No. 99 Myrtle Avenue has at long last come into its own.

In 1972, an access/egress for Elm Street's Baldwin Parking Plaza at the corner of Myrtle Avenue and Avery Place was planned. Called the Elm Street Project, it necessitated the razing of the red salt box house on that site. If implemented, traffic hazards to pedestrians, cyclists and motorists on narrow, curving Myrtle Avenue would have resulted, as well as general traffic congestion. It would also set a precedent for future impingement on residential neighborhoods and historic streets.

This was outlined in a petition I presented to the P&Z in May 1973, signed by a number of nearby residents and others. My letter previously appearing in the Westport News of Nov. 24, 1972 and another in April of 1973, were written to discourage the project, which was ultimately abandoned and the salt box has since housed the Westport Historical Society and later, town employees.

There are some interesting variations on the salt box's history. Philip Punzelt, Sr., a lifelong resident of Westport, told me in 1972 of his boyhood living in Avery House, just around the corner, with his uncle, market boat captain Sereno G. Allen, now buried in Willowbrook Cemetery. Mr. Punzelt

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remembered two barns on the three-acre tract, dating from 1845, one of which stabled horses and wagons and the other used for ships' ropes and gear. He said the salt box house was constructed from the timbers and boards of those barns, perhaps as late as 1929, yet, according to an engineers' map, the salt box was in existence by 1912 and a title search indicated it was built by 1920, probably by 1912.

Recent research by the investigators attributes distinguished architect Charles E. Cutler, father of one of our leading conservationists, Barlow Cutler-Wotton, with designing the house in the 1920s, for his wife's cousin, Emily McLaury, believed to be a sister of Dr. Frank McLaury, who purchased the 1823 Capt. Samuel Avery House from Capt. Sereno Allen.

If certain recollections are reliable, Mr. Cutler could have built his original design from vintage materials -- upon an existing basic structure or on a new stone foundation -- giving it an even earlier lineage than the 1920s.

The salt box house, newly dubbed the Emily McLaury House, has achieved status and hopefully permanence. It has been designated a Local Historic Landmark and is now part of the State Register of Historic Places.

Thanks to the persistence and resourcefulness (for example, antique glass was salvaged from a renovation project as replacement for the aluminum foundation windows) of the Westport Historic District Commission and its chair, Morley Boyd, and the McLaury House Committee, one more piece of Westport history has been recognized and preserved. Bravo!

Elizabeth Gerteiny, Westport