Historic District Commission Gets Modern

Fairfield's Historic District Commission recently approved revisions to its handbook to make note of Cape Cod and modern houses in the town's Southport neighborhood.

One revision deleted the characterization of Southport's 20th-century homes as "not as significant as the district's nineteenth-century stock," while another revision included and classified as significant examples of homes built in the modern and Cape-Cod style.

"Relatively rare in the district but equally important are examples of the two new kinds of residential housing stock added to the area of the Southport Historic District in the early and mid-twentieth century - the Cape Cod and Modern styles," an addition to the handbook says. "Both styles are present in the Southport Historic District, though there are very few examples of either."

The handbook addition makes note of Cape Cod houses at 179 Main St. and 45 Church Street, saying they "anticipated the popular adaptation of the style in other parts of Fairfield as part of the post-World War II housing boom" and says the house at 179 Main St. "is especially important since it was built in 1928, making it the only pre-war Cape Cod house in the Southport Historic District, and a prototype in Fairfield for this very important architectural stylistic development that reflected the changing socio-economic conditions in Fairfield and the country at large in the aftermath of the war."

The addition says a house at 260 Harbor Road is also a good example of the Cape Cod style in Southport, though it was built in 1954.

Cape Cod houses are rare in the town's historic districts; the Greenfield Hill historic district doesn't have any, while the Old Post Road historic district only has one, which was built in the 1950s, according to the handbook's addition.

A house at 575 Harbor Road is described in another handbook addition as the "most prominent example of the Modern style in the Southport Historic District" and, having been built in 1966, the first modern house in the district, according to the handbook's addition.

"With Cape Cod and Modern style houses being so infrequently found in the town's historic districts, the early examples in Southport underscore the rich variety of architectural styles represented in the Southport Historic District," an addition to the handbook says.

The town's Historic District Commission also makes note of the Southport Railroad Station and homes on Spruce Street, all of which were recently added to the Southport Historic District.

The earliest homes on Spruce Street are built in the Italianate style and "feature the genre's classic cube form elaborated with paried arched windows, bracketed eaves and window cornices, and fully detailed cupola top," while a house at 44 Spruce St. "is an exceptional example of the Gothic Revival style," according to an addition to the handbook.

Another handbook addition cites a house at 80 Spruce St. as being remodeled extensively in 1894 to introduce the Queen Anne style of architecture to the street.

Some of the last homes built in the area, at 83, 101 and 115 Spruce St., were all built just after World War II and "contribute greatly to the rhythm of the streetscape" and "reflect what is now a genuinely historic style of modest housing common for those returning from war and starting life anew," a handbook addition says.