We spent 22 years in Newtown. Good years. Deep roots, real memories, a house and a yard that held a lot of life. But sometimes the right move announces itself quietly, and when we walked into this house on Flat Rock Drive in Easton for the first time, something just settled. This is the story of how we’re building The Amore Life in a new place — one espresso, one Sunday sauce, one dinner party at a time.
Some Moves Are Practical. This One Was Also Personal.
We didn’t leave Newtown lightly. Twenty-two years in one place means something. It means you know which roads to take on a Tuesday morning and which ones to avoid. It means the restaurants know your order and your neighbors know your dog. It means your life has a geography, and leaving that geography behind — even when the decision is right — carries a weight you don’t fully feel until the boxes are packed and the door closes for the last time.
But the new job in New York City needed us closer to the city. The kids had settled in Norwalk. My wife’s family — her parents, her sister — are in Fairfield. Down county made every kind of sense. And when we found Easton, and specifically when we found the house on Flat Rock Drive, the decision stopped being a question.
The House That Said Yes Before We Did
There are houses you tour and houses you feel. This one fell into the second category immediately.
Brand new construction, but with something older in its bones — bright and airy in a way that newer builds often aren’t, with the kind of light that moves through the rooms differently at different times of day. The neighborhood around it felt like a discovery. Mature trees, walkable streets, homes that range from the 1930s — some with the kind of architectural detail you only find in that era, cornices and proportions that newer construction doesn’t bother with anymore — to slightly newer builds that somehow blend in perfectly rather than announcing themselves.
The street sits at roughly 420 feet above sea level, one of the highest points in Fairfield County. One of the original homes in the neighborhood was built in the 1930s, back when the trees were younger and shorter and you could see Long Island Sound from up here. The trees have grown since then and closed that view, but knowing it’s out there somewhere beyond the canopy adds something to the feeling of the place. A sense of history in a neighborhood that most people don’t even know exists.
Who knew this little neighborhood was here. We didn’t. And now we can’t imagine being anywhere else.
The Kitchen — Where It All Starts
If there is one room that sold us on this house, it was the kitchen. And if you know anything about the way we live — the Sunday sauces, the weeknight pastas, the big cooking days when the kids come up — you understand why that matters.
Our kitchen in Newtown was good. But it was somewhat isolated from the rest of the house in the way that older layouts tend to be — a separate room where cooking happened while life was happening somewhere else. This kitchen erases that entirely. It opens up to everything. The island is enormous — the kind of island where you can actually prep a full meal on one end while someone else is pouring wine on the other end and neither person is in the way. Cabinet space, counter space, Bosch appliances, a Jenn-Air double oven that has already changed the way I approach larger meals. The kitchen doesn’t just work. It invites.
We’ve been making it ours slowly and deliberately. Fresh flowers. Italian pottery on the shelves and custom hand-painted plates on the walls — artistic pieces that catch your eye and start conversations. Bread on the counter. A head of garlic and a bottle of good olive oil always out, always visible, because that’s what an Italian kitchen looks like at rest.
And then there’s the coffee bar. A separate little station with the espresso machine, the cups lined up, and my biscotti tin sitting right there where it belongs. Every morning starts the same way now — espresso pulled, biscotti close at hand, the house quiet before the day begins. It is a small ritual and it is completely non-negotiable. In a new house, rituals are how you begin to feel at home. This one arrived quickly and I’m grateful for it.
The Dining Room — A Room We Reinvented
The original floor plan put the dining room at the back of the house and a long, narrow living space at the front. We looked at that layout and made a decision early: flip it.
The front room is now the dining room, and it was absolutely the right call. With the table fully extended it seats eight comfortably — room for the family, room for neighbors, room for the kind of dinners that go long and feel better for it. Wallpaper, paint, window treatments — the details that turn a room from a space into a place. It feels deliberate. It feels like us.
