3423 University Place

Baltimore, MD 21218–2833

August 25, 2017

Mr. Michael Lambert
Bureau Chief, Outdoor Recreation
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP)
79 Elm Street
Hartford, CT 06106
Dear Mr. Lambert,
We represent a wide array of concerned citizens from nearby locales in Connecticut as well as many
other areas of the country, and our backgrounds in American landscape and architectural history,
historic preservation, real estate development, hospital architecture, and public advocacy have
informed our position about the pending proposals for Seaside State Park, the site originally built as a
treatment center for children afflicted with bone and lymphatic tuberculosis. As we have stated in
previous letters, this site provides a significant historic resource for the State of Connecticut.
We have followed the steps in the review process with interest, and have carefully studied and
evaluated the Environmental Impact Evaluation (EIE) of the Seaside State Park Master Plan for
Waterford, Connecticut. We strongly urge DEEP to select the proposal for Option 1/Destination
Park. We believe that this option is the best of all five options presented, as it would allow a path to
creating a jewel of the Connecticut state park system. This option brings together within
reasonable development parameters the greatest number of positive results economically,
historically, and aesthetically for the town, state, and region at large. It presents a special
opportunity for the public in offering both passive and active recreation, along with a lodging
experience in historic buildings that were designed by the nationally recognized architect Cass
Gilbert (1859–1934), amid historic open space. Together, all of these elements would be a distinctive
and special place in New England.
The reasons for our position are many. Most important, the open space of this 36-acre parcel
situated on Long Island Sound offers exceptional potential to embrace BOTH a distinctive
landscape AND historic architecture. Option 1/Destination Park makes the most of the site’s
characteristic features, most notably the variety of coastal and upland habitats combined with the
historic Cass Gilbert-designed Stephen J. Maher Infirmary and Nurses’ Residence and open space
(not to mention the duplex residence for staff doctors—designed by New London architect Fred
Langdon—and the superintendent’s cottage and garage). These buildings and site represent Gilbert’s
last great essay in campus architecture and planning, before his death in 1934, and just a few years
before he completed the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC.
The Seaside buildings and the open space itself are economic assets worth much more to the State if
they are adaptively reused than if they are demolished. It is well documented that historic properties
add value, which has been substantiated by studies through the Main Street program, the National
Trust at large, and other historic preservation groups. If the distinctive aspects of the property—in

