GZA honored by ASBPA for living shoreline project at Hepburn Family Preserve in Connecticut

GZA and its partners have been honored with a top national award for their work on the Hepburn Family Preserve Living Shoreline Project in Old Saybrook, CT. This shoreline restoration project is on lands under a conservation easement in the Borough of Fenwick managed by the Lyde Point Land Trust (LPLT). The project is near the former home of actress Katharine Hepburn at the mouth of the Connecticut River and the Long Island Sound. GZA developed the design for the restoration of the shoreline and marsh, relocation of Crab Creek with a new culvert to the tidal pond, a new living shoreline and a restored Hepburn Dune. 

The American Shore & Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) named the Hepburn project as one of its five 2026 Best Restored Shore Award recipients earlier this month. ASBPA credited GZA and its clients, the Borough of Fenwick and the LPLT, with helping “to establish a standard of care for integrating coastal flood modeling, engineering, and ecological restoration (using a multi-disciplinary and risk-based approach) for design, permitting, and construction of natural and nature-based features for coastal resiliency.’’ GZA will be accepting the award on behalf of LPLT at the ASBPA 2026 National Conference and Centennial Celebration in Atlantic City in October.  

The Connecticut Institute for Resilience & Climate Adaptation (CIRCA) provided critical grant funding to complete the design of the coastal resiliency project. Connecticut River Conservancy provided additional grant funding for project construction, which included restoring a 450-foot-long beach and dune system that had undergone significant erosion during repeated storms, and relocating a tidal creek to restore a healthy saltmarsh behind the barrier beach. The project recently completed 5 years of annual monitoring required by its State of Connecticut permit and it has withstood several coastal storms since its construction in 2021.

GZA President and CEO Patrick Sheehan said: “GZA has been at the forefront of living shoreline design in New England, integrating ecology and coastal engineering to stabilize and protect our coastlines. I’m proud to see the innovative work of our colleagues and their partners at this iconic Connecticut shoreline preserve earn national honors from ASBPA.”