August 13, 1911 - BEAUTIFUL LORDSHIP MANOR, IDEAL SHORELAND: The pride of the real American today and to individualize it, the pride of every right thinking progressive Bridgeporter is to erect a natural beauty spot the dearest of all ideal shrines, a comfortable, attractive summer home. For the ownership of a summer home at Lordship Manor is not prohibitive, but easily within the reach of the average income. It is the only economical money saving and sure investment where the dividends are assured in health and happiness as well as dollars. It is a distant cry from the solitary log cabin of our fathers of the country to the American suburban summer settlement of today. From this to Lordship Manor, is quite as long as a step in advancement. There is nothing quite like Lordship Manor in New England. Its inception, plan and executing present to the student of social science the achievement of the ideal, a perfect home and perfect surroundings. The full measure of its worth can be known only to those who enjoy this dual perfection. ?To live like a lord? the dream of many is here to those who wish it in its utmost degree, here in the Lordship Manor. The Lordship Manor is a federation of estates within a great one, where every land holder is a king of all the rights, privileges and enjoyments the fondest hopes can desire. The Lordship Manor is to be a home for scores of people whose social position is due to their refinement and lovable personality, in a location, the master stroke of nature finished and left in all its primeval glory, which blends in a vista of natural loveliness. To appreciate the Lordship Manor you should visit then, which can be arranged through the management for it is a delightful experience as did a Post representative one day this week and the real advantages of this property, the future home of many Bridgeporters is told herewith as best it can with words and pictures, until you chance soon to visit it. Lordship Manor is named after the Lordship family which has owned a large part of the property for many generations and consists of 600 acres of land on Stratford Point. Lordship Manor is almost an island surrounded by Duck Neck Creek, Long Island Sound and the Housatonic River which provides an excellent yacht harbor. To reach Lordship Manor you can take a car to Stratford Avenue to Hollister Avenue and the finest automobile road in the state leads you directly to the property. Lordship Manor provides for the busy business or professional man a summer home and he can without a tiresome lengthy ride, reach his home every night and is in easy call of the city being less than four miles from the center of Bridgeport or less that three miles if reached by water. Every whim and fad of the most particular person is most extravagantly supplier to one who selects Lordship Manor for a summer home. There is not a lot on the whole tract that is without view of the Sound. During the summer the property is swept by the prevailing south west wind and one finds it at all times many degrees cooler than the city for the wonderful bracing air that sweeps Lordship Manor comes over fifty miles of water. Lordship Manor seems to reach into the heart of the Sound itself for it extends nearly a mile further in the Sound than any other property on this side of the shore. Another peculiar natural feature which has impressed so many persons upon seeing the property for the first time is the fact that it is situated from twenty to fifty higher than any other point on the Connecticut shore and there is not the least suspicion of marshy, unsanitary land. The soil is deep, strong and dry and is covered with a heavy turf dotted here and there with luxuriant trees bearing heavy foliage, especially at the entrance of the property with a long fringe of magnificent oaks which seem to form a barrier which encloses this lovely land into a garden of natural verdure. From the picturesque old lighthouse on Stratford Point, you walk back toward the mainland about a hundred yards when you surmount an elevation more than fifty feet high above the water which permits a commanding view on all sides of the Sound, with the strip of beach which with its diversity of white sand from a color scheme beyond description. We walk along further and we come to a colony of summer homes on large green lawns each with a view of the Sound on three sides and with all the comforts of a town house. The same splendid beach continues uninterrupted to Point No Point which is one of the strangest of natures land freaks for the position you take a minute before you reach the point, you believe you are complied to make an abrupt turn,
which upon reaching it proves to be of no consequence. We might continue on home and it has just been recently that the Wilkenda Land Company incorporated, who have suites 210 ? 