Walk Follows History of Highlands

“There are no books about the Highlands,” said Kit Foster. “When people write history books, they think this is too modern to be of consequence.” But Foster, Ledyard’s town historian, finds the Highlands’ history worth sharing.

Foster led a group of 10 on a walk through the Highlands Saturday afternoon. The walk covered roughly 2.5 miles. Throughout the hike, Foster pointed out sites and features that show the area’s history.

One of the most obvious traits about the neighborhood is its ranch houses. Neat little ranches, built on small lots, line most of the roads the group followed, typifying the neighborhood’s beginnings as a single housing development. Foster calls it “Ledyard’s Levittown,” referring to the huge developments of small, uniform houses the Levitt brothers built in Long Island and Pennsylvania after WWII.

 “Ledyard’s Levittown was not quite like that, but when it was first announced, it was big news,” Foster said. “It was the first on this scale – 660 homes, 200 plus acres. At that time, it was one of the largest in the region.”

The year was 1961. The developers, Lifetime Homes, located in Old Saybrook, bought the land from the Brown family, who owned what had once been the Town Farm. They filled the property with houses, most of them ranches or variations of them. Some had garages. Some, called colonial splits and contemporary splits, are now known as raised ranches.

These houses and their yards cover nearly all of the available ground. “There isn’t much waste land, or land left over,” Foster said. “Many of these (streets) just front on the main road, then off these there are those little cul-de-sacs… If you look at it from above, they all fit together nicely.”

Even so, Foster admired the sense of privacy the Highlands managed to develop. Homes are separated by fences, bushes, or trees, in some places. He also noted the adaptability of the ranches. “They need more space, so the garage becomes a living space,” Foster said, giving only one example. “Sometimes they just to make some changes… These houses are very adaptable. You can go up in most cases.”

The area’s roots are also seen on some of the community services available there. An important one is the school. Gallup Hill School was built in 1967. At the time, it was called Cider Hill School, a name that was controversial because it referred to hard cider. After the school was built, “Someone came and stole the letters off the side of the school,” Foster said. “Just the letters C-I-D-E-R.” After that, it was renamed Gallup Hill School.

Highland Lake, with its beach for swimming, was also an attraction. Lifetime Homes had promised it to the Homeowner’s Association, but the mortgage prevented them from getting it. The town took the lake as part of a foreclosure in 1986.

Another service was water. “You don’t build 660 homes and dig 660 wells,” Foster said as he led the group past a water tower. The Highlands originally had a set of standing pipes, but these were replaced by a water tower in 1964.

The Highlands also have a sewer system rather than a septic tank for each house. The Ledyard Highlands Wastewater Treatment Facility is the only such plant in town. Both the water and sewer systems are now run by the town.

Houses were also originally linked to a central fuel system, which was the first of its kind in New England and the second in the country. The pipes later started to leak and the system was shut down by 1982.