Actor Richard Gere Attends New Canaan Planning, Zoning Meeting

NEW CANAAN, CT — Actor Richard Gere and his wife, Alejandra Silva, attended a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Tuesday as the couple seeks to turn part of their New Canaan property into a private farm.

Last year, reports indicated the "Pretty Woman" and "Chicago" actor purchased the nearly 32-acre estate for $10.8 million. The home previously belonged to singer-songwriters Paul Simon and Edie Brickell, who purchased the property in 2002 and owned it for 20 years.

Gere and Silva attended the meeting with David Rucci, a lawyer representing the couple as applicants and the property's owner, Kensho Trust.

According to Rucci, zoning rules in New Canaan allow for either principal use, which includes the entire property, or accessory use, a portion of the property, in regard to farming on properties in town. Rucci said they were seeking a special permit to allow farming as an accessory use on the property.

"This is going to be a very low-impact farm," Rucci said during the meeting. "This is not something where you're going to have the public coming in and out or anything like that. What it's really going to be designed for is for mushrooms, honey, we may bring in goats later...and then those items will be sold directly to the consumer, so they'll go directly to a restaurant or go directly to the flower shop in town, whatever it happens to be."

Rucci noted the property has "always had some sort of...farm aspect use to it," such as cows in the area and possibly horses, neither of which are part of the current proposal, and said he has already received phone calls from a handful of neighbors concerned about the proposed farm being a large commercial operation.

"The owners...they've both grown up on farms, they're very interested in farms and teaching their kids about farms," Rucci said. "They, in their prior properties, had also had goats on some of those properties, chickens on some of those properties...have grown vegetables, have given those vegetables to some of the food pantries in the towns that they've been in, so this is really important to them."

Turning to their master plan, Rucci said some of the things they are considering doing in the future, should the town approve, include planting berries and more trees, as well as bringing goats or chickens in, however those are not part of their current proposal.

Some commission members acknowledged that most of the project was fairly low-impact in regards to the site but expressed concerns about keeping goats on the property and the effects of the manure needed for that.

The Geres' team emphasized goats are not part of their active business plans at the moment, but noted the couple has previously kept goats on other properties and found them to be "pretty low-maintenance, low-key" without creating the same manure issues caused by other farm animals like pigs.

Gere said the couple currently owns seven goats, kept at a different property, and they do not have a dumpster for manure or a need for anything like that

"We have a spot, a compost area, in our current property in North Salem [N.Y.]," Gere said, "It composts very quickly. [The manure] literally goes into the ground...in any event, that's not part of our current application. We probably would like to get our seven goats to come over and live with us, but expanding into 700 goats is not on the agenda, but we would have to come back to you for that in any case."

Gere noted the couple is very careful in all aspects of using and maintaining their property to ensure their children remain in a safe environment.

"We're super careful about what we put in the ground, what we put on their skin, what they breathe. We're really very careful parents about this," Gere said. "This is a family operation, and that's really the intention is that these kids, like I did, grow up around animals...and frankly, this extraordinary property that we were able to get and have it be that close to this extraordinary little town is an amazing opportunity to do that...we had no intention to ever subdivide this or do anything commercial at all, but to use the land as it is."

Gere and his team also discussing various aspects of their plans and addressed concerns raised by commission members, as well as some neighbors who spoke during public comment. The actor stressed he and his wife do not wish to cause any kind of disruptions in the area.

"I know there's a lot of building of trust in this process," Gere said, "but I'm probably the most private and [wanting] quiet person you will ever meet, so I expect that we'll be great neighbors with each other."

Gere and his team's comments about the property and their plans for it can he heard in full in this video recording of the commission's Tuesday meeting.