‘Skilled, Knowledgeable, Well-Connected’: Met on Youth Soccer Sidelines, Two New Canaan Women Mark One Year Since Forming Law Group

Elizabeth DiRusso and Alexis Brooks had known each other exactly six years when, on a clear, sunny afternoon in October 2015, they met for a fateful walk on South Avenue. It was chilly, so each woman wore a fleece as they set out with their young yellow Labrador retrievers—Hadley DiRusso-Grenauer, who will turn four next month, and Ginger Brooks, now five and who had been, as a puppy, a difficult dog to leash-walk. Lawyers who graduated one decade apart from Suffolk Law School in Boston, the women had talked off and on for years about the prospect of working together one day. That day that had never materialized, understandably. DiRusso just then was 25 years into a career that had included a stint as general counsel for a multinational company that took her family from New Canaan to London from 2010 to 2013.

FCSL Summer Swimming Round-Up: Country Club of New Canaan and New Canaan Field Club

Featuring the perfect blend of competitiveness and fun, the Fairfield County Swim League – which includes swimmers from under age 8 to age 17 – is a gem of the summer. Both the Country Club of New Canaan and the New Canaan Field Club recently wrapped up their dual meet seasons and are preparing for divisionals and county championships. With a 1-4 record in Division 4, Country Club of New Canaan’s first year head coach Eileen Loveless said the amount of young swimmers – specifically in the age 8 to 10 and underage groups – shows that they are “starting to build our team back up again.”

Because the team is building from these young age groups, Loveless says she enjoys seeing the growth of her swimmers over the course of the season. Following a tough first loss to Greenwich Water Club, Loveless noted extremely “positive meet experiences” with both Shorehaven and Paterson Clubs because they were competitive, and the progress of CCNC swimmers was evident in the abundance of best times. “They were the most exciting meets for us because it’s where Country Club of New Canaan really rallied our spirit, where our team came together and our joy and enthusiasm seemed to reach its height,” Loveless said.

Field Club: Provision Restricting Weekend Construction Work Unfair

Calling a rule that no noise-making construction work can take place on weekends at the New Canaan Field Club unfair, burdensome and likely not enforceable, an attorney representing the club on Tuesday night urged planning officials to do away with the requirement. The Planning & Zoning Commission made the weekend restriction a condition of approval in green-lighting the expansion of a pool pavilion at the club six months ago. Glen Drive area neighbors concerned about noise, visibility and real estate values had fought against the project, which P&Z ultimately approved on 16 conditions. The last of those goes beyond even the town’s own noise ordinance, David Rucci of Main Street’s Lampert, Toohey & Rucci LLC told the commission at its regular monthly meeting. “We do not think that it is really a fair burden to put on us in this particular application,” Rucci said during a public hearing, held in the Sturgess Room at the New Canaan Nature Center.

P&Z Approves Pool Pavilion Expansion at New Canaan Field Club

Town officials on Tuesday approved the widely discussed expansion of the pool pavilion at the New Canaan Field Club. The Planning & Zoning Commission’s vote followed two public hearings at which several neighbors, mostly on Glen Drive, cited what they anticipate to be increased noise and light, more frequent and new uses, and lower property values brought on by a significantly larger pavilion. P&Z placed 16 conditions on the approval, and though those conditions were not publicly available straightaway—since they were in draft form until the moment of the vote—they appeared to include that pavilion functions end prior to 10 p.m., that the club receive the town planner’s approval for a modified landscape plan designed to provide screening for neighbors, and that no noise-generating construction (nearly everything outside of painting) takes place on weekends. Commissioner John Goodwin said at the regular P&Z meeting that though neighbors objected to the size of the expanded pavilion—plans call for a 65 percent increase in square footage to its existing two floors, plus a new 2,322-square-foot floor and 1,078-square-foot outdoor deck—that the structure is in line with other clubs and appropriate for the Field Club’s property. Goodwin said he felt the style of the pavilion was attractive and that the club had taken some pains to ensure that porches generally were pointed away from the residential neighbors.