Last month, Matt Klauer, who in December had his proposal to build a 44-room inn and spa rejected by the Zoning Commission, discovered a special permit that would have allowed the owners of the Swiss Hospitality Institute, a hotel school that occupied the Wykeham Rise property throughout the 1990s, to run a five-room inn in conjunction with the institute.
Apparently, though labeled 101 Wykeham Road, the permit, along with dozens of other related documents, were misfiled under 101 Wheaton Road.
Among the newly found records, a legal notice dated March 26, 1990, has the local Zoning Commission approving "the application for a special permit submitted by the Swiss Hospitality Institute for a school and inn on Wykeham Road," providing the inn has a minimum of five rooms available to the public.
When the institute first ap­­plied for this special permit in December 1989, it indicated that the inn would be used as part of the overall curriculum but would not open until at least the second year of the school's establishment. Given that the original plan called for the school to be up and running by September 1990, the apparent intent was to have the inn operational by September 1991.
But further records suggest that the school opened no less than two years behind schedule, and in the process the owners reapplied, at least twice, for a special permit renewal.
And, according to documents, when the school filed its first special permit renewal in 1991, it decided to forgo plans for the inn.
"At the time of the original application, the institute intended to operate a five-room inn and dining room as part of its operation," read an October 1994 application for a site-plan revision. "It was made known to the [zoning board] at the time of the renewal of the permit granted on April 1, 1991, that the institute was abandoning its plans to operate an inn and dining room, which further reduces the need for parking."
Incidentally, the school was active in 1994. The site plan revision, from which the previous quote was pulled, was to scale back the parking lot because fewer students than anticipated matriculated.
Mr. Klauer could not be reached for comment, and this newspaper group was told that his attorney, Robert Fisher, would not discuss Wykeham Rise matters based on a confidentiality agreement. So at this point it is unclear what, if anything, they hope to achieve with this new information.
Generally speaking, special permits are held in perpetuity, but as there are exceptions to this rule (for example, one special permit can be voided if replaced with another), it is unclear just how concrete this particular permit is.
Still, according to land-use coordinator Janet Hill, the 1990 special permit application for a "five room inn run by students, with no new building" is far less intense than Mr. Klauer's denied application, which would have called for the building of a 44-room inn with a restaurant, spa, swimming pool and tennis courts.
When zoning board Chairman David Owen, the swing vote on the 3 to 2 denial, ultimately voted against Mr. Klauer's project, it wasn't because it was an inn proposal but rather because of the size and scale of the inn proposal.
"I didn't have a problem with an inn on that site," he said. "I had a problem with that particular inn on that site."
After Mr. Klauer's proposal was rejected, he filed an appeal with the Litchfield Superior Court. That appeal may prove moot, as he and some of his opposition recently began mediating, or trying to work out an agreement, over the decision. Additionally, Mr. Klauer submitted a new application in April for an affordable housing complex on the property.
Before it became the Swiss Hospitality Institute, the 27-acre property spent the better part of a century as a girls' boarding school. Mr. Klauer bought the land for $2.75 million last spring. The hospitality institute, which changed its name to the International College of Hospitality Management, relocated to Suffield.