News

Ca. 1900 Home on Church Street Sells for $1,625,000; 5-Bay Garage Planned for Jelliff Mill

By |

The Town Clerk’s office recorded three property transfers last week:

350 Indian Rock Road

$2.1 million (recorded Dec. 12)
Margarita Sprague to 350IR, LLC

1428 Oenoke Ridge

Catharine Miller de Koning to Stephen Bonebrake & Victoria Frazer
$1,875,000 (recorded Dec. 13)

41 Church St. $1,625,000 (recorded Dec. 14)
Elizabeth Bennett to Charles & Susan Lynch

The development taking shape where Jelliff Mill once stood—a project that worked its way through town approvals when it’s creators invoked the Affordable Housing Appeals Act—is slated to get another unit, sitting atop what appears to be a 6-bay garage, according to a building permit application filed Jan.

Around Town

Jelliff Mill Bridge Replacement Looms; Current Plan Calls for Single Lane Closure

By |

Town officials plan to get permits this year for a widely anticipated project to replace Jelliff Mill Bridge, with work starting as early as next spring—though it hasn’t yet been determined whether one lane or two will be closed for two years of construction. The bridge over the Noroton River, just south of Jelliff Mill Pond,  is “scour critical,” according to Department of Public Works Assistant Director Tiger Mann. A center pier is susceptible to erosion, which eventually can compromise the integrity of the bridge, and its “corrugated metal pipe culverts are rotted and do not have a bottom,” Mann said. As of now, officials plan to keep one lane of the bridge open while it’s being replaced, with a target start date of April, Mann said. (Once the town obtains permits, the project can go out to bid.)

Though they’re leaning that way now, officials also haven’t ruled out that the entire bridge could be closed for the length of the project.

News

New Canaan Preservationists Lament Demolition of Historic Jelliff Mill, Home

By |

 

New Canaan’s charm and specifically its historic character—a sense of protected heritage that could be seen in both private homes and natural landscape—attracted preservation architects Carl and Rose Rothbart to town when they moved here 20 years ago. Since then, the pair said they’ve seen that defining quality of New Canaan change dramatically, due at least in part to developers who “strip-mine” (Rose’s term) real property here through teardowns and new construction, or in many cases, subdivision. The feeling that drew the Rothbarts to town has nearly vanished, Rose— current president of the New Canaan Preservation Alliance, a nonprofit group—said during an interview in her husband’s Pine Street office on a recent afternoon. “It’s getting close to being lost entirely,” she said. “It happens gradually.