‘Now & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Joanne Santulli, Karen Ceraso, Bettina Hegel and Schuyler Morris.
The property located on Greenley Road was purchased on May 13,1929 by W. Rutger J. Planten. Mr. Planten hired New York City architect F. H. Hutton of 101 Park Avenue to design his home, which he called “Beechway.”
Mr. Planten was born in Brooklyn in 1877. He was the son of John R. Planten, the Consul General for the Netherlands in New York City, a position he held for 25 years. Both Mr. John R. Planten and his wife were born in Holland. Mr. Rutger Planten attended Brooklyn Latin School and graduated from Columbia University in 1899. He worked on the Stock Exchange for many years before he retired in 1921. Mr. Planten and his wife, Ruth Savage Planten, made their home in Lake Mahopac, New York from 1913 to 1930. Mr. Planten served for thirteen years on the school board there.
After their home on Greenley Road was completed they moved to New Canaan. In 1928, Mr. Planten was awarded the “Kings Crown” from Columbia University which was a gold crown in honor of his civic activities, which included the management of War Bonds in World War I for the Red Cross. The Plantens were active members of the Congregational Church and Mr. Planten supported the redecorating of the church and changing the location of the driveway. He also founded a scholarship fund for the Church.
Mr. Planten considered himself an economist and in 1933 he wrote a letter to Secretary of the Treasury William Woodin which detailed a plan which would result in removing a necessary gold coverage in Government Books for $30 million. The plan would necessitate the return of all currency upon a specified date, cancelling the bills and reissuing new money. The plan would also include keeping a record of all currency above ten dollars and Mr. Planten pointed out this would “effectually put a stop to kidnapping for ransom.”
Mr. Planten also published a letter in the Advertiser in March of 1934 which he signed off as “W. Rutger J. Planten, Socialist – but sane” which commented on the “black list” of banks unwilling to make loans on responsible securities for the aid of business. In 1942 he wrote another letter (there were many letters) to the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives addressing taxes and the means to raise public funds. In 1944, a year prior to his death, he established an award that was granted to a New Canaan High School graduate in honor of his father. The dual winners were Margaret Creach for her paper “International Law or Corruption” and Gloria Bianco for “What About our Cousins (the South Americans)”. Mr. Planten died in March 1945. He was survived by his wife, Ruth, and his sister, Ms. W.D. Caillard of New York City.
Beechway was designed by Frances F. Hutton, who (according to his obituary) was a noted church architect. Mr. Hutton supervised the remodeling and reconditioning of the five Collegiate Churches in New York City and many “schools and country estates” but no reference of his involvement in the renovation of any of the five churches could be verified. He was a Vestryman of the Grace P.E. Church in New York City. In February 1938 Mr. Hutton died after a three week long illness at a Brooklyn Hospital. He was sixty years old. He was the son of Frances Anna Hutton who died in 1934 and both are buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. The Dumbo Neighborhood Alliance reports that he was among the architects whose commercial and industrial buildings can be found in Dumbo, along with Edward Stone and William S. Tubby.” The report notes that “subtle details, including arched carriage entrances, brick and masonry quoins, articulated cornices and lintels, decorative tie-ends, brick pilasters and arched fenestrations, reflect a respect for industry since lost and a time past.”
Ms. Ruth Savage Planten was born in 1878 in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Ms. Planten was close friends with the poet Harriet Morgan Tyng. Harriet Morgan Tyng, born May 17, 1905, in Cranford, New Jersey, was the daughter of Sarah Margareta Hyde and Francis William Tyng, Sr. She graduated from Barnard College in 1928, and did graduate work in English and education at Columbia
University and Bryn Mawr College. Ms. Tyng published two volumes of poems: Open Letter and Other Poems in 1938 andVermont Village in 1947. The personal correspondence between her and Ruth Planten, together with poems dedicated to, and including, Ruth, indicate the depth of their friendship. Ms. Planten is also referred to as ‘Coolin’ in the correspondence. The Plantens owned a home in Waterbury, Vermont known as “Blush Hill” and Ms. Planten died in nearby Craftsbury Common on November 5, 1964. Ms. Tyng died in 1952.
On April 3, 1948, Ms. Planten sold Beechway to John Dwight Leggett, Jr. Mr. Leggett was a descendant of Andrew L. Bleecker. Mr. Bleecker was a shipping merchant and landowner including a farm through which Bleecker Street in New York City now runs. Mr. Bleecker was one of the “committee of gentlemen appointed by the city [of New York] to meet (on horseback) and escort General Washington into the city after the evacuation of the British” in November 1773. Mr. Leggett was born in Staten Island, New York and attended Hotchkiss. He graduated from Princeton University in 1928 and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1931. He was a member of the firm Hughes, Shurman and Dwight. Mr. Leggett served in the Air Force during World War II and was an intelligence officer in England with the 8th Air Force. He was involved in the Invasion of Normandy in 1945. In April of 1936 he married Barbara Strong. Ms. Strong was the daughter of Benjamin Strong, the first governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In 1953 he was vice president and later president of Church & Dwight Co. (owner of Arm & Hammer). He retired in 1971 but continued as a director until 1984. Mr. Leggett married Catherine “Skip” O’Connell later in life. He died on September 27, 1995.
In 1986, the great niece of Mrs. Ruth Planten, Grace Hancock, contacted the New Canaan Historical Society & Museum and asked to be connected with the current owner of Beechway so that she could give to them an etching of the house made by the artist Frank Wood.
On November 30, 1984 the property was sold to Henry T. Gibson for $485,000. Mr. Gibson was the great grandson of the artist Charles Dana Gibson, the creator of the “Gibson Girl”. Mr. Gibson attended Suffield Academy and Lake Forest College. He married Sara Marshall on June 27, 1981. Miss Marshall graduated from the Wykeham Rise School in Washington, Conn., and attended Bradford Junior College, the University of Vermont, and the Katharine Gibbs School. The Gibsons applied and were granted at least two variances regarding property setbacks when additions were made on the home. In 1989 the Gibsons and J.B. and C.S. Lee, were granted a resubdivision of three lots at the southerly corner of Greenley & Chichester Road. The property with the original home and 4 acres was sold to Vincent and Elizabeth DiLeo in May 1996 for $2.1 million. The other 2.1 acre parcel of land (which included a home built in 1780) was sold in 1991 to Anna B. Lumsden for $1.4 million.
The DiLeos sold the home to its current owners in 2008 for $3.3 million. The property underwent an extensive renovation using local architect Dinyar Wadia. Mr. Wadia specializes in restoring old properties and in 2010 he took on the renovation of providing modern amenities while preserving the original character. For more information on Mr. Wadia (his own home), see New Canaanite, Now & Then dated April 27, 2023.
The exterior renovation included a new back porch and a new library that cantilevers over the edge of the stream. The current owners also added a pool and a pool house that is so well integrated that it is hard to imagine it was not part of the original structure.