Outtakes - Guilford, Connecticut, Part 3

OAN EASTMAN BALDWIN has lived on the west side of the green for 30 years and sells real estate out of her blue house with a rose bush twining around its signpost. "It is absolutely the most exciting experience," she says. "I've raised seven children here. The parades go by our front door, the fairs are here, we have acres of manicured front lawn. I feel very fortunate."

All Ages Enjoy the Green

But the price of that experience is out of reach for all but a few, she admits. Even last summer when there were more houses for sale than people to buy them, "for a place within walking distance of the green you can't start for less than $250,000. Houses on the green itself go for a million or more."

"The housing costs are outrageous," says Father John Pelletier pastor of St. George Catholic Church, which may be the only 20th-century building on the green and sits well back from the curbside as if ashamed of that fact. "If a house on the green costs a million dollars, it drives all the prices up. One of the saddest things I've seen here is a lot of the older people, the natives, who are being uprooted. They can't afford to live here."

Across the green from St. George is the soaring stone tower of the Episcopal Church, whose rector the Reverend Bradford Locke, is a cheerful man who has been watching Guilford grow and change for more than 30 years. "The parish is very diverse," he said, "blacks, whites, old-timers, newcomers. I like it that way. I wouldn't want it all the same.

Everyone Finds His Own Way to Enjoy the Green

"This parish started in 1744, right out there," he said, pointing to a spot on the green where the walkways meet. "They built the stone church here between 1836 and 1838. The stone came from the same quarry, right here in Guilford, that supplied the base of the Statue of Liberty. They had to move the graveyard, too, which caused a stir. People didn't want the bones of their ancestors disturbed, but in fact, they didn't find many bones. Dust to dust happens quicker than most people think it does."

Rev. Locke takes a philosophical view of Guilford's growth. "People today feel that life is crowding in on them," he said. "They want to go someplace where there's some space. They look at the green; it reminds them of an earlier time, when we were an agrarian society and the pace of life wasn't so fast. It gives them a sense of peace."

"That's what brought us here," agrees Dr. Kendrick Norris, senior minister of the First Congregational Church, which dominates the north side of the green. A New Yorker by birth, he came with his family from Cheshire when called to the Guilford church. "When we saw this green, we said, 'This is it -- this is where we stay.'"

That was 12 years ago. Since then, Dr. Norris has seen his role in Guilford as keeping a balance between preserving the historic values of the town and making room for the new people, money, and ideas that surge back and forth like the tides on the Sound. The clash of old and new creates continual conflict, but then it has for 350 years. Guilford was founded by people who had to leave England because of religious disputes. In recent years, on Palm Sunday, the church doors around the green have opened and believers of different faiths have met in the middle to bless the fronds together which would have dismayed Puritan Henry Whitfield. To Dr. Norris, it is a symbolic act that goes beyond religious ritual.

"We all have our differences," he acknowledges. "But on the green, we can meet. We all love the green."

Relaxing with a Good Book on the Guilford Green