Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page B03

THE HARTFORD COURANT FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2010 B3 CTNOW SIMSBURY AVON Recession Pinching Suburban Towns CONSTRUCTION, SPENDING SLOW By RINKER BUCK rbuckcourant.com MARK MIRKO mmirkocourant.com LORELLE PORRAZZO'S face can be seen in the mirror as she looks around the Joseph Webb House in Wethersfield, which is currently decorated to reflect Christmas in the 1920s. Seasonal tours continue at the Webb House, the Silas Deane House and the Isaac Stevens House through Sunday. The Stevens House is decorated to reflect Christmas in the 1820s and 1830s. The parlor at the Deane home is set up for a New Year's Day calling. WEBB-DEANE-STEVENS MUSEUM HOMES FOR HOLIDAYS SEASONAL SETTINGS AT THREE HISTORIC STRUCTURES OFTER PEEKS AT THE PAST By AMANDA FALCONE afalconecourant.com BITS OF HISTORY Facts from the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum in Wethersfield, which comprises three historic houses: SIMSBURY AVON The comfortable suburbs of the Farmington Valley may not be everyone's idea of where to go to assess the recession, but you can't say that to Henry Miga.

Miga is Simsbury's building official, and this time of year he's busy calculating trends for housing starts and building permits to see how the town is doing and to help prepare estimates for next year's budget. And those numbers show that the recession has taken a heavy toll on the public finances of a town that has always relied on growth. In Simsbury new single-family home starts that totaled 21 in 2007, and dropped to 10 as the recession took hold in 2008, fell off the cliff to just three in 2009, Miga said. Diminished building activity associated with the recession is reflected in another statistic he provided. Total building permits for all construction from new sheds to bathroom renovations to electrical work dropped from 1,823 in 2007 to 1,409 in 2009.

The value of these permits fell from $42.3 million in 2007 to $18.6 million in 2009 a dramatic confirmation of the slump that local building contractors have complained about. Miga said the value of commercial construction has also dropped dramatically from $15.6 million in 2007 to $6.9 million in 2009. Avon Numbers The sluggish national economy and skittishness on the part of consumers and businesses regarding big purchases are reflected in other numbers from Avon. Town Assessor Harry DerAsadourian said there have been big drops in two areas: the total value of computers and business equipment that the town can tax for business personal property, and the value of registered cars that the town can tax. In 2007, DerAsadourian said, business personal property in Avon had a total value of $85.6 million, but that figure dropped to $82.7 million in 2008.

(Avon has not finished calculating its 2009 figures, he said.) Registered motor vehicles in Avon dropped in value from $158.1 million in 2007 to $148.1 million in 2008, he said. Town officials have concluded that residents have simply stopped buying new cars and computers until the recession is over, DerAsadourian said, and the lower figures for the town are caused by the depreciating value of their cars and computers. "We lost $10 million in the value of cars in just one tax year, costing us about $234,000 less revenue, so you can see what recession does to us in terms of municipal finance," he said. "People just aren't buying new cars or investing heavily in their businesses, and we're the ripple effect." horse and dollhouse. Children were not allowed to play with toys on Sundays unless they were religious toys, Lyle said.

As a result, he said the Noah's Ark play set was quite popular. The Joseph Webb House, which was built in 1752 and later owned by well-known photographer Wallace Nutting, is decorated to reflect Christmas in the 1920s. The house has two large Christmas trees, including one in the room where George Washington met French commander Comte de Rochambeau in 1781 to plan the battle of Yorktown, and a table full of real and fake holiday desserts. "It's meant to be over-the-top," Lyle said. The public can tour the three homes through Sunday.

Tours run today and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours start at 211 Main St. Tickets are $10 per person, $8 per person for museum members or groups, $5 for children and $25 a family Family is defined as two adults and children.

It is nice to see history sequentially and to learn about people's achievements and pastimes, Paul Henry of South Windsor, said about the tour. The museum will resume public tours of the three homes in the spring, when it will showcase a restored bed chamber at the Joseph Webb House. The restoration of the chamber where Washington slept during his stay is the museum's major project, Lyle said. The original wallpaper is still in the SILAS DEANE: bed chamber where Yale graduate. George Washington slept during his stay at the Joseph Webb House in 1781.

Silas Deane's son, Jesse, received a walking stick that features a snake motif from Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat and military officer during the Revolutionary War. The stick is on display at the Silas Deane House. As a lawyer, Silas Deane represented Joseph Webb. When Webb died, Deane married his widow. Of the three homes, the Isaac Stevens House is the only one that never housed slaves.

