The battle to save 'old Stamford'

As the city's leading preservationist for more than three decades, Kahn is a veteran of such proceedings. A former art history professor with rosy cheekbones and a wispy white mane, she sat alone, biding her time to make the case yet again for saving an old building.

But on that night, she would have to wait longer than usual. One by one, a string of advocates for the farmhouse went up to the podium and raised a host of well-thought-out arguments.

By the hearing's recess, Kahn looked unusually hopeful. Members of the Planning Board had leveled sharp criticism toward Golf Authority officials. The plan appeared headed for defeat.

There was also the strong showing of preservationists beside her.

"For the first time we have people in place," she reflected, afterwards. She added: "There's a strong movement behind me."

Few would question that the fight to preserve Stamford's past has been a mostly losing and lonely battle led by Kahn. Not long after arriving in Stamford in 1960, the New York City native made it her mission to impart developers and city officials with the neighborhood-friendly planning principles espoused by her idol, the social activist and urban renewal critic Jane Jacobs. In 1977, she formed the nonprofit, The Historic Neighborhood Preservation Program. Along the way, she has overseen restoration projects, gotten properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, curated exhibits on the city's history, and ushered in an important zoning regulation that offers developers an incentive to restore old buildings. By the city's land use bureau's estimates, the rule has led to the adaptive reuse of about 40 buildings.

But now, at 81, Kahn is looking to pass the torch, and she appears to have found a group of worthy successors.

They include a diverse team of preservationists who spoke at the hearing on Sterling Farms: Cynthia Reeder, who last year ran an unsuccessful campaign for the Board of Finance, and two members of the recently revived Old Long Ridge Historic District Commission, Marshall Millsap and William Bretschger.

Each comes with a distinguished resume. Reeder is a public relations consultant who has worked for major financial services companies, Millsap is a managing director at J.P. Morgan Chase, and Bretschger is a construction manager who has worked on several high-profile landmarks in New York City including Carnegie Hall and the Soho headquarters for Scholastic Inc.

According to Kahn, each of them brings important strengths to the cause. She described Reeder as "crack researcher" with "the energy of 10 people." Bretschger, she said, brings a resume of "major projects," while Millsap carries an air of credibility burnished by his profession. "There's a manner about an executive that makes him more than just some local person that's complaining," she said.

Prior to the hearing on Sterling Farms, the group spent an evening dividing up the talking points. "We wanted to make sure that we made our presentations and our arguments in a way that wasn't redundant," Reeder said.

It was decided that Reeder would speak to the legal issues. She had spent weeks digging up old city leases with the Golf Authority as well as zoning documents and a prior lawsuit. "I don't like to come out and speak on a topic if I haven't done my research," she explained. "I have to feel comfortable that I understand the issues and the impact."

Bretschger, who among them was the most emotional, nonetheless volunteered to stick to his specialty and dissect the cost feasibility of the Golf Authority's plan. "It was bad economics," he called it afterwards.

Millsap served to remind the Planning Board of the city's obligation to preservation, both under its master plan and designation last spring as certified local government.

Along with Kahn, the Old Long Ridge Historic Commission worked hard to get Stamford certified local government status, which is awarded jointly by the state and the National Park Service and allows cities and towns to be eligible for technical assistance and grants for historic preservation. There are a total of 45 municipalities in Connecticut considered CLGs. But Stamford, Millsap noted, was the only major city in Connecticut that up until recently was not a CLG.

Kahn, who because of a prior family commitment could not make the first night of the hearing, confined her remarks to the architecture of the farmhouse as well as its salvageable condition. As she has numerous times in the past, she sought to draw out the aesthetic importance of a building that most residents had driven past countless number of times.

It had become, she told the board, part of Stamford's "visual memory."

The hearing lasted two nights and involved more than five hours of testimony, most in protest of the demolition. Yet when planning board members laced into the Golf Authority's redevelopment plan, the group seemed pleasantly caught off-guard.

Early on, they had talked about setting up a "war fund" to sue the city. "I think everybody was prepared to do that," Bretschger said.

