UPDATE: 'Senior-Friendly' Apartments Planned for Maples Inn

The Planning and Zoning commission approved the conversion of the Maples Inn Tuesday, Nov. 17, conditional upon Town Planner Steve Kleppin's review of the lighting, landscaping, and drainage plans.

Developer Andy Glazer said the new drainage scheme will eliminate about 3,500 square feet of impervious surface and about a third of the run-off that has previously flooded the neighbor's yard by reducing the area of the driveway and adding infiltrators and a rainwater garden. He also provided a draft maintenance agreement for a promised landscape buffer along Hampton Lane.

The Maples Inn is destined for a new life as "senior-friendly" apartments, barring the Planning and Zoning Commission objecting to the developer's lighting and landscaping schemes.

Andy Glazer of the Glazer Group presented the plan to convert the 22-room inn to 11 apartments on Oct. 15. Each one or two bedroom apartment would be about 1500 square feet and be priced in the high $700 thousands to high $800 thousands. Glazer says the spaces will be designed for ADA compliance and 9 will be ground level or elevator accessible to make them fit for seniors.

"The senior quotient is important," Glazer said, noting that the idea originated from conversations he had with Planning and Zoning Chairman Laszlo Papp, Staying Put in New Canaan's Vice President Judy Bentley, and members of the Elder Council.

The Oenoke Ridge landmark was originally built more than 100 years ago, and Glazer plans to preserve its historic look as he did when revamping the Winthrop House in Rowayton. He intends to paint the now-yellow buildings white, which pleases the neighbors, and most are excited to see the troubled inn be reborn.

Broker Al Mirin said in an interview that the inn had been on the market for eight or nine months before the owners reached a deal with Glazer over the summer. Mirin had suggested that the property, listed with an asking price of $4.25 million, be sold to a developer or to business like a private school or country club that needed rooms for its employee. He says selling the Maples as an inn was not on the table.

"I thought that it should be anything but what it was. The current owners know all the people in the business." Mirin told them, "if it was viable you would have been approached."

Glazer argued before the commission that taking the Maples' rooms off the market should help the Roger Sherman Inn next door fill its vacancies. Glazer has also proposed that the new apartment residents could utilize the Roger Sherman's dining room and that a garden be dug in the lawn between the two properties to grow flowers and vegetables for the restaurant.

But some of the neighbors expressed concerns at the hearing about noise, lights, and traffic on Hampton Lane which runs along the 1.61 acre property. The inn was grandfathered into a one-acre residential zone.

"The underlying zone would allow a single dwelling," said Jonathan Garity, who lives four houses down on the lane. "No matter how you slice it still is an intensity of use."

Glazer contests that having 11 stable households would be an improvement on the comings and goings from 22 transient rooms. He's already changed the plans to reorient the garage doors away from the neighbors and agreed to shut off the Maples' outlet to Hampton Lane and add a landscape buffer along the roadway.

The Planning and Zoning Commission asked Glazer to return for a another public hearing with landscape designs and a plan to deal with lighting that currently bleeds onto nearby properties.