKim Mead White feature. …
“The entire property retains its integrity and must be considered one of Ridgefield’s major architectural treasures.”