Almost Lost: A Last Look at the Richmond Hill Garage

There will be no reprieve for the old garage at 64 Richmond Hill Rd.  The Historic Review Committee did not grant the stay requested by the New Canaan Preservation Alliance, and the town is scheduled to put the demolition out to bid, hire a contractor and raze the 109-year-old building.

Since it cannot save the building, the preservation alliance is doing the next best thing, recording whatever information they can about the former oil depot before it disappears. Their survey will be recorded with Connecticut's Statewide Historic Resource Inventory.

"We want to educate the public what a simple vernacular building like this signified to the life of all townspeople when it was built in 1901," Mimi Findlay, president of the Preservation Alliance told Patch.

The structure was built by Standard Oil near what Findlay said was once called "the dismal swamp." The site was situated near New Canaan's railroad tracks in the industrial section of town, Findlay said. Two large gas tanks were at the back of the building.

"They'd run a pipe from the building to the railroad tracks," Findlay said. "We don't know what the pipe was made of, possibly canvas, like a fire hose."  They'd fill the tanks behind the structure, and a horse-drawn cart would deliver oil for cooking and lamps. 

The building originally had symmetrical doors in the front and back.  The horses would enter from the front and leave from the rear," Findlay said. "They would pull the carriage straight through. It was designed so they wouldn't have to turn around."

Findlay was at the garage on Friday morning with architect Rob Dean, an advisor to the Preservation Alliance, and two associates. The group was taking measurements and trying to recreate the history of the two-story building. Watching them at work was like witnessing a group of architectural forensic scientists.

With little historical record to go by, and the first floor crammed with ladders, paint, plywood and tools being stored by the DPW, the job was not an easy one.  The discovery of post anchorages, a bolt on a beam and a pair of symmetrical metal tracks that run front-to-back generated a 20-minute conversation about the building's original configuration. 

 "This is so obviously a barn," said Dean, who is president and principal architect of Robert Dean Architects. "There were probably three stalls on each side."

Gail Olson, who was working with Dean and Findlay, suggested there might have been two teams of horses in the barn, with the other stalls being used for feed and equipment.

"It was an urban carriage barn," Dean said. "They wouldn't need to store the vehicle inside, but would definitely need an indoor home for the horses. But it went out of use as a barn in the earliest days of its life. By 1915, 1920 they would have been using motor vehicles."

Findlay said the New Canaan Preservation Alliance's goal is to "record every building built before World War II."  To date, the alliance has not succeeded in preventing a single demolition, but that does not deter the group from meticulously cataloging New Canaan's architectural history.

In a presentation to the Town Council on Wed. night, Tiger Mann, the Assistant Director of Public Works said the town is talking to landscape architects about adding benches and realigning the Gold Star walk around Mead Park to establish a continuous walkway once the building is gone.  They are looking into the possibility of extending the Grove St. sidewalk so "people can walk from Zumbach's and Tony's Deli down to the park," he said.

"One of largest trees in the state, a cottonwood, is behind the building," he told the group. "You can't see its mass because the building hides it. Once the building is gone people driving down Grove St. will see the tree and the park."

Mann said the majority of its neighbors are in favor of razing the building. "They've been waiting since 2005 when we announced the original intention to take it down."

Dean might disagree.  "To preserve anything in New Canaan is to preserve the fiber of the town," he said as he pointed out an original bluestone lintel.