Business

‘The Collected Home’: New Canaan Mom of Eight Opens ‘Lifestyle Shop’ in Rowayton

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Risa King began hunting for architectural pieces for her Brushy Ridge Road home—a unique ca. 1921-built ranch house that had been part of a larger estate—straightaway after purchasing it six years ago. A mother of eight and resident of New Canaan for nine years already at that point, King with a historian’s sensibility, keen eye for detail and budding entrepreneurship researched the home extensively—it once belonged to a New York City publisher and Agatha Christie sat in her living room—and lived at times in a RV parked out front while the house underwent renovations. She also traveled to antique markets, craft fairs, estate sales and auctions to find pieces that felt right for its roughly 4,500 square feet of living space. “I wanted it to echo its past,” King said on a recent afternoon from the eye-catching, comfortably open floor of The Collected Home in Rowayton, the business she launched last month in the heart of the village.

Business

10 Great Last-Minute Christmas Gift Ideas from New Canaan Shops [GALLERY]

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We’re entering the home stretch of Christmas shopping in New Canaan, as most every holiday shipping date has past. For anyone looking for great last-minute gift and stocking-stuffer ideas, we’ve created the gallery above—covering everything from $5 squishies for the kids to a $3,600 six-liter bottle of wine for the grownups. Though it’s not meant to be exhaustive—for example, we left off favorites such as the New Canaan Chamber of Commerce’s gift cards, New Canaan Historical Society’s ornaments and Philip Johnson Glass House’s design store items—the gallery represents a good cross-section of downtown merchants. As Laura Budd from the Chamber’s offices above the Playhouse on Elm Street said: “From our office on the ’50-yard line’ and from our interactions with store owners and managers, we know that New Canaan shoppers have embraced the ‘Shop Local’ movement. We know this is in no small part due to the tremendous effort the local businesses put in to the ‘experience’ of shopping here in New Canaan.

Business

New Canaan Olive Oil Moving To Shared Space on Main Street Jan. 1, with ‘Against The Grain’ Furniture Shop

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New Canaan Olive Oil, a popular shop on Elm Street’s “50-yard line” for more than four years, will move into a shared commercial space on Main Street next month. Heidi Burrows, the business’s owner, said her lease is up Dec. 31 and that she’s moving the retail shop into Against The Grain at 91 Main St. There will be no disruption for customers, Burrows said. “We expect almost everything to stay the same, just in a different location,” she said.

Business

Officials: New Canaan Needs More Formal Way To Review Architecture of Proposed Building Projects Downtown

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Saying that guidelines for maintaining and enhancing the village feel of downtown New Canaan need more teeth, planning officials are seeking a more formal way to review the architecture, scale and materials of proposed building projects in the business district. Members of a Planning & Zoning Commission subcommittee said at their most recent meeting that New Canaan must find a better way to ensure adherence to a 27-page document created in 2010 called the ‘Village District Design Guidelines.’

Though P&Z created that document, “we never put a tight set of regulations around it,” Jean Grzelecki of the Plan of Conservation & Development Implementation Committee said at the group’s most recent meeting. “We have a design manual which is something we recommend that everybody follows, and maybe we could strengthen that by adding it a as a special permit to the business district,” she said at the Nov. 28 meeting, held in Town Hall. “Some reasonable adherence to the design manual, because everyone once in a while we get some very strange-looking stuff.

Business

‘The Summer House’ on Cherry Street To Close as Owner Launches ‘Modern Antiquarian’ in Stamford

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Margaret Schwartz fell in love with antiques a few years ago. She didn’t expect to buy anything during an antiques tour of the United Kingdom—“I thought it would just be a kind of cool experience,” Schwartz recalled—and then found that she’d filled a 20-foot container in one day. “I never looked back,” Schwartz, known to locals for six years as the owner of The Summer House on Cherry Street, recalled Wednesday morning from the bright, roomy shop decorated with art, jewelry, furniture, accessories, lighting, pillows, throws and barware. Starting next month, Schwartz is formalizing her now-fully developed interest by launching a new shop at The Antique and Artisan Gallery in Stamford. She had already sold out of a booth there and secured a larger space in the spring.