New Canaan Now & Then: 233 Weed St.

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233 Weed St. on Jan. 11, 2024. Credit: Michael Dinan

‘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. Three years later Waterbury sold the property to John W. Nichols. 

It was an interesting transaction because the parcel of land with no building on it was required to keep the premises insured, and the Grantor (Waterbury) had use of the property for the duration of his life. On April 6, 1903 a quit claim was filed which released Nichols from the “life interest” provision. It appears that the parcel stayed in the Nichols family for 20-odd years. The Nichols family, which included Jessica Louisa Merritt of Greenwich, Margaret C. Nichols and Mary Amanda Nichols (both of New Canaan), and Hiram Edward Nichols of Honolulu, sold the property on July 30, 1923 to Sara Lucas. On January 15, 1945, Lucas sold the property to Joseph A. and Lucy E. Liberatore. At that time, the tract of land consisted of two acres and buildings. The boundaries of the property were defined by stone walls. 

The Liberatores sold just over an acre of the property to Charles E. G. and Elizabeth W. Lloyd. The small parcel of land was restricted to one dwelling. The Lloyds sold the property on July 24, 1957 to Oliver Stuart and Edmoia J. Chase, formerly of Franconia, New Hampshire. The Chases transferred the property 5 years later to Hadden and Flavia Clark from Morrisville Pennsylvania. Again the property changed hands three years later and was sold to Philip K. and Lydia Mooney. The Mooneys didn’t last very long and sold the property in June of 1967 to James P. and Joan Pope Tewksbury. Before finally moving to Massachusetts, the Tewksbury family lived in a few houses in New Canaan, including 394 Ponus Ridge which was a Drummond Visitation House (formerly the Nathaniel Crissey House). In 1978 Mr. Tewksbury found a silver pot in one of their New Canaan residences. The Tewksburys sold the property in 1974 to William P. and Lorna Grand Stengel.

Ms. Stengel was a “creative dramatist” and was honored in 2003 as one of the first Tellers in Residence at the International Storytelling Center in Tennessee. She was likely better known to local residents as a teacher and language arts resource teacher at the West School. In 1980 the Stengels sold the property to Cynthia Brown Calder for $156,000. Ms. Calder was involved in the New Canaan CARES and the Women’s Charity League. Ms. Calder’s grandfather, Arthur Gardner, was a former ambassador to Cuba. Her husband, Peter Douglas Calder was the grandson of Louis Calder. Louis Calder began working for the Perkins Goodwin Company as an office boy for $4 a week in 1897 and was eventually named president of this company in 1922. Louis Calder set up the first drive in gas filling stations in New York. He was eighty four years old when he died in 1963. There is a foundation in his name, whose mission is to offer high quality learning opportunities for under-resourced communities. 

In 2007 the Calder family sold the property to Gail Mustard for $1.23 million dollars. Ms. Mustard sold the property two years later to Robert Koen for $1.3 million. Mr. Koen sold the property five years later to Hugh Adrian Margien Tolston for $1.45 million. The Tolston sold the property to the current owners 10 years later in May 2022. 

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