 this case, the Gilbert buildings and the open space itself that are integral to the plan—are
demolished or significantly impaired, the opportunity for economic leverage dwindles
considerably. The Seaside EIE reports that Option 1/Destination Park could generate $246,000 annual
local revenue and $642,000 annual State revenue. This option would produce temporary and permanent
jobs, not to mention the positive impact on the area for related goods and services by the increased
usership of the Park. Option 1/Destination Park provides the most potential for benefitting the State’s
park system as a distinctive, one-of-a-kind property, with park land integrated with historic buildings
and open space, while mitigating traffic and noise impact because it does not propose overdevelopment
at an unreasonable scale. (Neighbors’ concerns about the lack of buffer between the Seaside and the
residential area have been mitigated with well-articulated landscaping and lighting plans as well as
pro-active planning regarding traffic concerns.) Option 1/Destination Park also possesses the virtues
of minimal and temporary and/or mitigated impact on agricultural soils, water resources, traffic, air
quality, noise, and light/shadow, as outlined by the EIE report.
By contrast, the only other option that proposes adaptive reuse of the historic buildings—Option
4/Hybrid Park—is an appallingly poor plan. That plan is not only the most expensive for the State, it
would also greatly diminish the very qualities that make the Seaside site distinctive and significant.
Most important, the larger scale of hotel operations in Option 4 would have the greatest negative
impact in terms of the upland and coastal areas of all five options under review, and Option 4’s
proposed very high usership would increase traffic significantly to the surrounding neighborhood and
would make the Seaside property vulnerable ecologically in the long term. Option 4/Hybrid Park
would require so much surface parking that the oversized parking areas would eviscerate the heart of
the historic core of the Seaside campus—the wide lawn that stretches west of the Infirmary. The
second lodge building (or addition to either of the existing Gilbert-designed historic buildings) very
likely would destroy the viewsheds in the landscape to and from the historic buildings, the coastline,
and the open space. It would also likely impair the relationship of the historic buildings to one
another. In essence, Option 4/Hybrid Park proposes an overdeveloped plan—one that, because of
its scale and articulation, would not realize the State’s goals to restore, preserve, and reuse the
site’s historic landscape and architecture, and would endanger the very qualities that make the site
distinctive as well as put the ecological aspects of the site at risk.
Option 2/Ecological Park and Option 3/Passive Recreation Park, along with the unnumbered “NoBuild” option all propose active demolition (Options 2 and 3) of the historic Gilbert buildings or
demolition by neglect (“No-Build” Park). These are dreadful, misguided options because the State
would be throwing away a golden opportunity to create a special and distinctive space.
For years, Seaside has existed under the radar. Compared to the high profiles of Gilbert’s Minnesota
State Capitol (1895–1905), Woolworth Building (1910–1913), and United States Supreme Court
(1928–1935), among other well-known projects—most of which are located in highly populated
areas—Seaside is an unsung monument in the town of Waterford and in the State at large. Listed in
the National Register of Historic Places in 1995, “The Seaside” represents the culmination of many
themes in Gilbert’s illustrious architectural career.
Completed in the last year of Gilbert’s life, the sanatorium complex serves as a testament to his many
abilities as a designer and planner. Inventive American Shingle-style, English Victorian, and Queen
Anne revival elements on the Infirmary and pre-nineteenth-century, French-inspired gable features in
the Nurses’ Building harken back to his historicist orientation in early residential projects in St. Paul,
Minnesota, and elsewhere. The plan of the Waterford complex incorporates both Beaux-Arts– and
picturesque-inspired planning that informed Gilbert’s campus and city plans from Connecticut to

 Texas. Gilbert’s keen interest in the use of open space and natural vistas at Waterford reminds
visitors of his successful designs completed in New Haven on the Green and for Oberlin College on
Tappan Square. Furthermore, the civic scale of Seaside was motivated by his highly regarded state
capitol designs in Minnesota, Arkansas, and West Virginia, and also the civic center of five Gilbertdesigned buildings at Waterbury, Connecticut, anchored by a city hall that has been historically
renovated in recent years to spectacular effect. Throughout, Gilbert’s two buildings at Seaside are
defined by high-quality workmanship—a hallmark of his architectural practice—and a thoughtful
integration of architecture, planning, and landscape.
Seaside provides a touchstone for the history of twentieth-century public health; the Infirmary is one
of only three buildings remaining in the state where heliotherapy treatment was utilized, from the era
before antibiotics were available to treat tuberculosis effectively. The other remaining sanatoria,
Uncas-on-Thames in Norwich and Cedarcrest in Hartford, were built twenty years before Gilbert’s
project at Waterford and are not associated with nationally acclaimed designers. Gilbert’s Infirmary
thus represents a rare building type in the regional and national landscape. The Waterford project,
moreover, was consistent with his philanthropic activities because of its service to indigent children
with non-pulmonary forms of tuberculosis. Gilbert took special interest in aiding charities that
benefited underprivileged youth as well as those with medical challenges, in part because of the early
death of one of his own daughters.
Seaside Sanatorium also offered a strong connection to his adopted home state. After Gilbert had moved
East, he acquired a Revolutionary War–era summer house, the Keeler Tavern in Ridgefield, Connecticut,
where he relished spending time away from Manhattan. For many reasons, Gilbert felt especially strong
ties to the colonial past of the region. His grave, in fact, lies in Ridgefield not far from this retreat.
The campus’s Gilbert-designed open space and his Infirmary and Nurses’ Building are too
important to lose. These historic and cultural resources represent key moments in American
landscape and architectural history on a regional and national level. If demolished or significantly
impaired, they could never be replaced and the State would lose an economically significant
resource for the area. They, and the natural resources of the site, should be protected against overscaled development, which likely would render significant negative change to the distinctive
historic open space and architecture of the site as outlined in Option 4/Hybrid Park, which would
eviscerate the very qualities that make the site special.
We strongly believe that the Cass Gilbert-designed open space of the site and his historic buildings
should be saved and adaptively reused in Option 1/Destination Park, because that proposal offers
the greatest number of economic, historic, and aesthetic benefits within reasonable development
parameters for the new Seaside State Park in Waterford, Connecticut.
Sincerely,
Barbara Christen, Ph.D., Baltimore, MD / former executive director of the Cass Gilbert Projects
(NY); co-editor of and contributor to Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architect of the Public Domain
Mary Beth Betts, Ph.D., New York, NY / former curator of Architectural Collections, New–York
Historical Society
Charles Birnbaum, FASLA, FAAR, Washington, DC / President and CEO, The Cultural
Landscape Foundation

