A Woodbridge-based developer plans to build homes designed with the future in mind on a property associated with Derby’s historical past.
The property is the site of the Yudkin/Singer mansion at the corner of Sodom Lane and David Humphreys Road, an elegant stone structure that is a link to the “Roaring Twenties.”
Developer Mark Nuzzolo said he plans to build an eight-unit subdivision that will surround the stately home from a bygone day with seven new single-family residences employing 21st century energy efficiency technology.
While the new homes will look forward into the future, the site plan will attempt to save as much of the past as possible.
Nuzzolo said old stone walls will be repaired and, in some cases, relocated to preserve the historic character of the property, and the landscaping plan will rip out invasive plants and replaced them with native species.
As for the mansion, Nuzzolo hasn’t decided what to do. The structure needs so much work, he said, that the land beneath it is worth more than the house is.
Ideally, he might find a buyer with the resources and inclination to restore the house, he said.
Otherwise, he must make some tough choices about how much to modernize.
But either way, Nuzzolo is committed to keeping it rather than tearing it down.
Article continues after photo of the mansion itself, from the website of Nuzzolo’s company.
Background
The mansion was built by industrialist Walter Randall and his bride, Olive Vouletti Whitlock Randall, in 1927 on a tract of about 200 acres of farmland.
Olive was a granddaughter of Isaac Merritt Singer, the inventor of the first practical sewing machine for home use, which made him one of the wealthiest men in the world.
Harold and Ida Yudkin purchased the house in 1950. Yudkin was one of Derby’s most prolific housing developers, responsible for building about 400 homes in the city, as well as the shopping center now occupied by Lowe’s home improvement store that abuts the back of the 5.85-acre subdivision property.
Harold’s second wife, Selma Yudkin, donated the property to the Valley Community Foundation, and Nuzzolo purchased it for $485,000 in 2011.
Last November, the Derby Planning & Zoning Commission approved his development plan.
Nuzzolo said the commission deserves a great deal of credit for being able to see the advantages of his unusual, ambitious plan, instead of demanding a more conventional development.
New Plan
He said the obvious plan would have been to build at least four new houses with individual driveway access onto Sodom Lane and David Humphreys Road, but that would have meant destroying the old stone walls ringing the property.
Instead, Nuzzolo wants to preserve the natural contours and manmade features on the property.
The wall along David Humphreys Road will be repaired, and a second wall partway up the slope will be disassembled and relocated as an extension along Sodom Lane.
All of the houses will have driveway access from a private road off Humphreys Road. Four of them will face the mansion and three more will be constructed on the northern section of the property.
The new houses will have traditional architecture, but Nuzzolo said their energy efficiency ratings will be anything but conventional. All of them will feature photovoltaic solar panels, high performance energy-efficient construction, and energy-efficient furnaces, hot water heaters and air conditioning.
The first house, the sales model which he plans to start construction on soon, will be entered into the state’s Zero Energy Challenge competition.
“I’m talking about heating this house for about $100 a year,” he said.
Nuzzolo said energy efficiency makes a lot of sense in Connecticut, where land prices and house construction costs are expensive. By cutting the cost of living in the house, it leaves the owner more money to spend on his mortgage.
“From a consumer perspective, no question energy is at or near the top of the list. It’s the right thing to do,” he said.
Take a careful look at the chimneys on top of the building and you will see a connection to Singer Sewing!
I love that this gorgeous old house had something to do with “sewing”!!! lol Being a quilty nut myself! So proud of you, cuz! Keep up the great work!
The mansion is already threatened, as far as I’m concerned. When the preservation of an historic property is not the focal point of any development plan affecting it, forget it; it’s likely not to survive.
Here, the developer is basically saying (my deliberate paraphrasing): “I’m not exactly sure yet what I’m going to do about this mansion; but I’m pretty sure I’m going to preserve it”. Yet the developer has a very precise plan for the new construction, right? You don’t hear him saying “Well, I think these new homes will be zero net-energy, but I’m not really sure just yet”. No, of course not. There’s no credible intention here whatsoever to save this property; if there were, there’d be a plan in place, not expressions of hope and optimism.
Since I’ve taken up my sojourn here in the Valley, I’ve seen much of our built heritage and vintage housing stock disappear at the hands of developers and new “investment” property owners who said “don’t worry; I’ll be preserving this place. Really. I will. (I think)”.
Many of you might recall, for example, the tear down nearly three years ago of the historic Smith-Tomlinson home on Route 34, by Tony Mavuli, despite his numerous public proclamations that he’d save it. But the circa 1757 home came down with almost zero warning, to clear the way for “Tavern 1757” (the real building was wasted for the sake of a modern facsimile). There are, of course, many more examples of this sort of thing happening here in recent times, but this particular story is one of the more recent ones.
If Derby citizens are truly concerned about the fate of this historic home, as I’m sure they are, then now is the time to organization and voice their opposition to any possible tear down. It’s really too bad that projects like this get approved by P&Z commissions, etc., with minimal awareness by the public at large, but that’s sort of how the machinery works.
I grew up on Dirienzo heights up at the top of David Humphrey’s road I lived there till I got married. I loved that old mansion at the bottom of the hill day dreaming about the people who lived there and wondering how it would be to live there. I drove by and was devastated to see what they have done to it. This developer says he is going to preserve the mansion. But if it gets in his way of his plans it will be gone in a hot minute all he needs is for someone to say it wouldn’t be feasible to restore it and it would be gone.
I was heart broken to see what they had done.
I would also like to comment on the property they are now calling The Preserve on 34 on the Orange West Haven line. That is also an abomination. That property was full of beautiful trees and they tore them all down. How could they call it “The Preserve” when they totally ripped the property apart. What nerve they have to do what they’ve done its a shame. I played on that property as a child and wandered those trees and buildings talking to the people that lived there and hoping that one day I would be able to take my children to the streams and fields there to enjoy the wild life that is now displaced because of their “Preserve”. Tell me what are they preserving thier pocketbooks? How do they sleep at night? Shame on themn.
Action is being taken so as this property will be saved at all cost so that the developer can not in the future change and destroy yet another part of Derby’s history.