There’s a rather modest house on the corner of Marks Road and Riverside Avenue that recently sold. The new owners have been busy ever since laying down stone, everywhere and building what I think will prove to be the framework for a stone wall. At least I think it will be a wall; it’s late in the season to grow climbing beans.
Hey, it’s their property and the can do what they like with it, but it does add a certain fortified look to the neighborhood.
FWIW Ace Cub Reporter/photographer Sarah Fountain has been on the scene.
For What It's Worth 
The multiple Beware of Dog signs give it that certain bit of class that Riverside has always lacked. Now we can look more like Cos Cob or Byram.
Just call me Eagle Eye Fountain
Another movie you haven’t seen, but should:
Hey Riverside, stop making stupid assumptions. In Cos Cob we let the dogs run loose, no signs. Makes life more interesting. Of course, they’re golden labs or shi-tzu’s, and you might get leg humped depending on the season, but still.
The Obamas have two dogs…….hmmmm
So in Connecticut he can do really what he wants with his property? This New Yorker has no understanding of that concept. Here he’d be slapped with fines for putting up fencing without a permit not to mention he’d probably be hauled in for a violation of some aesthetic code for choosing such ugly fence. I think I’m jealous he can do what he wants but glad he’s not my neighbor.
Neighborly, huh?
I love the MYOFB spray painted in green on the black plastic fence as well as the sign about some philosophy mumbo jumbo about arrogance. Chris, some investigating on the MLS about the buyers? These people strike me as the ones that have bumper stickers covering their cars protesting everything.
Really? I’ll have to stroll by for a closer inspection. Gosh.
Does MYOFB mean mind your own fu@kin business or some philosophy term I’m missing?
It does. This all gets weirder by the day. Maybe I do want to buy an AR-15 after all.
This place reminds me a bit of the Branch Davidian compound. Have you seen a Gerry-rigged radio tower yet? I’ve driven past one of these places on the way to Harrisburg in PA a few times. Lots and lots of similar signage, bunker-like buildings, makeshift radio array and fencing, fencing fencing (no swear words on the homemade billboards though, the PA group is a religious cult or sect of some sort). First jHouse, now nouveau Branch Davidian types? Things are getting pretty funky in riverside these days…
How about the Branch Davidians at the JHouse…..Now THAT I want to see!!!!
There are height limits to that stuff. The wire used on the fence is the reinforcing wire used in concrete slabs. Nice rustic rust to it.
Exactly. Doesn’t fencing have to be up to code? How’d you like to be the guy that tells them that it’s not (yikes)?
How bout the two huge animals hanging out in the front yard, resting against bales of hay!? Classy!
Having noticed this transformation over the past months, I will say that some parts of the appearance are concerning. However, maybe we should give the owner the benefit of the doubt until we see the completed project. Could it be possible that the fence is only temporary? I would add that I have not noticed the MYOFB tags and that observation definitely lowers my optimism.
If I get tipsy tonight, maybe ill add “LOL” to the MYOFB!
Better watch your six if you do, RC. They might sic the hounds on you.
I feel bad for the people selling the house above/next to them. It’s been on the market for awhile and this “construction” won’t help.
Yes, I see you all have noticed that I have moved to Riverside.
I am surprised you can have a fence that high in your front yard. I wonder what the zoning is on that. The Beware of Dog and other signs are very odd.
That corner was pretty dangerous before, if that becomes a stone wall it will be a fatal accident in waiting. A fence can be 6ft high w/out a permit right?
The circa 1892 Victorian house on the northwest corner of Marks Road and Riverside Avenue (2 Marks Road) was purchased by the next door neighbors at 6 Marks Road after sitting on the market unwanted for quite some time. They fenced the yard so they could have a dog run for their two old and very nice Newfoundland dogs. The new fence, being appropriately set back from the road and not more than 6 feet high, should be entirely legal.
Personally, I kind of like what they have done now that the signs and the sprayed MYOFB are gone (and who had sprayed that crude comment is unclear). It is all much more interesting than the three painfully dull new spec houses just up the hill on Marks Road. Those make me wonder if I live in a latter-day, upscale Levittown instead of Riverside. Such completely unimaginative houses sadden the soul and are spreading like the plague around here.
In short, lighten up folks, and enjoy a bit of whimsy amongst all the beige-stained shingle, rectangle shaped phony “New England” style houses that seem to be all that builders care to construct here these days.
I’d say it was just the general curiosity of the neighbors that was (naturally, I think) stirred up, not hostility of any kind. But when the MYOFB was painted on and the dozen “Beware of Dog” signs posted, curiosity turned to vague alarm: who are these people? But indeed, they’re certainly within their rights to build any kind of wall or fence they like, and I don’t believe their neighbors in this tiny portion of Riverside will give two hoots.
Well, I am one of their neighbors (and I have met the owners of the property in question as I have met all my neighbors) and, as I said, I see no problem here.
Some of the comments above, in particular the ones comparing my neighbors’ house to the Branch Davidian compound or a “petting zoo,” do not seem to me to express just general curiosity, but rather a degree of meanness of spirit and of intolerance of any lack of suburban conformity (actually, I would have said something stronger if I was not concerned about myself being impolite and eliciting more collateral commentary). That I do not like, and I personally welcome things a bit out of the ordinary as much as I think it is important to be civil to one’s neighbors.
Anyway, I think it is time for all of us to move along and to accept and enjoy the serendipity of this latest addition to our neighborhood.
Hear, Hear, I too am a neighbor and don’t mind it a bit. I also found the previous comments frighteningly “bullying” in nature. Didn’t Greenwich High School just have a teen suicide due to bullying?
I also have neighbors in much less modest homes who are the rudest self absorbed I’ve ever known. Wish they weren’t my neighbors. The owners of these two homes are kind and considerate. We like them.