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Hilton Reflects on his 30-Year Career, Impact on Greenwich

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A photo from a recently finished Chuck Hilton Architects project. (contributed photo)

By Anne W. Semmes
Sentinel Correspondent

Over the last 30 years architect Charles “Chuck” Hilton has worked to both enhance and preserve the residential landscape of Greenwich, while becoming an integral contributor to the community. This Sunday, he’ll be there as an integral partner at the Greenwich Historical Society’s (GHS) 2018 Greenwich Landmarks Recognition Event. Note those new Historic District signs seen around town that are a design of Charles Hilton Architects (CHA).

“These unique signs,” says GHS Board Chair Davidde Strackbein, “which are beautiful, practical, and informative, include a map and a brief history of the area’s historical importance for use by both pedestrians and motorists. In each instance, Charles Hilton Architects provided exemplary personal service.”

Perhaps the Town’s most memorable memorial is CHA’s design of the twin glass towers in Cos Cob Park commemorating the local citizenry lost in 9/11.

Chuck – accessible enough to be called by his first name – is surely having a mini-celebration these days he says, looking across the highlights of three decades of work. Some prime examples of his Greenwich Georgian trademark style are displayed in a new coffee table book, “The Classical American House.” Also, on display in his office was an astonishing array of photos representing CHA’s work. But Chuck was quick to note, “I’m not dialing down.” This 53-year old oversees a bustling office.( And today, the 50’s are the new 40’s.)

In the firm’s hallway hung a commemoration for CHA’s support of the Haitian Health Foundation’s effort for housing needy families. Chuck, understandably, likes “the idea of putting a roof over somebody’s head.” Chuck was brought up he says “to give back and help other people,” as recognized by Greenwich Rotary awarding him Citizen of 2017. Perhaps with Byram Park’s new Swimming Pool, more people will see his design for the Greenwich Rotary Centennial Pavilion overlooking the Park and Long Island Sound.

Chuck Hilton. (contributed photo)

Chuck also feels proud of his firm’s 2016 Corporate Leadership Award, from the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce. “His work exemplifies excellence in taste and in character,” says Marcia O’Kane, Chamber president and CEO. “It typifies what most people think about Greenwich: quality and prestige.”

An aspiring architect lands in Greenwich

In his history-packed architectural library Chuck shared a bit of how he came to be where he is, overlooked by his most prized trophy of being inducted in 2016 into the New England Design Hall of Fame. He’d arrived in Greenwich soon after college at Penn State University that afforded him a semester abroad studying in Germany and allowing travel in Europe as far as Greece. He has an affinity for travel and brings back ideas that have inspired a Greenwich-based French Norman farmhouse, a Limonaia with a “Palladian villa look,” and yes, from Venice, the idea of  “edge-lit glass with etching in it and its ability to give a really ethereal nature to the glass” that became translated into the twin glass towers in Cos Cob Park.

“When I came out of architecture school,” he says, “I was trained as a modernist.” But when he arrived in Greenwich, wanting to “do the finest residential architecture as possible,” the clients were requesting Colonials, Tudors, Shingle, and other traditional styles. There was also a strong demand for Georgian style homes. Quickly, Chuck studied up on traditional residential design. The New Jersey/Pennsylvania raised Chuck was seeing how the Georgian style for example was “suited to this part of New England.”

On drives to his wife Debbie’s family in Hilton Head, S.C. and visiting Williamsburg he says, he “fell in love with that mid-Atlantic Georgia architecture. It worked well here in Greenwich. It just seemed to be a vocabulary that was buttoned up.” It also suited Chuck’s personality. “I’m kind of an orderly, organized kind of person and Georgian has a certain order and organization where there is a main body and there’s wings and you enter and the formal spaces go one way and the informal spaces go the other way. So Georgian is kind of in my DNA, and we’ve done a lot of them in brick, in stone, and in wood, although in a community with such diverse architecture as Greenwich, we’ve gotten proficient at designing a wide range of styles.” Thirty years on CHA is now designing modern homes as well.

