Orange, Conn.: A farm town for families

“We couldn’t afford Fairfield County,” Walsh, 73, recalled. “So we just kept driving up 95.”

They landed in Orange, where they rented a two-bedroom, Cape Cod-style house. In 1971, they bought a three-bedroom ranch. “We’d had a third baby,” Walsh said. “By then, we could afford to buy.”

When they divorced in 1985, Walsh kept the house. After remarrying five years later, she continued to live there with her new husband, Baxter Walsh.

Before the couple retired, Patricia Walsh worked as an executive at United Healthcare in Hartford, and Baxter Walsh, 83, owned a technology company in Fairfield. When it came time to downsize, they didn’t want to leave Orange.

In August 2015, the Walshes bought a 1,700-square-foot, two-bedroom condominium in Fieldstone Village, a 55-and-over community, for $457,000.

“We love the small-town feel,” Patricia Walsh said of Orange. “It’s a close-knit, friendly community.”

It was that close-knit, friendly community — along with the good school system — that convinced Angela and Robert Craft to remain in Orange when they, like the Walshes, were ready to buy a home after renting. Angela Craft, 42, is a neonatal nurse practitioner at Yale New Haven Hospital, and Robert Craft, 40, is a sales executive at an asset management company. The couple, who have a 5-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son, also own the soon-to-open Kennedy’s of Fairfield, a men’s grooming franchise that includes a women’s spa.

The Crafts spent two years house hunting in the area. “But as we lived here and got to know people and everything the town offers,” Angela Craft said, “we decided to stay and wait for the right house.”

In October 2016, they paid $855,000 for a five-bedroom, 4,650-square-foot house built in 1995 on a cul-de-sac, with 2.59 acres and a pool.

Orange’s nearly 14,000 residents live on tree-lined streets laid out among meadows, forests and working farms. A picturesque green in the town center is surrounded by historic homes, some dating to the 18th century.

But there is plenty of 21st-century commerce. Running through the western half of town, Route 15 has two Orange exits. Interstate 95 cuts across the town’s southeastern tip, parallel to Boston Post Road, a busy corridor of big-box stores, restaurants and businesses (including one of only two international headquarters of PEZ Candy). And there are two Metro-North stations nearby.

James M. Zeoli, Orange’s first selectman and a lifelong resident, touted the town’s attractions: easy accessibility, various shopping and dining options, strong schools, green space, welcoming nature. “It’s a comfortable place to raise a family,” he said.

What You’ll Find

Orange is primarily residential, with retail and industry confined mainly to the southeastern corner. The town has more than 1,100 acres of open space, Zeoli said, where meandering stone walls once demarcated pastures.

There are 4,683 single-family homes, many of them ranch-style, built in the 1950s and 1960s, when Orange was growing as a suburb of New Haven and Bridgeport. There are 25 two-family homes, as well as 245 condominiums in five complexes and 257 rental apartments in four buildings, some of them designated as affordable. There are no cooperative complexes.

What You’ll Pay

Barbara Lehrer, an agent with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and an Orange resident for 60 years, noted the range of home prices. “You can spend around $300,000 for a small house that needs work,” she said. “A nice house that doesn’t need work will be around $550,000. Newer, larger houses sell anywhere from $750,000 to over $1 million.”

As for the market, she said, “It’s hopping. We get multiple offers every day.”

Beth Cantor, an agent with Calcagni Real Estate, in North Haven, agreed that the pace of sales is growing. “The ‘days on market’ is much shorter than in previous years,” she said. “Sales-wise, this spring has been the most exciting in a while.”

According to information from SmartMLS, Inc., as of May 13 there were 45 single-family homes on the market. The least expensive was a three-bedroom, 1,461-square-foot Cape Cod-style house, built in 1947 on 0.35 acres, listed for $245,000; the priciest was a six-bedroom, 9,500-square-foot, gated estate with a pool, hot tub and guesthouse, built in 1988 on 5.35 acres, listed for $1.799 million.

The median sale price for a single-family home during the 12-month period ending May 13 was $375,000, up from $352,165 during the previous 12 months.

The Vibe

Angela Craft described Orange as “family-friendly” and “unpretentious.” Residents are a mix of young professionals raising children, and older people, some of whom never left and others who came to be close to children and grandchildren.

The range of housing costs reflects the town’s socioeconomic blend. As for religious diversity, Orange has seven churches, three synagogues, a mosque and a Hindu temple.

Residents gather for events like the Memorial Day parade and, in December, a tree-lighting ceremony on the green. The High Plains Community Center has a fitness center, an eight-lane indoor pool, ball fields, tennis courts, a playground and a senior center. The surrounding 20-plus-acre fairground is the site of the Orange Community Farmers Market, a summer concert series, the Volunteer Fire Department’s annual carnival and the popular Orange Country Fair.

Hikers have 18 miles of trails to explore, while Wright’s Pond offers fishing and ice skating. The culturally inclined can enjoy performances by the Orange Players at the community center, or head to the theaters and museums in New Haven, about 8 miles east.

The Schools

Orange’s students attend Mary L. Tracy School for prekindergarten and kindergarten, and Peck Place School, Race Brook School or Turkey Hill School for first through sixth grade. All four are part of the Orange Public Schools district.

For middle and high school, Orange is served by Amity Regional District No. 5, which also serves the towns of Bethany and Woodbridge. Students in seventh and eighth grade attend the Orange campus of Amity Middle School (there is also a Bethany campus), then move on to Amity Regional High School, in Woodbridge.

On the 2017-18 Smarter Balanced assessments, 79.7% of Orange’s sixth-graders met English language arts proficiency standards and 78.4% met math proficiency standards, compared to 54.3% and 43.9% statewide. Mean SAT scores for Amity Regional High School’s 2018 graduating class were 594 in evidence-based reading and writing, and 587 in math; statewide means were 535 and 519.

The Commute

Commuters to Manhattan, 70 miles southwest, can catch Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven line at Milford or West Haven, a few miles away. (West Haven, the line’s newest station, was added in 2013.) Peak trains to and from Grand Central Terminal take about 90 minutes to two hours; monthly fare is $449 from Milford or $500 from West Haven.

Residents who prefer to drive, or who work in nearby cities, have quick access to Route 15 and Interstate 95, but often face rush-hour congestion.

The History

Those who attend the annual Orange Country Fair, taking in the pig races, tractor pulls and other agriculture-themed activities, may not be aware of the event’s origins. The town’s first agricultural fair, in September 1898, filled the green with horse races, ox draws and displays of produce, livestock and crafts. The fair was held every year until 1912, when interest faded.

In 1975, a new fair was planned to commemorate the bicentennial. Conceived by a committee of townspeople and modeled on the 4-H fairs of their youth, the event was held behind the Mary L. Tracy School and was called the Orange Bicentennial Old Time Country Fair. In 1980, committee members cleared the land that became the current fairgrounds, where the fair has been held since.

“Pretty much everybody in Orange goes,” said Priscilla Searles, the town historian and a member of the original committee, who has lived in Orange since 1960. “It has always been an event that brings the town together.”