212 Newfield Building in Bridgeport, have made it possible for people of New England to secure a summer home at a reasonable price on easily arranged terms. The company has made wonderful development in New Haven, Waterbury and Springfield where they now maintain offices and they will without question restrict the sale of Lordship Manor to only desirable persons. All lots are from 50 to 80 feet in frontage and are from 175 to 200 feet deep. Furthermore the company has guaranteed auto transportation from the trolley to Lordship Manor to all for more than an hour the still diversified view which nature has provided and unappreciative man has never tampered with. For the benefit of motoring, driving and walking a sixty foot boulevard is to be constructed around the property, without cost to the purchasers of the property making the detour the most beautiful shore property between New York and Maine. In the back ground of Lordship Manor there is located a natural park with shady nooks scattered here and there that makes a wonderful diversion from the beach within a few minutes walk from each other. All the advantages of the shore place are at Lordship Manor. The water for all persons who live on the property will be supplied free where five houses are on a street. The bathing is unsurpassed, a splendid bottom with no treacherous holes or currents, the little ones are a safe as the grown people. The fishing near Stratford Point for years has been famous and with the natural harbor controlled by the owner of Lordship Manor the sport will be a splendid pastime as well as yachting. Lordship Manor has two bathing beaches which will be kept in splendid condition at all times and will be for the exclusive use of the owners of Lordship Manor property. No less eminent person that Admiral Sigsbee of the U.S. Navy visited Lordship Manor a few years ago and at the time expressed himself so delighted with the wonderful natural advantages of this garden spot for a summer home that he inquired why more people of Bridgeport had not moved to Lordship Manor. Property owners at the beginning of next season and at the present time are extending an invitation to any persons interested in visiting the property to provide an automobile for the occasion and on a postal or telephone request will call at any home in the city. In case of death, the company agrees with every person who purchased a lot from it and makes a first payment of not less than ten percent of the purchase price and who is in good health at the time of purchase, if death should occur at any time after second payment has been made so long as payments are made when regularly due, the company will deed the lot to his or her heirs of personal representatives without further payment, just as though it had received payment in full or said legal heirs or personal representative shall be paid amount with interest at the rate of six percent per annum. The following are some of the owners of residence at Lordship Manor: Frank Staples, Fred Strong, Charles Armstrong, Mrs. Ashman, Harry Walker, William Hincks, Hobart French, William Howes and A. W. Burritt.
1912 - CORPORATION FORMED TO BUILD HIGH CLASS SETTLEMENT AT PROMINENT SITE: Engineers Open Office to Begin Work at Once ? Site is Only Undeveloped Portion Between New York and New London: A big real estate deal involving more than 500 acres and the only shore front between New London and New York was consummated yesterday for the consideration of $500,000. The tract is known as Lordship Park and Stratford Point and it was purchased by the Wilkenda Land Company of New Haven after considerable difficulty for land companies have been after the land for some time. One of the most important and largest real estate sales that has been made in Bridgeport in many years was consummated yesterday in the office of Charles Nicholls, 401 Newfield Building, when the properties known as Lordship Park and Stratford Point containing more the 500 acres was turned over to the Wilkenda Land Company; a Connecticut corporation having its principal place of business at New Haven. Charles Nicholls and Hugh Keegan both of Bridgeport were the successful brokers in the transaction. The property has been viewed with envious eyes by a number of land companies in the past few years, but the owners of the Lordship Park Association, of which A.W. Burritt is president, W.T. Howes, Treasurer and W.E. Howes secretary have kept firm hold of the property awaiting the right time to sell and the right parties to whom to sell. At the present time this is the choicest and practically the only large tract of land that is left undeveloped between New York and New London and in view of the great demand for shore property and the limited supply they decided that this was the psychological moment to turn the property and that the Wilkenda Land Company was the desired customer to whom to sell. The property involved, which is situated at the mouth of the Housatonic River and which has a water frontage of something over two miles on the Sound, will at once be put into condition for sale by a high class development. This tract of land will be known hereafter as Lordship Manor and will be put on sales in the near future and will take its place as one of Bridgeport?s shore show places. The Wilkenda Land Company is made up of a number of active hustling real estate businessmen who have been engaged in the business of planned parks, broad roadways, developing and selling shore properties all along island shore on both sides of the Sound for more than ten years. The officers are Harley Williamson of Springfield, Mass. President; John Kenworthy of New Haven, Treasurer; and Charles Davis of New Haven, Secretary. They have offices in each of these cities and have numerous tracts of land in process of development and sale in each of these cities as well as in other Connecticut and Massachusetts localities. They have a large corps of competent managers and salesmen as well as a well organized advertisement department and temporarily automobile service being introduced with plans being perfected for permanent transportation.
