Over the past five years, Greenwich developer Albert Orlando and his wife Dianne, a Fairfield county real estate agent, have been transforming East Elm Street in downtown Greenwich one house at a time.
The Orlando Development Company, which was founded and began its work on East Elm in 2003, has grown into two communities on the street, Arbor Rose and Lily’s Path, with a third on the way.
“What has happened here in Greenwich hasn”™t been replicated and would be very hard to replicate, in the downtown of Greenwich and frankly in the downtown of anywhere,” said Albert Orlando. “We”™ve been able to acquire properties that are directly adjacent to one another to create this community literally a five-minute walk from Greenwich Avenue.”
East Elm Street was historically designated as a high-density multiple-family residential district, intended to provide multifamily dwellings for the working class during the early 20th century.
Albert Orlando, a former history teacher, takes great interest in the sense of community and can map out the history of each lot.
“It was a bustling little town that really supported the wealth that was here living in the Backcountry and Midcountry areas of Greenwich,” he said. “The two-family homes around this neighborhood were a wonderful thing for the working-class people of Greenwich.”
In 2003, Orlando took up the task of building the four original homes at Arbor Rose, though he would soon include another adjoining lot to make Arbor Rose a six-unit complex, and ultimately a 10-unit community.
The acquisitions of the Arbor Rose and Lily”™s Path properties took Orlando against the conventional strategies of developers by acquiring each property over a period of time to gain large-scale space. Rather than acquiring lots on a large scale he obtained each unit from separate owners.
“One of the old clichés that builders tend to adhere to is that you should put as many units on a piece of property as the land will allow and I just don”™t do that, certainly not here,” said Orlando. “There was probably the ability to put 6 units on these final two parcels, 106 and 110 East Elm, instead of doing that we”™re putting three, sometimes the clichés don”™t follow and don”™t work and what works here is that less is more. Build them right, build them beautifully and that so far has been our success.”
Both communities are a five minute walk from Greenwich Avenue.
Arbor Rose has similarly designed units; all have been bought including the one that Orlando and his wife Dianne now live in.
Arbor Rose units average at 4,000 square feet. They began selling at $2.5 million. The French stucco, which is still under construction, went for just over $6 million.
Lily”™s Path, named for the Orlando”™s grandchild, has a variety of different styled homes from Colonial American to French countryside.
Between two of the Lily”™sPath homes there is a vineyard-inspired garage modeled after a California winery.
“I know that everybody in Greenwich likes different things; they want their identity,” said Orlando. “It”™s the ability to live in a condominium lifestyle that”™s more akin to the Backcountry Greenwich.”
The final Lilly’s Path unit will be open for purchase this May. It is the last of the properties’ available.
Lily’s Path won an award for Best Attached Home in 2006 from the Homebuilder’s Association of Connecticut.
“Greenwich Avenue is one of the top shopping avenues in the United States; it”™s getting better and better all the time,” said Orlando. “Yet the support residential component was not representing that, and that”™s why we felt that we”™d be successful and we were. We sold all 10; 250 people came through and 10 bought, which is phenomenal. East Elm is dead center at Greenwich Avenue; it”™s not up a bit it”™s not down a bit, it”™s the perfect axis.”
The Orlandos have recently purchased the East Elm properties adjacent to their own unit and will take part in another three-unit project called The Residences.
“We”™ve built all of these homes to absolute unquestionable quality,” said Orlando. “We try not to squeeze into our spaces but create quality in what we have. This is not a plan that was set in stone, we continue to evaluate.”