The back of the house became something we didn’t know we needed as much as we do: a lounge. My desk and computer set up on one side for the work-from-home days. A leather sofa and chairs on the other side for after-dinner. And a small bar cart positioned perfectly — glasses, bottles, everything needed to make an aperitivo without going anywhere. After a long dinner, everyone migrates back there naturally. The drinks are close, the seating is comfortable, and the evening finds its own pace.
That bar cart might be the best furniture decision we’ve made in this house.
The Outdoor Space — A Work in Progress Worth Watching
I won’t pretend the outdoor setup is what it was in Newtown. That house had 2.5 acres, a sprawling patio, two picnic tables, dedicated grill stations, a full fire pit area — a lot of space that took a lot of work to maintain, backed by a corporate park that was never quite the view you wanted when you looked up from the yard.
Easton feels like Vermont.
The backyard butts up against Aquarion Water Company land — thousands of acres of protected watershed that will never be developed. The privacy is absolute. The woods behind the house are deep and quiet in a way that takes some getting used to after decades of a more open yard. Birds in the morning. Owls at night. Deer moving through the tree line in that unhurried way they have when they know they’re not being watched. The yard itself is manageable — not too big, not too small — and the front opens up to the neighborhood, to the street, to the neighbors who have already started to feel like part of life here.
There’s a patio, older and smaller than what we had, and a pea gravel area with one picnic table that works well for now. We’re planning to expand — a proper outdoor cooking and entertaining space is coming, with room for the grills and everything that comes with a real aperitivo setup. For now, the Solo Stove sits out there doing the job of a fire pit without the commitment of one, and on the evenings when the temperature drops just enough to want a flame, it’s exactly right.
The outdoor space isn’t finished. But it’s peaceful in a way that the old yard never quite was. That counts for a lot.
The Rituals That Are Already Taking Root
Home isn’t a place you arrive at. It’s something you build through repetition — the small, daily choices that eventually become the shape of your life in a space.
In Easton, the rituals are forming naturally.
The morning espresso is the anchor. Non-negotiable, every day, at the coffee bar before anything else happens. On the weekends when the kids come up, the kitchen turns into something louder and better — a big cooking day, the kind where multiple things are happening at once and the house fills up with the smell of garlic in olive oil and whatever is going into the pot. Those Saturdays and Sundays are already among my favorite days in this house.
Weeknight rhythms depend on the work schedule — picked up at the train, maybe a quiet dinner out in Fairfield, maybe a sneak out to Barcelona when I’m working from home and the evening opens up unexpectedly. The local farms are becoming part of the routine in the way that good farms always do when you live near them — Shaggy Coos, Silverman’s, Sherwood. There’s something about buying produce a few miles from where it was grown that changes how you think about what you’re making for dinner. We’re still building the groove there, but it’s coming. Summer will accelerate all of it.
And the neighborhood itself is part of the ritual too. Walking the dogs through the streets, seeing the houses, learning which ones were built in which decade by the way the rooflines sit. It’s a neighborhood that rewards looking closely. We’re still finding new things every time we go out.
What We Carried From Newtown
Twenty-two years leaves marks that don’t disappear just because you change your address.
We carried the cast iron pan — fifteen years old now, seasoned by a thousand meals, first used on a grill outside a different house in a different town. We carried the Sunday sauce tradition and the espresso habit and the belief that a table set properly and a meal made with care are two of the most important things a home can offer. We carried the Aperol umbrellas, which look just as right in Easton as they did in Newtown, maybe more so.
What we found in Easton is that all of those things land differently when the setting is right. The rituals feel more intentional. The meals feel more considered. The quiet of the property and the privacy of the woods and the warmth of a neighborhood that turned out to have the best neighbors we’ve ever had — it all creates a context that makes the cooking better, the aperitivo more meaningful, and the whole enterprise of The Amore Life feel like it has found the home it was always looking for.
This chapter is just beginning. We’re mostly settled, starting to make it ours, and getting more certain every week that the move was exactly right.
It’s complicated and beautiful. Just like all the best things.