The Dana Holcombe House—

Work Begins On A New Main Street Landmark

By Kaaren Valenta

The Rev Michael Jude Fay was a young priest at St Rose of Lima when he watched as the Yankee Drover Inn was reduced to ashes by a raging fire in 1981.

Now pastor of St John’s in Darien, Father Fay returned to Newtown this week to bless the construction of a new building, the Dana Holcombe House, which is being built on Main Street by his friends John and Jane Vouros.

The couple’s 20-year dream to build on the site of what had been, for more than 130 years, an inn and restaurant finally came to fruition two weeks ago when builder Michael Stavrakis of Samos LLC directed an excavator to begin digging the basement for the new establishment in the heart of the historic district.

“All of this concrete came from the foundation and the basement of the Yankee Drover,” Mr Vouros said, gesturing at a pile of broken slabs that the excavator had dug up.

The blaze that destroyed the Yankee Drover began during the early morning hours of January 28, 1981. Nearly 80 firefighters battled the flames for almost five hours before bringing them under control.

John Vouros, whose 35-year teaching career brought him to Newtown in 1973, also came to the scene of the fire that night. Two years later, he and a local contractor bought the property with the intention of rebuilding the inn. Eventually Mr Vouros and his wife, a physical education teacher at the Reed Intermediate School, became the sole owners of the vacant lot next to the Meeting House.

“It was fated that we had to do something here,” Mr Vouros said. “I sold the property five times and every time it came back to me.”

That he never gave up was largely due to the vision and support of Josephine Holcombe, a close friend who was the Vouroses’ neighbor when they converted the former Taunton Hill schoolhouse as a residence after their marriage in 1975.

“Josephine was inspirational, brilliant, and humble beyond belief,” Mr Vouros recalled. “She was a real grand dame who loved to throw parties, but she was also educationally minded and she took us on as friends, almost as the children she couldn’t have. She sponsored us each year, giving us the money to help keep the dream alive, even after she died in the early 90s.”

“Naming this the Dana Holcombe House is really a tribute to Josephine, who — if she were alive — probably wouldn’t let me do this because she never wanted to be in the public eye, not even when her husband, Bill, was the first selectman,” Mr Vouros said.

“She’s my Mary Hawley,” he said, comparing her to the town’s most notable benefactor, “and for me, and for Jane, it is only right that she should be memorialized. She had her house [on Birch Hill Road] designed by a famous architect with a grand ballroom where she threw fabulous parties. Years later she tried to give it to the town, but the town refused it so she hired a bulldozer and shoved [the house] into a hole.” Eventually the property was bequeathed to the Newtown Forest Association.

Besides Josephine Holcombe’s name, the Dana Holcombe House will also bear Jane’s maiden name, Dana, which also happens to be the name of the architect, Richard Dana, who designed the house in Litchfield on which the Dana Holcombe House is based. John Madzula was the local Newtown architect on the project.

The Dana Holcombe House will have seven bedrooms with private baths, including two large suites and the owners’ residence. There will be a dining room that will seat more than 20, and a large conservatory at the rear of the property behind a patio, lawn, and — eventually — a long narrow reflecting pool.

Classified as a residential property with a nonconforming use, the Dana Holcombe House is not officially a bed and breakfast, nor a restaurant or inn. There will be overnight accommodations with breakfast for the guests, but the facility also will be available for what Mr Vouros calls “intimate catered affairs.”

“We hope to draw business persons Monday through Thursday, then the weekend guests of local residents,” Mr Vouros said. “We will also function like Tarrywile [Mansion] in Danbury, where caterers come in to do corporate lunches, small weddings, and other events.”

Originally the intention had been to rebuild as a 175-seat, 15,000-square foot restaurant, but financial obstacles and other circumstances kept sidetracking the project. Mr Vouros, Discovery Program teacher for more than 17 years, also was involved with the renovation of the Mary Hawley Inn (now the Inn at Newtown) and for 12 years has been assisting his friend Michael Valeri, owner of La Fortuna restaurant in Bethel. The Vouroses sold their schoolhouse home, put everything in storage, and have been renting on Lake Zoar. They also sold a parcel at the rear of the Main Street property for a private home, leaving about 1.3 acres for the project.

Now John Vouros said he hopes that construction of the 7,000-squre foot Dana Holcombe House, slated to cost about $1 million, will be finished by the middle to late June of next year. The structure will include a living room, a library, and a family/tap room with complimentary beverages for guests. (The establishment will not have a license to sell liquor.)

“I want guests to feel like they are in our home,” Mr Vouros said. “One of the suites will have access from the outside and will be a true suite with a living room — perfect for brides and large enough for cocktails. Another suite of equal size will accommodate a family and will be more private.”

Room rates are expected to range from $125 to $175 a night, he said, including breakfast and complimentary beverages.

About 100 feet behind the house, behind the patio, will be a 19- by 19-foot glass-walled conservatory “filled with plants, furniture, and beautiful music,” he said. The concept includes a 10- by 30- 5-foot reflecting pool in front of the conservatory.

“It has been a short time since we got the [final] plans but we’ve been after this for so long, and it has changed so many times,” Mr Vouros said. “Finally we’ve got a fit. And everyone in town has been so accommodating that it works.”

Of all of the proposals to build on the site over the years, the colonial design of the façade of the Dana Holcombe House comes closest to the original, Jane Vouros said.

“When the building first burned down, everyone wanted a copy of the Drover,” she said. “This version will be the same roofline. It is as close as we can come without recreating it exactly.”

For Father Fay, who blessed the groundbreaking at 29 Main Street with passages from the Psalms, the project will finally bring healing from the devastation of the fire.

“I was there that night,” he recalled. “I walked up from the church with [then pastor] Msgr [Joseph] Kohut. It was a horrible — disheartening for the whole town. Now all these years later, there will be something beautiful at the flagpole. I’m so happy for John and Jane — who were two of my very best friends — and I’m so happy for the town.”