The Eno House Fiasco
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This article appeared on the
Commentary page of The Hartford Courant on December 12, 1996.
A Mansion's Relocation Threatens Sherwood Island State Park
By Robert Winkler
Next spring, the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation plans to lift a
very large old house onto a barge, float it down the Saugatuck River, take a
left at Long Island Sound and plunk the thing down right in the middle of
Sherwood Island State Park, off Westport. Built in 1877 for William Phelps Eno,
a pioneer in road traffic management, the three-story house has 32 rooms and is
200 feet long.
Now empty and rundown, the Eno house was slated for demolition when the Connecticut Trust, a nonprofit group, stepped in to save this reputedly classic example of Colonial Revival architecture. The owner donated the house to the Connecticut Trust on the condition that it be moved so a new house could be built in its place.
The move alone will take three months and cost more than $500,000. The Connecticut Trust is confident it can raise the money and the additional $1.7 million needed to renovate the house. When all of this work is done, the Connecticut Trust will open historical exhibits and make the Eno house its headquarters. It has offered space to a state tourist bureau and, in an ironic twist, to environmental organizations.
Many of us who feel an attachment to Sherwood Island have been patiently waiting for state officials to tell the Connecticut Trust that moving the Eno house to the park is not an option. Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees state parks, is seriously considering the plan. Meanwhile, the Connecticut Trust, claiming support from Gov. John G. Rowland, proceeds with its annexation of state land, though it has no mandate from Sherwood Island's true owners, the people of Connecticut.
The Connecticut Trust has been waging an effective publicity campaign that portrays the old and neglected Eno house as a magnificent mansion and says almost nothing about our vibrant coastal park, an ecological wonderland. Imagine a huge columned building in abysmal condition being hauled onto the Cape Cod National Seashore or lowered into the Grand Canyon. Moving the Eno house to Sherwood Island is as preposterous a notion.
The only coastal state park west of the Housatonic River, Sherwood Island is Fairfield County's equivalent of Hammonasset Beach State Park. At 234 acres, Sherwood Island is much smaller, but on the coast of densely populated Fairfield County, where space is at a premium, its importance looms large.
Sherwood Island has a mile-long beach, where people go to enjoy wide-open spaces and Long Island Sound scenery. Nature enthusiasts can explore diverse coastal habitats—a tidal pond, marshes, creeks, dunes, woods and fields—all within a relatively compact area. Sherwood Island's bird checklist exceeds 280 species, a testament to the park's ecological value.
Sherwood Island is not, and was never meant to be, a historical repository. The purpose of this beautiful park is to keep structures like the Eno house out. People go there to escape buildings. Sherwood Island cannot spare precious acres for any house, much less one with palatial dimensions.
The Connecticut Trust argues that, aside from being a convenient place to land a barge, Sherwood Island is a valid site for the Eno house because similar homes once existed there. In the 1950s, the state of Connecticut removed the last of those houses. It did so to create a park that would be an open-space oasis amid Fairfield County's increasingly built-up coastline. Forty years later, the Connecticut Trust now wants to undo the very quality that makes Sherwood Island unique.
To make room for the Eno house at Sherwood Island, trees would be felled, meadows would be torn up and wildlife would be evicted. This immense structure would dominate the surrounding landscape, profoundly changing the park's character. You don't save an old house by violating the hallowed ground of Connecticut's oldest state park.
Sherwood Island is one of the last open-space frontiers on the coast of Fairfield County, and the Connecticut Trust wants to stake its selfish claim. It fails to realize that, by virtue of Sherwood Island's status as a state park, this frontier is closed.
The residents of Connecticut entrust the Department of Environmental Protection with the stewardship of public land. Opening the gates of Sherwood Island to the Eno house would betray that trust. If the DEP fails to stop the Eno travesty, Sherwood Island and its admirers will suffer a great loss, and a dangerous precedent will throw the future of all Connecticut state parks into question.
Robert Winkler, a nature writer, lives in Newtown and is secretary of the Friends of Sherwood Island State Park.
Epilog
On December 20, 1996, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection
concluded that moving the Eno house to Sherwood Island State Park "would
not be feasible." The Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation failed to
find an alternate site, and on July 1, 1997, the Eno house was demolished.
A message from Robert Winkler
Jeff Brush/Connecticut Post (used with permission)
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Copyright © 1996, 2001 Robert Winkler
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