Families with young kids moving to Westport
Westport reborn as place for those with young kids
By SUSAN SILVERS
ssilvers@ctpost.com
When he decided to leave Manhattan after the birth of his first child nine years ago, Rick Leonard didn’t fret about finding the perfect place to raise a family. He already knew one: Westport, his hometown.
"I really liked the area — great resources, the beach, great schools," the 42-year-old public relations executive said.
Sherri Borowsky didn’t have that firsthand knowledge before she moved to town last year. But the longtime Floridian researched matters like safety, quality of schools and recreation before choosing a new home after her husband got a job in Stamford.
"It seemed like it would be the nicest place to raise children," Borowsky, 32, said as she walked along the town’s fashionable Main Street with her 7-month-old daughter Sydney.
A decade after the U.S. Census showed Westport residents were an aging breed — and a declining one, as the town had steadily lost population since 1970 — this prestigious town nestled firmly on the state’s fabled Gold Coast has been reborn as a haven for families with young children.
Crunching the numbers
The 2000 Census shows a marked boost in residents younger than 15. Overall, the town’s population grew 5 percent since 1990 — from 24,410 to 25,749.
The growth can be traced to such important factors as the town’s top-ranked schools. But others are drawn here to be closer to jobs or family.
"There’s a lot of activity for old people," said Lucille Master, a widow in her 70s who enjoys local theater and concerts. A relative newcomer who moved from Stamford to be closer to her son, Master represents the over-65 component of Westport’s population that has grown steadily over the last 40 years and also is commanding more attention from town officials.
"I was pleasantly surprised that we had grown," said First Selectman Diane Farrell, who added that predictions were that Westport’s overall population would stay more or less the same and the average age would rise again. Instead, the median age held steady at 41.
The 2000 Census has drawn attention to the rising influence of Hispanics — who in Connecticut overtook blacks as the largest minority group — and such issues as the increase of single-sex couples.
But those kinds of demographic trends aren’t significant in Westport. The town is still overwhelmingly white, with other racial or ethnic groups hardly visible.
The 292 blacks were easily outnumbered by 602 Hispanics, but both groups are still smaller than the 625 Asians, according to the 2000 count.
Westport did have a larger proportion of single-sex couples among its unmarried couples — 24 percent, as opposed to roughly 11 percent statewide. Overall, however, 5 percent of statewide households had unmarried partners, but fewer than 3 percent of Westport’s did.
Westport’s changing face
In Westport, the traditional family seems to have deeper roots than ever.
Not only are there more married-couple households —- 6,336 compared to 6,021 — in town than in 1990, the latest Census shows their share of the overall numbers also grew slightly, from 64 percent to 66 percent of the total population.
But when the number of couples with children under 18 is considered, the change is truly striking. In 1990, only 25 percent of couples had children under 18. Last year, one-third did.
The recent changes are easy for old-timers to notice.
"When I take a walk at the beach, I see all the moms and babies," said Dr. Joseph Ormand, a longtime resident in his 70s, who added that he doesn’t run into too many people he knows anymore. "I feel a little displaced."
A decade ago, that wasn’t the case. The schools’ populations had declined so much that the old Bedford Elementary was converted into Town Hall, Green’s Farms Elementary became the quarters for the Westport Arts Center and the Senior Center and Saugatuck Elementary was transformed into a senior housing project.
Then the baby boomers came back — bringing young children — setting off a new round of upheaval.
Indeed, the new baby boomlet has had an impact throughout town. The youngsters’ impact is visible in school building projects to add classrooms, in the already overcrowded YMCA and in new athletic fields for Little League baseball and soccer.
"In the last 10 years, we’ve probably built five or six additional athletic fields," Department of Parks and Recreation Director Stuart McCarthy said.
But the most ambitious undertakings have been the various school expansion and renovation projects.
By the time the construction dust settles, the town could face a bill of between $100 million and $200 million for an assortment of school projects.
Staples High School is in line for a major addition. A new Bedford Middle School has been built on North Avenue to open this fall. The former Bedford Middle is undergoing conversion to Saugatuck Elementary School, reinstating the name wiped out when the original became senior housing. Coleytown Elementary School was expanded, and Green’s Farms had been reborn as a school.
The Senior Center has been housed at Staples until a new site could be found.
And the YMCA and Arts Center? Still unresolved.
A plan for downtown’s future has recommended various scenarios, but its final elements have yet to be decided.
