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New Canaan Now & Then: The Ogden House

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‘New Canaan Now & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Joanne Santulli, Karen Ceraso, Bettina Hegel and Schuyler Morris. The Ogden House was built in 1875 according to the Town’s land records, however, the Historic New England preservation service dates the house to 1868. 

The Historic New England designation protects the house and the site through the Preservation Easement Program, which currently includes one 124 privately owned houses in New England. The frame tool shed and the carriage barn were built in 1900. According to the Historic New England criteria for protecting this home, the Ogden House represents an “example of the rural vernacular architecture which has largely vanished.” 

The historic home is situated on 1.69 acres and was once part of a small working class community on the rural outskirts of New Canaan. The house was built by the shoemaker Orson Ogden who passed the property to his nephews, Arthur and Stanley Ogden.

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New Canaan Now & Then: The Bliss Estate [Part 2 of 2]

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‘New Canaan Now & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Joanne Santulli, Karen Ceraso, Bettina Hegel and Schuyler Morris. Part I of this installment can be found here. The New Canaan Garden Club and local gardeners made the greenhouses their focus for most of the educational efforts. 

The “car barn” became home to the children’s summer camp which was then co-sponsored by the New Canaan Audubon Society. In 1963, the Town contributed $30,000 to renovate the horse barn, which was then converted into classrooms, offices, restrooms, exhibit space and dark room. Another exciting development was that two ponds were created with the help of the New Canaan Kiwanis Club in 1965 and in 1967 the Beginner’s Nature Program opened.

Now & Then

New Canaan Now & Then: The Bliss Estate [Part 1 of 2]

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‘New Canaan Now & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Joanne Santulli, Karen Ceraso, Bettina Hegel and Schuyler Morris. The Nature Center on Oenoke Ridge occupies the former Bliss Estate, or “Lindenfield” (because the driveway was lined with Linden trees). 

In 1875 Osborn E. Bright, an attorney from Brooklyn, bought eight acres of land on Oenoke Ridge from Joseph Fitch Silliman and built his summer residence. When finished, the new house stood very close to the neighbor’s cow barn, so close in fact that Bright’s wife, Maria, offered to build the neighbors a new barn if they would tear down the existing one.  A new barn could also not be built within 100 feet of the Brights’ land.  At the same time, the Brights also bought a piece of land from the same neighbor for $200. 

In 1899, the property was sold to Ms. Catherine A. Bliss from New York City for $22,500.  Over the next thirteen years, Ms. Bliss expanded the house and improved the grounds, adding specimen trees such as purple beech and Asia oaks. A full wing was added along with a large living room and a porch. The living room was so large that it was able to fit a thirty six foot rug, which was said to have been the second largest rug ever woven in America at the time. 

The house built by the Brights would eventually become a hall and a dining room with bedrooms on the second floor.

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New Canaan Now & Then: 233 Weed St.

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‘New Canaan Now & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Joanne Santulli, Karen Ceraso, Bettina Hegel and Schuyler Morris. The home in 1899 had an assessed value of $1,300 and the two acres of land were valued at $150, according to the land records. On April 13, 1899 Amanda Whitney sold the land to Julia Miller for $200. A year later, Ms. Miller sold the property for $250 to Henry E. Waterbury. Mr. Waterbury’s ancestor, Charles Waterbury, had owned the land at an earlier date.

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New Canaan Now & Then: Stevens-Verleger-Deerson-Saxon House

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‘New Canaan Now & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Joanne Santulli, Karen Ceraso, Bettina Hegel and Schuyler Morris. The property at 228 Weed Street has a unique history as its “built” date is unclear. 

The Stevens-Verleger-Deerson-Saxon House was apparently built prior to 1750 (although the land records date it to 1771). The property, located on the west side of Weed Street, just north of Knapp Lane, was owned by the Stevens family in the early 1700s. Among the first recorded transactions in the area were 21 acres to Obadiah Stevens in 1700 and 10 acres to Ephraim Stevens in 1790 – the combined parcels account for the land from what is now Old Stamford Road and Weed Street to the Noroton River. In 1946 Mrs. Robert D. Dumm reported in the New Canaan Historical Annual that the Stevens family could be traced in the 1640s to Stamford and through seven generations to Ann Stevens who married Ever Brown and lived in the house on Weed Street around 1840. 

Ann’s grandfather, Joseph, was the son of Obadiah Stevens.