 Linda Bjorklund, Prescott, WI / former board member, Cass Gilbert Society
Thomas R. Blanck, Prescott, WI / architect; advisor to the Minnesota Capital Area Architectural and
Planning Board; co-founder of the Cass Gilbert Society
Ann M. Burton, Washington, CT / Former President, Connecticut Community Foundation
Helen Post Curry, New Canaan, CT / great-granddaughter of Cass Gilbert; administrator, Woolworth
Building tours (NY)
Andrew Dolkart, M.S., New York, NY / professor, Historic Preservation Program, Columbia University
Gail Fenske, Ph.D., Bristol, RI / professor of architecture, Roger Williams University
Steven Flanders, Pelham, NY / co-editor of Cass Gilbert, Life and Work: Architect of the Public
Domain
Hildegard M. Grob, Ridgefield, CT / executive director, Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center
Robert W. Grzywacz, Meriden, CT / vice president, Architecture Studio, DeCarlo & Doll, Inc.
Sharon Irish, Ph.D., Urbana/ Champaign, IL / Gilbert scholar and affiliated faculty, School of
Architecture, University of Illinois
James B. Law, St. Paul, MN / member, Cass Gilbert Society
Ted Lentz, AIA, St. Paul, MN / president, Cass Gilbert Society
Ann Rogers Nye, Waterford, CT / editor and writer; Waterford, CT, resident
Robert Nye, Waterford, CT / Municipal Historian, Waterford, CT
Charles Pankenier, Ridgefield, CT / board member, Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center
Marjorie Pearson, Ph.D., St. Paul, MN / president emerita and Newsletter editor, Cass Gilbert Society
Chuck Post, San Francisco, CA / great-grandson of Cass Gilbert; real estate developer
Nancy Stark, St. Paul, MN / executive secretary of the Minnesota Capital Area Architectural and
Planning Board
Robert A.M. Stern, FAIA, New York, NY / J. M. Hoppin Professor of Architecture and former dean,
Yale School of Architecture; Founder and Senior Partner, Robert A.M. Stern Architects
Jean Velleu, St. Paul, MN / co-founder and president emerita, Cass Gilbert Society
[continued]

 cc:
Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Senator
Julia Carlton, Associate, Sasaki Associates, Inc.
David Collins, Staff Columnist, The Day, New London, CT
Joe Courtney, U.S. Representative, 2nd Congressional District
Paul Formica, State Senator, 20th Senatorial District
Alyssa Lozupone, Architectural Preservationist, State Historic Preservation Officer, Hartford, CT
Kathleen McCarty, State Representative, 38th District
Christopher Murphy, U.S. Senator
Robert Nye, Municipal Historian, Town of Waterford
John O’Neill, Chairman, Waterford Historic Properties Commission
Abby Piersall, Director of Planning and Development, Town of Waterford
Martha Shanahan, Health/Environment/Energy Reporter, The Day, New London, CT
Daniel Steward, First Selectman, Town of Waterford
Christopher Wigren, Deputy Director, Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation
Media cc:
Boston Globe
Hartford Courant
National Trust for Historic Preservation
New York Times
Washington Post