The Y, still based in the handsome downtown headquarters built for it in 1923, has been looking for a new site for seven years. "It’s a very inefficient building," said Richard Foot, the Y’s director. The first floor alone, he said, has 16 different elevations — not convenient when maneuvering either a stroller or a wheelchair.
He said the YMCA will consider a town recommendation to split its facilities into two buildings on a now-vacant Imperial Avenue lot.
High finance
To drive around Westport is to see well-kept houses on well-tended and spacious grounds that suggest a certain level of financial success not typical of someone just starting out. And often, that requires a high-earning, dual-income couple, that explains the marriage figures, said Kurt Schlichting, a professor of sociology at Fairfield University.
"If you have two professional people working, then these houses of $600,000 or $700,000 are within reach," he said.
Farrell, one of the baby boomers whose parents moved here as Westport’s farms and grand estates were carved up for building lots in the post-war years, observed that many of her contemporaries deferred having families.
"We attract families with young children, but the parents tend to be older," she said.
Compared to other age groups, younger adults are not so prominent. While Westport’s overall population grew, the number of those between 20 and 35 years old plunged nearly 30 percent from 1990 to 2000, to 2,279.
Many of those new families that Westport is attracting are building bigger homes than those of the past.
"People are valuing interior living space more than external living space," Farrell said.
The standard two-car garage has given way to a three-car version, if not for use by teen-agers, then for the nanny. The recent phenomenon of huge houses being built on relatively small lots has touched off such concern that the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission has set up a special committee to draft new regulations for them.
Town’s elder statesmen
The older residents, though, haven’t fled. Though their ranks have not swelled to the extent of the under-15 set — which between 1990 and 2000 jumped from 16 percent to 24 percent of the population — those 65 years old and over make up 15 percent of the local population now, up 2 percent from a decade ago.
One step toward addressing some of the seniors’ concerns was taken last Tuesday, when the Representative Town Meeting approved $290,170 for the design of a new Senior Center on the Baron’s South property at Compo Road and Post Road East.
That’s good news for Fred Meier, one of 145 regulars who frequents the center’s current home at Staples.
"I’m 82 years old," he mused one day not long ago, wryly suggesting that if things drag on much longer the new Senior Center might have to be set up in Willowbrook Cemetery. "I can’t wait two or three years."
Amid the town’s focus on younger residents with school and recreation projects, the new census data have raised concerns for Fran Reynolds, the town’s senior services coordinator.
"We’ve been very eager to have it," she said of the latest Census results, explaining it will help her plan. She was already concerned about figures showing more older people living alone. Reynolds said Westport will need to make more services available for them to keep them mentally and physically healthy.
Longtime residents such as Meier, who remembers coming here as a youngster in the 1920s, recall when Westport wasn’t such a posh place to settle. Then, although Westport had grand estates and sprawling farms, it also had a bustling town center that served as home to local shops, the people who worked for the fire or police departments, and tradesmen.
"Westport was mom-and-pop shops," Meier said, recalling the sawdust on the floor of Gallagher Bros. butcher shop. "You’d walk down the street and you’d see people that you knew." Now the shops aren’t distinctively Westport. Big, upscale retail chains like Talbot’s have replaced the locally owned Remarkable Book Shop and Klein’s has condensed to make way for Banana Republic.
Town character
Already popular with artists because of its picturesque setting, Westport reached its peak population in the years after World War II, jumping nearly 80 percent from 1950 to 1960. By 1970, the population was 27,414.
In the latter half of the 20th century, its cachet grew. It became known as the home of artists and actors, including such stars as Bette Davis, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
It had a cosmopolitan flavor not typical of other communities in the region.
While some towns became insular, Westport embraced the rest of the world. It adopted an annual hospitality day for United Nations personnel known as jUNe Day, the most recent of which took place two weeks ago.
The town is also known for the intense debates that erupt among residents over more esoteric subjects than in other towns in the region.
Controversies over the last few years have ranged from whether to accept a gift from Westport’s sister city in China (because of the human rights record of the Beijing regime) to local leash laws governing canine access to town parks, the appropriateness of public artworks, the demolition of historic structures, or the kind of invocation to begin Representative Town Meeting sessions.
Small wonder, then, that discussions about the schools, the Senior Center and the YMCA have taken years.
Leonard, the hometown boy who came back to raise his own family, said the drawn-out decision-making process is typical of Westport.
"I think people are so involved here no one’s able to pull any tricks," he said. He said he was not surprised that some issues have dragged out. "It’s hard to get anything done, but when it’s done it’s usually the right thing," he said.
Susan Silvers, who covers regional news, can be reached at 330-6426.
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