Col. Louis D Conley

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Outpost Pond on Danbury Road is a small body of water whose name is connected with one of the biggest commercial operations Ridgefield has ever seen - the 1,500-plus acre Outpost Nurseries, and it is odd that something so big should be recalled by something so small.

The pond was built by Col. Louis D. Conley in the late 1920's, but probably didn't pick up its name until Colonel Conley established his Outpost Inn two months before his death in 1930. It was a famous dining spot, drawing people from miles around for nearly 30 years.

The Colonel, who once led the New York National Guard's "Fighting 69th" Division, built an estate like few others the town has ever seen. At the height of the operation, he owned almost one-tenth of the town, some 30 or 40 houses in which his staff lived, a huge mansion for his family, a sizable farm, kennels for championship dogs, and even his own electrical generating plants and water supplies.

Little of the man-made splendor remains as it was. His 34-room mansion became the Fox Hill Inn along eastern Bennett's Farm Road after 1946, but was torn down in the mid-1970's by the new owner, IBM. The kennels, where later the Coast Guard trained dogs and Gaines tested chow, are now the Red Lion Restaurant. And the inn, damaged by fire around 1970, was torn down. Before the fire, David L. Paul had planned to use the inn as a community building for his Fox Hill Village. He considered calling the apartment and condominium complex "Outpost Village," but the Conley family, which still used the business name, disliked the idea.

What mostly remains of the Outpost holdings represents Colonel Conley's greatest contribution to Ridgefield: thousands and thousands of trees.

Born in 1874, Louis D. Conley grew up in New York City where he spent most of his life and where he and his two brothers took over their father's Conley Tinfoil Company, a major U.S. industry of the era. Around 1914, tiring of hot summers in the city, Colonel Conley bought the old Selleck house atop the hill as an "outpost" from New York City.

"It was the most beautiful place in the state of Connecticut and the most difficult to run," said the late Julius Tulipani of High Ridge, who was superintendent of Outpost Farms starting in 1919.

The estate was almost a small, self-contained empire, growing its own crops, raising livestock, operating its own water system with a 90,000 gallon storage tank, and supplying its own generating plant (the generator had two, 4,500-pound flywheels); later, Colonel Conley became one of only a handful of people in the country who set up wind-powered generators.

Most of the people who worked on the farm lived there in houses supplied by the Colonel. They included families whose names are well known in town today: Marinelli, Cassavechia, Servadio, Baldaserini and of course, Tulipiani.

Even when he was wintering in New York City, Colonel Conley made use of his Ridgefield farm. He would have fresh milk and butter, packed in ice, sent to the city on the 7:32 a.m. train out of Ridgefield.

In 1923, at the suggestion of a friend, Colonel Conley - who had sold off the family business - established Outpost Nurseries, primarily as a hobby. It wound up a giant business venture. The colonel began buying many pieces of land and eventually owned virtually every parcel along Danbury Road from today's "Gasoline Alley" to Route 7, and almost all of the land along Route 7 from Farmingville into Danbury, plus most of the land between - some 2,000 acres.

He (and his successors) planted hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs. Most, of course, were sold, but thousands still remain, nursery stock that has now turned into woodland.

Many names of modern roads serving subdivisions on former Outpost land carry the names of the kinds of trees that had been planted there years before. There's Copper Beech Lane, where the copper beeches grew and still grow; Poplar Road, Birch Lane, Linden Road, Cherry Lane, Dogwood Drive and Laurel Lane. In addition, there's Nursery Road.

Outpost Nurseries became one of the largest retail nursery businesses in the East. Among its many jobs between 1925 and World War II were plantings of the 1933 Chicago World's Fair; the 1939 New York City World's Fair; the National Art Gallery in Washington; parks along Riverside Drive and elsewhere in New York City; Harvard, Yale and Williams colleges; Narragansett and Monmouth Raceways; and the estates of such people as Cole Porter, Lowell Thomas, Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (at Hyde Park), Walter Winchell, Robert Montgomery, and the Buckleys at Sharon.

The business was doing so well that nurseries were set up in New Jersey, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Long Island to grow trees and shrubs that couldn't be raised in Ridgefield's climate or soil. An office was maintained on Park Avenue in New York while the main office was on Route 7, just north of Route 35, in the stone building that's the centerpiece of Stonehouse Commons (just north of the Red Lion).

In 1928, Colonel Conley bought the Danbury Road house, built in 1812, that was to become the Outpost Inn. It opened in July 1930, and over the years, was leased to various restaurateurs including the late Joseph J. Gibney and Laurence I. Graham (who became Wilton's first selectman in the early 1970's). The pond was probably built in 1928, the same year the state abandoned the road that runs into the Fox Hill Village property and replaced it with the straight strip of Route 35 now in use.

In the early 1960's the building served as part of the Shapley School for boys (later co-ed; see Shapley Stretch), which went bankrupt. Mr. Paul bought the property in a 1968 foreclosure auction, and chose the name Fox Hill for his development because Colonel Conley's mansion was situated on that hill.

For many years, Outpost Pond was probably the most popular skating pond in town. With the arrival of the condominiums, public skating ended.

Colonel Conley died Sept. 7, 1930. An editorial in the Danbury Times said: "The colonel has done much to beautify Ridgefield. Attractive buildings have been created, and hundreds of waste acres (that) had been allowed to run to scrub and wild growth, have been cultivated, graded and planted." The nursery became "a splendid public park, running for miles along both sides of roads between Danbury and Ridgefield."

After the colonel's death, the family operated Outpost Nurseries, continuing a large business employing 200 or more people. In 1945, the family sold to the late J. Mortimer Woodcock, who had been the manager (and was from 1967 to 1971, Ridgefield's first selectman). Mr. Woodcock bought only 10 acres, but leased 1,000, and changed the name to Woodcock Nurseries.