FORMER OUTPOST INN, ca. 1970 — Here’s a picture with a lot of history. It shows the western side of what is now Fox Hill condominiums on Route 35, Danbury Road. For many years the 28 acres was the Outpost Inn. The inn proper, including the restaurant, is the cluster of buildings on the pond just to the left of the loop road (now Outpost Lane). The building at the upper right was used for overnight accommodations. Outpost Inn was founded in 1930 by the Conley family, owners of Outpost Nurseries (whose nursery land surrounded the inn property), and lasted until around 1960. It was a popular place for locals to dine and for folks from the city to spend a day or two. Among the many famous guests there over the years was Eleanor Roosevelt, who found the place “charming.” (In the Old Ridgefield photo archives are several old postcard views of Outpost Inn.) For several years in the 1960s, the property was owned by the Shapley School, a private prep school that wound up with publicity problems after police, using an undercover officer posing as a student, arrested students for drug use. In 1968, David L. Paul, who had already built Casagmo, bought the property at a bankruptcy auction, and submitted plans for 280 apartments. The Planning and Zoning Commission convinced him to experiment with a relatively new concept, condominiums, and a portion of the development opened as condos — Ridgefield’s first. Eventually, all units were made condos, and Casagmo apartments was converted to condominiums, too. Visible along Danbury Road, between highway and pond, was Ridgefield’s last billboard sign, erected to advertise the old inn. Billboard signs had long been banned in Ridgefield, but this one was grandfathered from pre-ban days. When Paul learned via The Press that it was the last Ridgefield billboard, he bulldozed it down. The loop road was the original path of Danbury Road, dating from the 1700s — the straight section by the billboard was built in the 1920s or early 30s. (It includes a bridge that the state plans to replace within the next year or two or three…) When this photo was taken, Jordan Asketh owned the property on the left or west side of Danbury Road. A hydrological engineer, Asketh spent years gradually filling swamp to make it developable — that was in the days before wetlands laws. Today that’s the vast “lawn” of the Ridgefield Recreation Center as well as the site of the 9/11 memorial. David Paul had eyed that property, hoping to build more condos, but the town quickly quashed that idea. The backland is now the site of the Recreation Center and Founders Hall senior center. This photo was taken by Jimmy Thalacker, an airline pilot from Ridgefield who loved aerial photography. At last word Jimmy was living on Big Pine Key in Florida.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 12:48:54 +0000
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