There’s no doubt that Chuck Hilton had architecture in his DNA. “I always loved to build things,” he relates. “In a sandbox I was building communities, castles, and roads, and overpasses. My mom had cardboard boxes and I would cut them up and make houses out of them with doors and windows.” He loved wood working, he says, and “authentic, handmade materials.” He had come to a place where there were “wonderful trades people, with a wonderful craftsman” to give that detailing that is a part of the CHA design. “We have great masons, great stone and tile guys, great mill shops for millwork. We can come up with the ideas but someone has to build them.”

And he has Stephen Gamble and his Historic Floors to give those residencies the special wooden floors his work features. “Steve can make new wood look aged very convincingly and often better than antique wood. He’s just a wonderfully talented guy.”

Chuck in his youth had developed a work ethic, like those copy boys that became editors at The New York Times. Chuck had “started at the very bottom” as a 16-year old in architectural offices, “doing all the grunt work…making blueprints and cleaning out the trash cans. I’d go in after school and have to figure it out for myself…here are some sketches of the house and there’s a whole pile of drawings, so just go find another drawing like it and good luck. It was great practice.”

A house in downtown Greenwich that was recently designed by Chuck Hilton Architects. (contributed photo)

But as a college graduate Chuck had outgrown his rural community. “There wasn’t this culture to demand great architecture like there is in Greenwich. I wanted to do great work and I wanted a small or medium sized office where I could get my hands on everything, every part of the process, where I could meet the client, be involved with design and drawing and be on construction sites.” He wanted to do residential and not be too far from his parents. “I didn’t really want to live in a big city but I liked the culture and the vibrancy of a big city, so when a job opportunity came up in Greenwich, it was perfect. And I said this is a place I could have an amazing career, and so I came to Greenwich and the rest is history.”

CHA spreads its architectural wings

 Chuck is in love with the waterfront Greenwich presents, and a Riverside Waterfront Shingle Residence featured in “The Classical American House” shows a design that takes full advantage of that waterfront site. “I love being out on boats, living on the water, dining on the water. For me it’s just magical. When you are designing on the water it’s all about the water.

That’s something I’d love to do more of both in Greenwich and up and down the coast.”

Current projects include a bit of a waterfront stretch on the California coast near Santa Barbara. Closer to home is a just finished apartment near Lincoln Center in New York, and a home just finished in downtown Greenwich, the hot new destination for back country dwellers looking to downsize.

“A lot of people are looking to live in downtown these days,” says Chuck. “These folks wanted a little more space than a condominium could provide. So they bought an intown lot and asked us to design a new house. They wanted low maintenance so we did a stone veneer, a slate roof, and the trim is mostly cellular PVC, so it doesn’t absorb water and won’t need much painting.  Its super low maintenance and energy-efficient, with geothermal heating and cooling, LED lighting, and spay foam installation. Their utility bills are a fraction of what they were for their previous house.”

To save or not to save

One can’t talk to an architect today without asking their take on the number of teardowns. Chuck has an educated response. “Greenwich has a lot of great residential architecture that should be preserved, but not every house should be preserved. There are poorly designed buildings that nobody’s going to miss, and there is wonderful architecture that is on really expensive pieces of real estate and they end up getting torn down because the land value has now succeeded the commercial value of the house. So we are involved with the Greenwich Historical Society, the Greenwich Preservation Network, and a bunch of other initiatives to preserve our history.”

“But for things to live and survive,” says Chuck, “They have to evolve and be relevant to people or they won’t make it no matter how important or significant they are. We have to find ways to preserve things but be able to modify them enough so that people can live in them. Comfortably today.  People don’t want to live in museums.

“When we do renovations and additions on historic homes we try to do it in a very sensitive way by integrating a lot of the modern technologies and amenities that people need to live with, wiring and heating and cooling, but they need to be done so that you don’t destroy the historic character of the building. So, we’re trying, and hopefully through education and awareness and good examples we’ll save a lot of what is left of our history.”

On that preservation note, to further educate those invested in real estate in our town, Chuck will give for the fourth time on May 7 his lecture on “The History of Homes in Greenwich 1640 to Today” to the Greenwich Board of Realtors hosted by the Greenwich Historical Society. “It’s a 45-minute world wind course to educate some of the real estate community about the history and what is significant.”

 

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