It would not come down to a vote by the Planning Board. A week later, Mayor Michael Pavia officially withdrew the request to demolish the farmhouse.

Pavia, who has worked on restoration as a developer, had been criticized for advancing the plan. Both Kahn and Reeder had sent requests to him asking him to kill the demolition request.

Pavia last week defended the move. "The best way to vet any kind of cost benefit was to put it in the public arena," he said. "Frankly, there are a number of alternatives that are out there that now will become more prominent in the discussion."

Pavia, who has worked with Kahn on restoration projects, considers himself a preservationist.

Praising the efforts of Kahn and others, he said he wanted to make preservation a larger component of the planning process.

He cited cities like San Francisco, where, "There is a full-grown effort to preserve older buildings as part of the identity of the city and town. With some encouragement we can accomplish the same thing."

But he then added a painful truth: "You just don't have the numbers of buildings that should be considered for preservation."

As city planners often point out, Stamford, unlike Bridgeport and New Haven, does not have the same plentiful landscape of quaint old buildings. According to Pavia, Stamford has often been a place where developers have looked to either establish or expand their portfolio.

As a result, most of the city's older buildings were razed during the 1970s, a period Pavia referred to as "The Great Stamford Land Rush."

"If there was only a way that we can import what we know now back to that era," he said. "You would have seen a little more creativity in terms of historic preservation."

Kahn is the first to admit to the paucity of buildings left to save in Stamford. With urban renewal, she witnessed "whole streets that were wiped out."

But that is not to say that there are no opportunities left, in places like the South End, where she urged for the restoration of the former Yale & Towne factory buildings, and in the downtown around Pleasant and Forest streets, where she has sought to preserve a cluster of Victorian homes characterized by turrets and fish-scale shingles.

The roughly $20 million restoration of Old Town Hall, although controversial, has also won praise. On Wednesday, Kahn along with other city officials will attend a ceremony in Hartford during which Stamford will receive a restoration award from the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation.

Reeder has argued that the city needs to be more proactive about preservation. One of the ways, she suggested, was by maintaining an inventory of historic buildings. In the past, Kahn has worked on such a list.

"It serves many purposes but one of the primary ones is that it provides a way for a municipality to identify the historic assets that are worth preserving," she said.

Meanwhile, Millsap and Bretschger, through their participation in the Old Long Ridge Historic Commission, have focused efforts on a district in North Stamford that is on the National Register of Historic Places. The houses in the district, which was recently expanded, include examples of Colonial, Colonial Revival as well as the earliest known example of the Arts and Crafts style. The group is now seeking to have the district recognized at a local level, which would give them significantly more say over the renovation of homes there.

Going forward, Millsap said that he would prefer to focus on raising awareness and "to do something positive rather than reactive." Among the ideas being floated is for a historic trail through Stamford that would start in Bedford, N.Y.

Yet there are concerns about the commission's future. Millsap is serving on a term that expired in December. Another prospective member has had her nomination pending for more than year. "We have commissioners or potential commissioners feeling that the town does not want them per se," Bretschger complained.

Pavia said he thought he had forwarded Millsap's reappointment to be vetted by the local parties, but could not remember for certain about the other candidate. Either way, he said he had no objection to installing the members.

About a week after the victory at Sterling Farms, Kahn was in good spirits at her house that sits right above the Merritt Parkway and where she has lived for 45 years. Her husband, a psychologist, died five years ago. She has three children and several grandchildren.

On that afternoon, she talked over the strains of classical music, against a backdrop of an oversized satirical series she once did on developers who she came across at zoning board meetings. She portrayed them as gangsters, dressed in camel coats and accompanied by rouge-faced mistresses.

After decades of crusading for old buildings in Stamford, there are still surprises to be had, even for Kahn. She spoke of discovering through her research how "gorgeous" the farmhouse really was.

Ironically, as part of her efforts to educate the public, she said, "I began to see the building more clearly."

elizabeth.kim@scni.com; 203-964-2265; http://twitter.com/lizkimtweets.