It’s 30 miles of beautiful coastline. It’s a stone’s throw from New York City. It’s rolling hills and picturesque New England countryside. It’s all that and more. It’s Coastal Fairfield County—a place where the shore, country and city come together to create a unique getaway destination to discover.

Fairfield County is located in the southwestern corner of the state of Connecticut. As of 2000 the population was 882,567. Fairfield County is comprised of 23 towns and more than 60 individual communities. The largest city in the county is Bridgeport. As is the case with all eight of Connecticut’s counties, there is no county government, and no county seat. In Connecticut, towns are responsible for all local government activities, including fire and rescue, snow removal and schools. In a few cases, neighboring towns will share certain resources. So Fairfield County is merely a group of towns on a map, and has no particular authority.

Mansions, marinas, and luxury apartment blocks elbow for space right up to the deeply indented Long Island Sound shoreline. This is one of the most heavily developed stretches of the coast, and, in terms of family income, one of the wealthiest. As the land rises slowly inland from the water’s edge, woods thicken, roads narrow, and pockets of New England unfold. Yacht country becomes horse country.

The first suburbs began to form in the middle of the last century, when train rails started radiating north and east from New York’s Grand Central Terminal into the countryside. This part of the state was made accessible for summertime refugees from the big city, and eventually weekend houses became permanent dwellings. Corporate executives liked the life of the gentry, so after World War II, they started moving their companies closer to their new homes. Stamford became a city; Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien, and Westport were the bedrooms of choice—pricey, haughty, and redolent of the good life.