Stonington, Conn., A Waterfront Community With a Colonial Vibe
New Yorkers seeking respite from the city have long gravitated to Connecticut’s easternmost shoreline town, with its 18th- and 19th-century homes.
By Lisa Prevost, The New York Times, April 22, 2020
Karen von Ruffer Hills and Francis Hills discovered the coastal town of Stonington, in southeastern Connecticut, when friends invited them for a weekend getaway at a local inn in 2009.
“We got there on a Friday, and by Sunday we were at Seaboard Properties asking, ‘What’s for rent?’” said Ms. von Ruffer Hills, 48, who works as the marketing director for the photography studio that Mr. Hills, 53, has in New York. “My husband is British, and Stonington has a little bit of that English countryside feel to it and those nice old homes. It immediately spoke to him.”
The couple rented in Stonington for many summers, stealing time away from their apartment in New York, about 135 miles southwest, as they could. Then about five years ago, they decided to reverse the arrangement, making Stonington their home base.
“It was a lifestyle choice: We’re both midlife and sort of re-evaluating,” Ms. von Ruffer Hills said. “It was a nice way to gently remove ourselves from the chaos of New York.”
Now they live in a renovated Colonial-era home with a gambrel roof in the heart of Stonington Borough, a densely developed village district on a peninsula jutting into Stonington Harbor. At one end of their street is a tiny sandy beach where they can ease into the waters of Long Island Sound. At the other is the compact commercial strip of Water Street, where they can walk to grab a coffee, browse the windows of an art gallery or catch up on local gossip at Tom’s News.
They have developed a “beautiful network of friends,” Ms. von Ruffer Hills said, and thrown themselves into community life. Her husband curated a project for the Stonington Historical Society last year. And she is now a burgess in the borough government.
“I am sanitation commissioner, responsible for sanitation and streetlights,” she said. “It’s not the sexiest of titles, but it’s fun, actually.”
Danielle Chesebrough, 36, also immersed herself in Stonington’s inner workings after moving from New York with her husband, Sam, to the Mystic section four years ago. Formerly a senior analyst with the United Nations Global Compact, Ms. Chesebrough served on a couple of town boards before becoming the first woman to be elected First Selectman last November.
Four months into the job, she now finds herself trying to help lead the community through the pandemic crisis — with three young children at home. While the economic upheaval facing the heavily tourist-dependent town has at times seemed overwhelming, Ms. Chesebrough said she is heartened to see so many residents pull together.
“Some residents started a GoFundMe page to raise money to buy gift certificates to local restaurants doing takeout,” she said. “They’re donating the certificates to our human services department to distribute to households in need.”
As of mid-April, three weeks later, the group, Stonington Feeds Stonington, had raised over $15,000.
What You’ll Find
Situated between the Mystic River to the west and the Pawcatuck River to the east, Stonington is Connecticut’s easternmost shoreline town, bumping up against Rhode Island. Largely oriented around the water, it is perhaps most widely known for the Mystic Seaport Museum and Mystic Aquarium, popular tourist attractions on the Stonington side of the normally bustling Mystic village (the rest of the village is in Groton).
But the town of roughly 18,000 has a much more varied landscape, from its pastoral northern uplands crisscrossed with old stone walls, to the industrial-era village of Pawcatuck and the suburban-flavored neighborhood of Masons Island, reached by a causeway.
New Yorkers seeking a weekend respite have long gravitated toward historic Stonington Borough, which served as a summer destination for city dwellers during the steamship era (as did Watch Hill, R.I., to the east). The well-protected harbor, a haven for boating enthusiasts, is home to a yacht club and a commercial fishing fleet.
In the heart of the borough, the narrow streets are lined with colorfully painted 18th- and 19th-century homes that hug the sidewalks. While there are no historic district protections in the borough, “you would get a lot of pushback if you wanted to knock down a historic home and redo it,” said James H. Michalove, president and founder of Seaboard Properties. (Other sections of town have not fared as well at protecting historic buildings from demolition.)
During the high season, the shops and restaurants on and around Water Street normally attract day-trippers, many of whom come by boat. The street ends at the peninsula’s point, where a small beach and parking area provide visitors with panoramic views.
Howard Taylor, a yacht broker who has lived in town for about 25 years, said he has noticed more New York families moving to Stonington year-round, as professionals have become increasingly able to work from home.
