A single-family home built in 1739 on Washington Street in Middletown will stay in place for now, after city officials recently rejected plans to replace the home with a Chick-fil-A.
The Partridge Southmayd House, a colonial saltbox, is located at 797 Washington St., the site of a proposed Chick-fil-A that was voted against last week by Middletown’s Planning and Zoning Commission.
The historic home is currently vacant, with the owners looking to have it deconstructed and relocated.
Middletown resident and municipal historian, Deborah Shapiro, spoke against removing the home.
“We tore down so many of these beautiful homes,” Shapiro said. “Once you demolish a building, it's gone, and you can't replicate that.”
Additionally, the Southmayd home hosted enslaved workers who stayed in the house while constructing the 1740s’ Seth Wetmore House, another historic home on Washington Street, Shapiro said.
“Every day they carried their tools and trudged up the hill to build Seth Wetmore's house,” Shapiro said. “That's certainly a period of Middletown's history that we need to recognize and have everyone know about.”
Several residents said they were open to the project, but wanted the historic home to remain somewhere in Middletown, or to be adapted and used in the site plans.
For now, the home will remain empty, after the Planning and Zoning Commission voted against relocating the house to make room for a Chick-fil-A.
However, on a neighboring parcel of land, included in a joint site plan, a future credit union was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission during the same meeting.
Plans for the historic home
Antique home restorer, William Butterly, stepped up to provide deconstruction and relocation services. Removing the house entails cataloging each piece of timber, its length and where it fits in the puzzle that are colonial homes.
“Every board gets a number and use those to be able to again have a schematic to be able to put it all back together,” Butterly said. “Houses that were built 250 years ago are relatively easy to take apart and put back together because they're all post and beam construction, which means heavy timbers that are typically held together by wooden pegs.”
The deconstruction would take about 20 days. Then, Butterly’s plan was to relocate the home to his shoreline property either in Guilford or Madison, to be rented out as a single-family home.
The homes’ interiors get upgraded, with modern electricity and insulation, but keeping the original elements when possible, Butterly said.
Butterly offered his services to the property owners after noting a sign posted on Washington Street regarding plans to destroy the home.
“It's the only house, I think, on Washington Street at this point,” Butterly said. “I always realized that something was going to happen, potentially, to it, and if it ever did, I wanted to try and get involved to save it.”
The plot’s future plans
The neighboring plot, at 809 Washington St., will involve the demolition of a 1950s-era home to construct another branch of the Dutch Point Credit Union. The credit union’s operated in Middletown since 1959.
The future of the Southmayd home is uncertain. The property owner and project applicant have the options to resubmit the application with modifications or appeal the Commission’s decision, according to Middletown Land Use Department’s Corinne Milardo.
A representative for the project did not respond to Connecticut Public’s request for comment on the Planning and Zoning Commission’s recent decision.
