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Country Club Road Homeowners Seek to Preserve Ca. 1835 Barn as Guesthouse

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The owners of a Country Club Road home on Monday night took an important first step toward winning town approval for an effort to re-designate as a guesthouse a barn on their 3.8-acre property that dates to the early 19th Century. David and Shelley Simone at number 340—the first driveway on the right as you come off of Oenoke Ridge—are planning to put their home on the market, New Canaan-based attorney David Rucci, representing the couple, said during a public hearing before the Zoning Board of Appeals. Most of those who have seen the property—it includes a 7,000-square-foot home built in 2003, as well as a pool and spa—have asked whether the ca. 1835 two-story barn that sits right on the road is a guesthouse, Rucci said. “It’s basically being used as a guesthouse, but it’s not legally a guesthouse—and that’s OK, because right now it doesn’t have a kitchen, and that’s the barometer for determining whether it’s a guesthouse or not—so right now they don’t have it legally, but they want a legal residence,” Rucci said during the hearing, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center.

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Local Architect on Huguette Clark Property Plans: ‘It’s Going To Look Terrific’

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Though they own multiple restored properties around the world, the couple that three months ago bought the former Huguette Clark estate on Dan’s Highway plans to settle into the famed New Canaan mansion—becoming its first occupants in decades, officials said Tuesday. Asked by the Planning and Zoning Commission whether he could identify the purchasers, New Canaan-based attorney David Rucci—while applying on the new owners’ behalf to dissolve a 10-lot subdivision of the 52-acre property—said they’ve renovated historic properties in the past. “They just happen to be very preservation-minded people,” Rucci said during the commission’s regular meeting, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center. “They are out of the city. They have properties in other parts of the world that they have done the exact same thing with.