David Cassidy in the News
Singer David Cassidy enjoyed bringing his wreck of a home in Ridgefield, Connecticut, back to life
July 7, 2002
By Louise Johncox
The Sunday Times (England UK)
Time & Place: In tune with an American beauty
I bought our home in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in just 10 minutes. My wife, Sue, and I walked through the house and I wrote a cheque. We were the first people to look around it because the broker knew we'd like it, and he got us in before it opened to the public. The people who showed up after us were irate because they had been waiting to get inside. In 1995, I was working on Broadway in Blood Brothers, and we'd been looking for a home in Connecticut for a number of years.
I had passed the house in the car for about four years and although it was a wreck, we knew we wouldn't find a place like that again.
Ridgefield is the most charming town - very New England. The house is like a picture postcard, as is the town. It has one of the most beautiful main streets in the United States. The area is historical as it was developed in the industrial revolution, when a lot of Italian stonemasons came and worked in the town.
The house was two-storey brick (what we call brick colonial), set in about 4½ acres of gardens. It was built in 1932 and the original owner was the president of the Garden Club of America, who had chosen the area because of the trees. There were lots of beautiful plants and a 500-year-old maple tree in the back garden which, to this day, is the most beautiful tree I've seen.
When I finished Blood Brothers, I had 2½ months off when I worked on the house and the grounds every day. I looked after the gardens myself to start with and used a tractor - 4½ acres of lawn is a lot. We were also surrounded by 17 acres of wood, so it was extremely private.
I'd describe it as a country gentleman's kind of place, although I'm not exactly a country gentleman - that makes me sound like I'm retired and smoking a pipe.
Sue and I have done up seven houses - we both like the challenge of restoring a place. When you take a house that has been let go and bring it back, it's like finding an old jewel and polishing it up.
We left the front of the house alone, because it was magnificent, and we worked on the back and the sides. We built an enormous stone and flagstone patio on the back that must have been 2,000sq ft. We knocked walls down, opened it up and put in more windows. We added a large living room and bay window on the back and we put my grand piano in the bay.
I found it inspiring being in an environment that was so aesthetically pleasing. I wrote a lot of stuff there, including songs that were in a show I did in Las Vegas called At The Copa. I also wrote a song that is arguably one of the best songs I've ever written, called New York City Life, which is going to be on my next CD.
We had a lot of pine and antique New England furniture plus some English and Irish stuff too, which we bought when I was performing in Time in the West End.
My son, Beau, had posters of the Yankees all over his room because we're big baseball fans and go to Yankee games - he's a real all-American boy. He was five when we moved there and he went to his first school (the public school where everybody goes). We'd walk him to the end of the driveway and the school bus picked him up.
I'm not a guy who throws parties and the town wasn't a celebrity hang-out. It was a place where people raised their kids. We got involved in the community and knew our neighbours. People were aware I lived there but it wasn't a big deal. They respected my privacy and didn't take advantage of it. I'd get the odd person who drove by, but it wasn't as if they could see or hear what we were doing.
We sold it at the end of 1997 because I was working in Las Vegas and had to move there, much to my wife's dismay. I have been a gypsy most of my life so I'm able to pack up and move, shifting gears very quickly. I've been on the road for the past 18 months and my home is wherever I am.
David Cassidy plays the Summer Pops festival, in Liverpool, on Thursday.
