The Labs of Ward Acres Farm LLC. The breeding business is now in Austin, Tex.
The sale of a storied Ridgefield property was recorded in Town Clerk Barbara Serfilippi’s office.
The property, 79 Peaceable Street, was the site of the town’s first golf course, an estate of a famed portrait artist, a farm where champion horses were raised, and most recently, the home of a breeder of Labrador retrievers.
It changed hands, from Linda Swainson to “79 Peaceable Street LLC,” for $4,975,000 on Monday, Feb. 1.
The Swainsons, who bought the property about 10 years ago, moved from town to Austin, Texas. “Jobs and our lives” have taken us out of state, Linda Swainson told The Press.
At 79 Peaceable, they updated the property and established a Lab breeding business there, calling it Ward Acres Farm LLC after the name of the property when they purchased it. The Swainsons also raised horses on the farm for their daughter to ride.
Swainson told The Press they “loved living in a place with such a rich history so closely connected to the town.”
The property does have a rich history.
It was once part of the Ridgefield Golf Club, a 65-acre course built in 1894. The course closed in 1932 when the 18-hole Silver Spring Country Club course opened. The nine-hole course was one of the first two in Fairfield County and predated by two years the Shinnecock course at Southampton, Long Island, the first course of any note in the United States.
Most of the golf course property later became the home of the portrait painter C. Chandler Ross, who painted portraits of leading businessmen and was also commissioned to paint a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Chandler moved from town some 10 years before his death in 1952, having sold the property to Lyle B. Torrey. Torrey was active in town.
In 1957, philanthropist Jack B. Ward bought the property, named it Ward Acres Farm, and raised horses — hunters and hackneys. Up to 45 horses were stabled at Ward Acres in its heyday, and many were prize-winners — one sold for $4.5 million. Ward was a philanthropist who gave to many Ridgefield institutions over the years. He was particularly generous to health agencies, donating an intensive care unit and a cobalt unit to Danbury Hospital.
Over time, Ward subdivided the property. In the 1980s and 1990s, some of the 50-plus acres was subdivided and is today house lots.
Swainson continues to use the Ward Acres name for her dog breeding business though it has moved to Texas.
“In our 11-year custodianship of Ward Acres we renovated and restored it so that it did, I think, maintain its charm but live like a modern home needs to do these days.”
“I hope that Jack Ward, wherever he rests now, looks down and approves,” she said.
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