on a Leverett hill
LEVERETT - A developer has slowly been transforming a quiet, wooded hillside into a small, expensive community of single homes. But at the same time, Sidney Poritz has been preserving land, providing considerable tax benefits to the town and winning praise from town officials.
Poritz, who formerly taught sculpture and design at the University of Massachusetts, says he has tried to strike a balance between development and preservation with his Laurel Hill development.
The homes, architectural marvels perched at or near the top of the 1,000-foot hill, enjoy spectacular views of the surrounding hills and features as far away as Mount Greylock and Vermont's Mount Snow.
"I think this was an ideal project for the town," said Poritz, who has also built affordable housing in the region and rehabilitated historic homes. "I think we've minimized the impact on the land while also preserving open space."
Town planners and conservationists who worked with the North Leverett developer back in the mid and late 1980s when he first proposed the Laurel Hill subdivision say the project has worked out very well overall.
"Sidney is interested in conservation and with people's concerns," said Annette Gibavic, a member of Leverett's Rattlesnake Gutter Trust, which holds the conservation restriction barring development on the 130 acres of Laurel Hill common land. "And it's nice not to see houses just set down, plop, plop, plop, right next to each other," Gibavic said.
The subdivision's road, snaking in one and a half miles from Chestnut Hill Road, is maintained by Poritz, for example, and residents draw their own well water and use septic systems for human waste.
Poritz says he could have made more money by building a more standard development consisting of smaller, closely clustered housing lots; a subdivision like that could have had 40 or 50 houses, he said.
"I know it's probably not thought politically correct in this area to build houses like this," he said. "But I can't apologize for high-income housing."
With an artist's pride, he pointed to the layout of the subdivision and the house he built himself - a $600,000 structure with a gambrel roof and attached sections modeled on an old New England farmhouse and barn - and said, "This is a work of art."
Poritz first brought his subdivision plan to Leverett officials in 1985 after buying the land from three different owners. He won town approval by the late 1980s and put in the subdivision road and began clearing the thick tree cover for lots.
"I did a lot of things here myself," said Poritz. "Every year I'd clear some trees. I drew up most of the plans. I didn't get into a lot of debt."
Poritz also takes a great interest in the history of the hill, which he says was likely home to some American Indians before white settlers arrived in the area in the 18th century.
The hill itself was not cleared and settled by whites until well into the 19th century, he said, when one family had a sheep farm there. That family left sometime after the Civil War, leaving the forest to reclaim the hill over the next century, as loggers last felled trees on it in 1935.
"We're like the second wave of settlers," said Poritz. "Development tends to run in cycles, and I think that's okay if it's done responsibly. There's room for preservation and development."
Excerpt from article which appeared in the
Daily Hampshire Gazette, May 1996