SOURCE: Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum WETHERSFIELD There are no Christmas trees at the Silas Deane House on Main Street. The focus is on New Year's Day That was the big holiday in the 18th century, said Charles Lyle, executive director of the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum. Christmas was not widely celebrated in Connecticut until the 1820s or 1830s, he said. The parlor at the Deane home is set up for a New Year's Day calling, which was a social event that involved refreshments and a time for men to settle their debts, Lyle explained as he led a tour describing Deane's life and residence. "He was really pretty famous, but had a tragic life," Lyle said.

Deane, a Yale University graduate and a Connecticut representative to the Continental Congress, was instrumental in planning and financing the Revolutionary War battle of Fort Ticonderoga. He was later accused of treason and profiteering, and died on a ship in 1789 while trying to return to America from England. Deane was never found guilty of the accusations, and Congress paid his heirs $37,000 in restitution. Deane's home was built in 1770, and is one of three historic homes in town decorated for the holidays by the museum. The museum offers public tours through Sunday "It's kind of an extra special touch," said Lorelle Porrazzo of Wallingford.

Porrazzo toured the homes recently with her 13-year-old daughter, Elise, who wants to be a history teacher. The pair said they enjoy visiting historic places, and say their next stop will be the mansions in Newport, R.I. Though New Year's Day is highlighted at the Silas Deane House, the Joseph Webb and Isaac Stevens houses both embrace Christmas. The Stevens House, built in 1780, belonged to leather worker Isaac Stevens and remained in his family until the late 1950s. The museum decorated the home to depict Christmas in the 1820s and 1830s.

Tabletop Christmas trees feature simple ornaments, and children's stockings are filled with presents. There is also a room full of toys, Lyle said with a smile, showing off a rocking CHARLES LYLE, left, of the Museum, talks to Wallingford residents Elise Porrazzo, 13, and her mom, Lorelle, and Paul Henry of South Windsor at the Stevens House. BRISTOL 'New Urbanism' Drives Firm's Plan For Old Mall Site By DON STACOM dstacomcourant.com BRISTOL After a series of frustrating false starts, city officials will bring out their newest strategy Monday for reviving downtown. The Bristol Downtown Development Corp. is inviting residents to hear a Long Island-based development company outline its plan for the barren Bristol Centre Mall site.

The session starts at 6:30 p.m. at Bristol Eastern High School. Renaissance Downtowns LLC wants to be named chief developer of the 17-acre property The company says it can attract builders and investors to transform the vacant lot with new multistory buildings. Renaissance says that when the economy rebounds, the site can be a hub of new development with apartments or condos, street-level stores, restaurants, a hotel and, possibly, professional offices. "Empty nesters and young professionals will define the heart of the market, as these profitable.

The quality of tenants slid, too, with name-brand department stores and clothing retailers replaced by bargain shops and knickknack outlets. In 2003, city officials began planning to buy the mall, demolish it and put up a complex of public buildings, a performing arts theater and new retail and office space. Gov John G. Rowland offered $45 million in state aid. But that plan, too, seemed doomed.

Rowland resigned nearly a year before the city closed the sale, and the new governor, M. Jodi Rell, never shared his enthusiasm for the project. The plan's two chief proponents Mayor Gerard Couture and state Rep. Kosta Diamantis both lost their seats after the $5.3 million sale went through. Couture's successor, William Stortz, scrapped the idea for public buildings and proposed an all-private development instead.

But critics said he simply dawdled; the boarded-up mall was still waiting for a wrecker's ball when Stortz was voted out in demographics gravitate toward higher density urban living," predicts the company's 55-page proposal. "Unique dining concepts and local specialty shops will animate the street scene and differentiate this district from other local options." Donald Monti, chairman of Renaissance, will get to tell the public about his plan for making the site the centerpiece of a revived downtown. The vacant lot, optimistically named Depot Square by city officials, was home for more than 40 years to one of Connecticut's least successful shopping centers. When the Bristol Centre Mall was built in the heart of downtown in the mid-'60s, developers said it could help restore an urban center that already was in steep decline. But the sprawling concrete mall and acres of asphalt parking lot were better designed for the car-centered culture of the suburbs, according to some longtime residents.

It never caught on as a destination shopping center for other towns, and it went through a series of owners who struggled to keep it 2007. New Mayor Art Ward followed Stortz 's plan to turn the project over to an appointed board, the Bristol Downtown Development Corp. But by the time the mall was razed, environmental studies were finished and marketing materials were assembled, the retail and commercial real estate markets had collapsed. Now, Renaissance says it can put together a development plan based on "new urbanism," with a heavy emphasis on having people live near where they work and shop. The company's Depot Square plan includes parking garages, a civic plaza and space for a train station if passenger service is restored on the freight line that runs along the edge of the property The company contends that if the full project is built, it would generate $1.5 million a year in tax revenue for the city If the downtown development group is satisfied with Renaissance's proposal, it plans to pursue a preliminary agreement with the company later this month..