When they decided a few years ago they were ready to start a family, Patrick and Sophie Sayre were disillusioned with life in Los Angeles. So they began looking for a home in Connecticut, Ms. Sayre’s home state, focusing on the southeastern shoreline.
“I wanted land and more space,” said Mr. Sayre, 37, a creative director who grew up in Los Angeles. They also sought proximity to beaches, “which I can’t live without,” he added.
Their search spanned from Essex to Mystic, and after about eight months of searching, they found property they “couldn’t resist,” he said. It was a 4,500-square-foot home on an acre in East Lyme, a town on Long Island Sound in New London County.
The Sayres submitted a bid last May and were disappointed when they lost to another bidder. But when that deal later fell through, the owner returned to the couple and they closed for $500,000 in July.
They are now raising a newborn daughter and love the restaurants and shops of downtown Niantic, one of two villages in this 34-square-mile community. And their neighbors, they say, couldn’t be nicer. Overall, “we love the fact that it’s clean, safe, peaceful and quiet,” Mr. Sayre said.
Julianne and Todd Cooke were living in northeastern Connecticut when they began looking for real estate just before the pandemic. They were looking for a better school system for their youngest son and ended up in East Lyme because a nephew had had good experiences with the schools there.
They found a three-story, two-bedroom waterfront home in a family-friendly beach community in Niantic, paid $424,100, and locked up the basement so Ms. Cooke, 42, a pediatric speech and language pathologist, could work with her young clients there.
“We have beautiful beaches within a mile of our home,” she said. “Everyone takes care of everyone in our community and it’s an excellent place to raise a child. There is an Easter egg hunt and a field day around the 4th of July.”
“And,” she added, “there’s a way in and a way out of our neighborhood, so it feels very safe.”
what you will find
With a population of around 19,000, East Lyme is just outside the city of New London, just off Interstate 95. The village of Niantic is in the sub-highway district and on Long Island Sound.
Dense, mostly year-round beach communities with private stretches of sand line the shores of Niantic Bay and the Niantic River. The most exclusive of these, Old Black Point, claims the tip of a peninsula jutting into the Sound. Condominium complexes and 55-and-over developments are scattered across Niantic and the village of Flanders to the northeast of the city. Larger homes on spacious lots are located away from downtown just north of Interstate 95.
Shopping malls, pharmacies and fast-food restaurants cater to daily needs along the major trade corridors, while local shops and restaurants lure visitors to Main Street in downtown Niantic. The village of Flanders is known for its seafood at the Flanders Fish Market & Restaurant on Route 161.
In addition to its extensive shoreline, the community has several ponds and lakes and significant tracts of protected land. Along the Niantic River, the Oswegatchie Hills Nature Preserve has numerous hiking trails winding through its 457 acres. The Nehantic State Forest has a boat launch and picnic facilities. The public beaches at Rocky Neck State Park attract lines of cars waiting to enter on summer mornings.
The village of Niantic is also home to York Correctional Institution, Connecticut’s only women’s prison.
What you pay
Inventory is very limited these days, so multiple bids on new listings are the norm. As of mid-April, there were 15 active single-family home listings ranging from a 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom home on 0.33 acres for $280,000 to a new six-bedroom modernist home on 4.5 acres for $5.95 million dollars were enough.
“We all have buyers waiting in the wings,” said Mary Poola, agent at William Raveis.
The average selling price for a single-family home for the 12 months ended March 31 was $427,500, for which you can buy an older three-bedroom home in a neighborhood some distance from the beach, Ms Poola said, or a cottage. Style house on a small lot closer to the water. The average selling price for a condo or townhouse for the 12 months ended March was $320,000.
The Norton, a new luxury condominium building with ground floor retail outlets on Main Street in Niantic, has raised the bar for condo prices in the area. The building’s 12 units, which have access to a rooftop terrace overlooking Niantic Bay, range in price from $425,000 for a one-bedroom apartment to $1.195 million for a penthouse. All but two have been sold.
“The community was like, ‘This is never going to happen. How can they ask that price?’” said Amanda Gaudette, listing agent on the development at William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty. “Then they started pending, and then they started closing.”
The tense sales market has led to an equally tense rental market. As of last week, only about 17 rentals were available, some of them seasonal. “I recently put one on for $2,100 a month and we’ve had crushes of people,” Ms Poola said. “You feel bad – the market is just so tight.”
The atmosphere
Downtown Niantic is the heart of the community. The stretch of Main Street along Niantic Bay draws locals and visitors alike to boutiques, shops, small restaurants and the Niantic Children’s Museum. Across Main Street, across the bay, is a mile-long boardwalk, McCook Point Park, and Hole-in-the-Wall Beach, which takes its name from the short tunnel under the railroad tracks that the beach goes through became.
“It’s a beach town, but it’s not like Watch Hill or Nantucket — it’s very laid back,” Ms Poola said, referring to the pricier, more popular areas of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. “You can come in from the beach, tie your hair back with a hair tie, and go to a restaurant downtown.”
A farmer’s market is held downtown on Thursday afternoons from June to October.
Just outside of downtown, on West Main, the Book Barn invites shoppers to browse the thousands of used books that fill the main barn and several outbuildings.
The schools
The East Lyme Public School District serves around 2,600 pupils. About 70 percent of them identify as White, 10 percent as Hispanic or Latino, 10 percent as Asian, and the rest as two or more races; 23 percent are entitled to free or discounted meals.
Three elementary schools serve students from kindergarten through fourth grade: Flanders, Lillie B. Haynes, and Niantic Center. The Integrated Preschool offers three- and five-hour day programs for preschoolers with special needs along with their normally developing peers.
Students in grades five through eight attend East Lyme Middle School, which has an enrollment of approximately 750 students.
East Lyme High School has approximately 1,000 students. The four-year graduation rate is 98 percent. In 2021-22, the average SAT scores were 572 in literacy and 557 in math, compared to the state averages of 501 and 486.
The East Lyme Aquatic and Fitness Center on the high school campus has a public pool and gym. Resident membership is $40 per month for individuals and $60 per month for families.
The shuttle service
At Union Station in New London, about 15 to 20 minutes away, commuters can catch the Amtrak and CTrail Shoreline East trains. The Amtrak Northeastern Train to Penn Station in New York City runs all day and takes about three hours. A one-way bus ticket costs $125 to $140.
To get to Grand Central Terminal, commuters can take the Shoreline East train to New Haven and transfer to the Metro-North, a total journey time of about three and a half hours. The top fare for a one-way trip is about $34; a monthly pass costs about $605.
Union Station also offers ferry services to Long Island.
The history
The stone pavilion at Rocky Neck State Park was one of the largest projects built in the state in the 1930s as part of the federal government’s Works Progress Administration. The long, two-story cobblestone structure follows the contours of a cliff overlooking Long Island Sound. The main level is an open plan hall with massive stone fireplaces and logs serving as supports for the upper level, now reserved for weddings and other private events. Most of the materials used in the construction of the pavilion, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, were sourced from state parks, forests, and quarries.
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