Conservation restriction negotiated for Lakeville meadow owned by Bakeses

SALISBURY - After almost three years of negotiations, a deal to restrict development on one of Lake Wononscopomuc's last undeveloped parcels has finally been signed.

In a 23-page agreement signed Dec. 21, the Salisbury Association Land Trust and Lewis and Sandra Bakes set aside their differences and agreed to put the prized property under a conservation restriction that recognizes it as one lot, preserves the viewshed to the lake and restricts it to single-family usage.

The 7.6-acre parcel (which is on Route 44 not far from the Lakeville Historic District), which the Bakeses purchased from John K. Rudd for $2.1 million in November 2005, went back on the market in August as two building lots of 3.8 acres. The asking price for each lot was $2.5 million. But the Bakeses took the properties off the market after only a few months.

Their main bone of contention with the nonprofit Salisbury Association was the fact that the couple had purchased Dean Meadow as two lots (one under the name Lewis Bakes and the other under Sandra Bakes), even as it was widely assumed that the meadow was one parcel. Consequently, the Bakeses wanted to enter into two separate conservation restrictions with the association.

"Basically, I gave them what they wanted," Lewis Bakes said in an interview this week. "We had no plans to develop two lots anyway. At the end of the day, it didn't seem like that much of a hardship."

Land Trust spokesman George Massey said in an e-mail that the deal is the same one that "was envisaged by Mr. Rudd, the town of Salisbury and The Salisbury Association... [there are] good feelings all around."

Late in 2004, the town signed an option to purchase the entire 16-acre Rudd property and two dwellings on the north shore of Lake Wononscopomuc from Rudd for $3.4 million. The selectmen, Rudd and many town residents felt it was important to protect the land from development and perhaps use part of it to expand the neighboring Town Grove, where Salisbury residents swim in summer.

But it quickly became apparent that there was no widespread support in the town for an outright purchase, as officials became increasingly wary of the expense. So a town investigatory committee and Rudd hammered out a private proposal that would have accomplished many of the same goals but at considerably less expense to the taxpayers.

To the relief of the town's many conservationists, Bakes was to buy the Rudd property with a conservation restriction in place that would have prevented extensive development. That restriction would have limited development on Dean Meadow to a single-family home and prohibit further subdivision in perpetuity. All of the properties around Lake Wononscopomuc lie in a 1-acre zone.

"We're grateful to the Bakeses for that easement because it's consistent with the findings of the Rudd Committee," First Selectman Curtis Rand said in an interview. "It's very significant."

The Bakeses have since bought a home in Sharon. Bakes, a wealthy entrepreneur from New Canaan, said the family will decide later this year whether to build a home on Dean Meadow.