 Wilkenda Cover |
 Wilkenda 1915 |
 Wilkenda 1915 |
 Wilkenda 1915 |
 Lordship Casino |
September 7, 1922 - LORDSHIP GIVEN BOOM BY MERGER: One Large Company Takes Over Many Small Real Estate Holdings, $1,000,000 Involved - Big Building Program Predicted for Two Mile Water Front: Many beneficial changes are forecast for Lordship Manor, as the result of the liquidation of the holdings of the several development companies which heretofore have, been connected with the community, into the Lordship Development Company, a new organization, which has purchased all the holdings from the stockholders of the smaller, divided companies. Some idea of the size of the transaction, which places control of the development of Lordship as a home and summer resort site In the hands of the new concern, can be gained when it is known that building lots alone, which were the joint property of the several real estate firms now liquidating, were valued at close to one million dollars. Nothing definite would be given out concerning the plans of the new company. For some time, there have been persistent reports of a highway, planned to run from Lordship to Pleasure Beach. Such, a road would, undoubtedly, make the formers two and one-half miles of shore front one of the choicest resort spots along the sound, residents say. The Wilkenda Land Company were responsible for the original movement to develop Lordship, in 1911. When the trolley line was financed and built by the same company in 1915, a building boom resulted. The Bridgeport Housing company built 200 homes, and numerous individuals started to build with the advent of regular trolley service to Bridgeport. The community has registered a steady growth, until it now has a year round population of nearly 500. Those who have turned in their holdings of stock to the company, freely predict that the plans of the Lordship company will mean an unprecedented expansion of the community, which has become famous because of combined summer resort and all year around living conditions. There are several hundred potential home builders, who have paid for lots at Lordship, and whose construction activities received a setback due to the lack of mortgage money during the post war business lull. The fact that mortgage money is easier now to secure at the banks, leads many to the opinion that next summer will, find resumption of the building boom at the suburb. The Wilkenda Land Corporation filed a petition to the Superior court yesterday, asking dissolution papers and the appointment of a receiver to distribute the assets resulting from liquidation of holdings into the larger company. The claimants were Joseph J. DuCoty, Rose DuCoty, George L. Taylor, William J. Histon and Charles H. Davis. The company has no debtors, it is stated.
On the Sound |
1914 Land |
1914 Trolley |
War is Hell |
Real estate too high |
Need of the times |
Lordship Lots |
Paramount? |
Seventh Son |
 Wilkenda 1917 |
 Wilkenda 1917 |
October 5, 1926 - LORDSHIP COMPANY BANKRUPT WITH ASSETS OF $102: Concern Organized to Develop Residential Section Files Voluntary Petition: A voluntary petition in bankruptcy was filed in the United States District Court in New Haven yesterday by the Lordship Company, a concern established to operate the bathing pavilion and dance hall at Lordship Beach as well as to develop it into an amusement park. The liabilities of the company amount to $154,804 while the assets are set at $102.52, of which $100 is in real estate and $2.52 in cash. With the petition was filed a stockholders' vote of August 26, last, ordering the action, which was signed by Probate Judge F. A. Bartlett, president of the company. Of the liabilities $15,000 are secured and $130,747 unsecured, and $8,601 is in taxes due the Town of Stratford. The principal creditors are Walter B. Lashar of $62,774 and the First National Bank of Bridgeport $60,400. Judge Bartlett said yesterday that 10 years or so ago the company was formed and took over about a mile of beach front without investing much in the property. The liabilities represent mortgages, interest and loses suffered in the operation of the bath house and dance hall, which never paid he stated. The land was acquired from the Wilkenda Land Company for development for amusement purposes and Mr. Lashar assumed the mortgage, Judge Bartlett stated. The company has not operated for the last year or two but has leased its property. The $100 in assets represents a small tract of land that was not included in foreclosure proceedings of the successors to the Wilkenda Company, he said.