[SeaDoo342]

Originally Posted by Wilton2ParkAve

New Canaan is part of the gold coast. I would agree that Westport can't compare for those who prefer a small city with parking garages, a plethora of chain stores, small residential lots and congestion. However many of us prefer a small town feel with a real sense of community. All of the small businesses and family owned restaurants in town know my name as we'll as the wife and kids. If you are a high achieving professional in finance, law or medicine, Westport or NC will trump from a comp standpoint.

As for a lack of restaurants, let's stop putting so much emphasis on this farcical concept. How often do you people eat out? Even if I focus on just Westport restaurants and assuming we eat out 3x a week, the entire rotation would take months. More than sufficient. 100 restaurants, yawn.

Who said anything about restaurants? I live in Fairfield county, I'm not putting down any of the downtowns. WeHa downtown is awesome in its own way. Westport's and Greenwich's are awesome in their own way. Don't get so defensive about your "high achieving" downtowns, lol. That remark was priceless.

[Vin100]

We actually liked North Haven too. Some of the areas looked very kid friendly and some areas have nice houses on level lots.
We saw a house near Quinnipiac Uni NH campus. Initially thought that it would be desirable area considering presence of Univ, but the house was near the Washington Ave and we realized there were all industrial plots around. Does any body have any idea if that part of town is good, safe, family friendly or is is just more industrial side. Going further down south on Washington Ave, the pockets were quite good, but we realized we were moving further south and more farther away from Hartford. If we need to chose NH, then we would prefer northern NH as it would be slight nearer to Hartford.

[NewJeffCT]

Originally Posted by Wilton2ParkAve

New Canaan is part of the gold coast. I would agree that Westport can't compare for those who prefer a small city with parking garages, a plethora of chain stores, small residential lots and congestion. However many of us prefer a small town feel with a real sense of community. All of the small businesses and family owned restaurants in town know my name as we'll as the wife and kids. If you are a high achieving professional in finance, law or medicine, Westport or NC will trump from a comp standpoint.

As for a lack of restaurants, let's stop putting so much emphasis on this farcical concept. How often do you people eat out? Even if I focus on just Westport restaurants and assuming we eat out 3x a week, the entire rotation would take months. More than sufficient. 100 restaurants, yawn.

The OP has repeatedly stated in this thread that he wants a place that has the feel or vibe of West Hartford - meaning, urban/suburban, more amenities, non-wooded, convenient location, etc.

While New Canaan, Westport, Ridgefield, etc are wonderful towns, they're not small cities like West Hartford and not convenient commutes for the OP, who is looking to split the commute between his job in Hartford and his wife's job in New Haven. (I could be reversing the wife & husband's job location.)

I had mentioned Milford (and then Danbury), because they're closer to West Hartford in terms of size, economy/jobs, amount of shopping & restaurants available, etc. However, neither are do-able commutes for the OP, and the schools in both towns are not as good as West Hartford.

[Stylo]

North Haven is a small town. The only thing that will affect your commute is how close to 91 you are.

[JayCT]

Lets get back to helping the OP with his questions. All this taslk about Fairfield County towns is off topic. I do not know what particular areas of North Haven to suggest. There are good neighborhoods all over town. I would stay away from some of the more industrial areas and try and find a quite street. Again I msuggest checking out Wallingford which is closer to the density of West Hartford. There is a small downtown area and a lot of good shopping in town. I think it would work best overall. Jay

[Vin100]

We are checking on Wallingford too. As I said previously, in our first visit to Wallingford, we liked the place and we plan to check out the town in the coming weekend and days ahead. Moreover, we feel the houses are more affordable there and it is ideally between New Haven and Hartford. I also got a sense from all the posts that the Sheehan high school district is better than the HAll high school in Wallingford. slightly

[Vin100]

I want to thank everybody for their suggestions.
After days of deliberations among ourselves, me and my wife have come to the conclusion to look for a home in Cheshire (1st choice) or West Hartford (2nd choice due to the long commute for my wife). My wife is very convinced with the school systems of these 2 towns.
I seek suggestions for any good real estate agent in Cheshire and West Hartford.
Also, I am looking for a house that has natural gas as the heating source. On going through most of the Cheshire Listings, it seems that very few houses in Cheshire have natural gas. Oil or Propane would seem to be expensive. Does any body know of specific areas in Cheshire where natural gas line is available for heating?
Thanks for the help.

[Stylo]

Cheshire is not super developed and almost rural in parts. You usually only see more extensive gas lines in more dense towns in CT, and even then it's sporadic sometimes.

I grew up in a town in FFC that's similar in population/layout as Cheshire, and we had no natural gas in town.

[Vin100]

I know that very few parts of Cheshire have natural gas. I know somebody who lives on Higgins Rd with natural gas. However, when I looked at other houses on the same road, many of them had oil as the source of heating.

[parentologist]

You can check on whether a house has gas or oil by looking at the town's property records. They're mostly on vision appraisal.

Vision Government Solutions

If you look at the record for the individual property within the individual town, you can see whether it's gas or oil.

Have you considered the advantages of a city water supply and town sewer vs a well and septic? Have you considered which one of you is going to be the most tired most often driving home post-call? Have you considered that if someone is being called in for consults in the ER, or for night emergencies, they really need to be within 15-20 minutes drive of the hospital? In fact, there are usually hospital by-law regulations regarding that.

My point is, you need to live closer to the hospital where one of you will be called in at night. If you each need to go in on an emergency basis, then you really need to live right along I91, smack in the middle between New Haven and Hartford, and you still probably won't each be able to be at the hospital in under 20 minutes. If you don't want the aggravation of dealing with problems with well, septic,and with oil deliveries, then you need to buy a house with city water and sewer, and gas heat. As for the school systems, an excellent public education is available for high achieving kids at the high school level in most districts, because the schools allow the kids to self-sort into honors and AP level classes. So don't worry so much about choosing the absolute best district - I suspect that the daughter of two high-achieving parents, who value education, is going to get the most out of the best that the high school has to offer in any district that offers a sufficient number of AP classes. As for the younger one, honestly, even in the absolutely best districts in the area, the level of work expected of kids before they reach late middle school or high school is pathetically low, compared to what is expected of them in many other countries. My point is that the school district is not as important as you think - your older one will be fine wherever you go, academically, and your younger one will be unchallenged wherever you go. So don't feel that West Hartford and Cheshire are your only options. Just don't make the mistake of buying in a low-achieving school district.