Fairfield Beach

For most people the beach is a summer idea. In Fairfield it is a daily one, and this is the neighborhood where that distinction stops being a figure of speech. The Beach area is the most walkable market in Fairfield and it has the best proximity to both downtown and the train. That combination is the value proposition.

What You Are Actually Buying

Walking here is not exercise. It is transportation. Residents can go days without getting in a car, which is not something you can say about any other part of town. Fairfield station sits just over a mile from Penfield Beach, and Fairfield Beach Road runs roughly one to two miles from downtown depending on which end you start from — a twenty-five minute walk on average, or five minutes by car.

The trade is land. Lot sizes here are the smallest in Fairfield: the town's smallest residential minimums, at 5,000 and 6,000 square feet, are found in the shoreline neighborhoods, against the two-acre minimum in Greenfield Hill. You are buying location and lifestyle rather than acreage, and the people who buy here know that going in.

It has also been the strongest market in Fairfield for much of this century. Demand at the beach has outrun the rest of the town for decades, and it has become one of the priciest neighborhoods in Fairfield.

The Daily Texture

Winters are dog walks on the sand. Summers are swimming, reading, and skimboarding, and evenings run to cookouts, bonfires, pickup volleyball, movie nights, and clam bakes. The town holds its fireworks in early July at Jennings and Penfield — typically the 3rd rather than the 4th.

Penfield Beach runs about three and a half acres and includes concessions and a playground. Jennings covers twenty-seven acres, with concessions, volleyball, sailboat racks, and the Sand Castle Playground. The Pavilions at Penfield Beach can be rented year-round for weddings and events through Fairfield Parks and Recreation. Veterans Park on Reef Road and the Carl Dickman Par 3 Golf Course on Old Dam Road are both within easy reach, and the Fairfield Museum and History Center sits about a mile inland at the Town Hall Green.

The Housing Stock

The housing is a genuine mix. Old Post Road holds some of the town's most significant historic homes. Fairfield Beach Road runs newer, with a great deal of elevated construction built or rebuilt and a blend of year-round and seasonal properties.

Elevation is not a detail here, it is a pricing input. Whether a house was raised, when it was raised, and what that did to its flood insurance are three of the first questions I ask on any property in this neighborhood, and the answers vary street by street.

Before You Make an Offer

This is the neighborhood where I currently live, and the one where I would tell a buyer to spend an evening before writing an offer. Most people associate this market with the beach for obvious reasons, but it is the access and convenience to town that really makes this market a must for many of its residents.

If you are considering the Beach area, or you already own here and are wondering what your particular street is doing, I would be glad to walk you through it.