“What we’re going through now is going to exaggerate that,” he said.
What You’ll Pay
The median sale price for a single-family home in the town of Stonington in the 12-month period before March 31 was $336,000, about 5 percent higher than in the previous year, according to data provided by William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty; for a single-family home in the borough, the median sale price was $510,000. The median sale price for a condo in the year ending March 31 was $292,000, compared with $338,500 the previous year.
As of April 14, 140 properties were listed for sale in Stonington, ranging from a two-bedroom mobile home in a park on the Mystic River asking $48,000 to a five-bedroom waterfront home on 1.36 acres on Masons Island asking $2.9 million.
“Inventory is nice and low right now,” said Melinda Carlisle, a sales associate with Randall Realtors. “We’ve had a couple of really good years, and people weren’t putting much stuff on.”
Historic homes in good repair in the borough typically sell for upward of $600,000, with waterfront properties drawing $2 million or more, Mr. Michalove said.
On Masons Island, many homes belong to the children or grandchildren of the original owners, Ms. Carlisle said. While it is sometimes possible to find a smaller, unimproved home in the $400,000s, the five homes she currently has listed there are priced from $899,000 to $2.9 million.
One of the newer rental complexes in town is Threadmill Apartments, a converted factory building in Pawcatuck. The 58 one-bedroom apartments, with exposed brick walls and ceiling beams, rent for $1,500 to $1,900 a month, said Mary Ann Agostini, an agent with William Pitt Sotheby’s.
The Vibe
While activity ramps up in Stonington during the summer months, the atmosphere is low-key. The borough’s Fourth of July parade is a community highlight, said Chelsea Mitchell, the library director at the Stonington Historical Society. Children ride on decorated bicycles, spectators are encouraged to join the parade, and the Declaration of Independence is read aloud — “at the end of which, everyone yells, ‘A pox on King George!’” she said.
The Portuguese Holy Ghost Society, a social club based in the borough, draws residents from around the area to its year-round events, which include Friday night fish-and-chips dinners and the Labor Day weekend Feast of the Holy Ghost.
“We have over 400 members from all backgrounds: lawyers, medical doctors, fishermen, carpenters and scientists,” said Mr. Taylor, the yacht broker, who is also the club’s vice president.
Residents support several farms in town, including Stone Acres, which hosts farm dinners, weddings and educational events. The farm stand, which sells produce, flowers and locally produced artisanal foods, is already in high gear, said Jane Meiser, the director of operations and a descendant of the farm’s original Colonial-era owners.
“Everyone’s pretty much here in their second homes now,” she said, because of the pandemic lockdown. “So our farm stand has been incredibly busy with the heightened demand on local, sustainable, really healthy organic food.”
The Schools
About 2,000 students are served by Stonington’s four public schools. Students in prekindergarten through fifth grade attend Deans Mill or West Vine Street elementary schools, both of which recently underwent extensive renovations. West Vine Street’s principal, Alicia Sweet Dawe, was recognized last year as Elementary Principal of the Year by the Connecticut Association of Schools and the National Association of Elementary School Principals.
Students in sixth through eighth grade attend Stonington Middle School, in Mystic.
Stonington High School, in Pawcatuck, has about 650 students. Mean SAT scores for the 2019 graduating class were 551 in evidence-based reading and writing, and 532 in math; statewide means were 529 and 516. The school also has career and technical education programs to train students for postgraduate employment.
The Commute
From the Shoreline East rail station in New London, about 20 minutes away, commuters can get a train to the Metro-North Railroad station in New Haven for $10.25 one-way; a round-trip peak ticket from there to Grand Central Terminal is $47. The commute takes roughly three hours.
Amtrak trains stop at the station in Mystic. The trip to Penn Station takes around three hours; round-trip fares range from $122 to $240, depending on seat selection.
All rail services are currently operating on reduced schedules because of the pandemic.
The 135-mile drive to New York City on Interstate 95 takes two and a half hours or longer, depending on traffic.
The History
The stone lighthouse tower that stands at the borough’s point dates to 1840. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it is attached to a modest residence that housed the beacon’s keepers for its nearly 50 years in operation. The Stonington Historical Society bought the abandoned lighthouse in 1925 for $3,650 and converted it to a museum for lighthouse artifacts. The museum is currently closed for restoration and is tentatively scheduled to reopen in the summer.