New Canaan Now & Then: The Seymour House [Part 2 of 2]

‘New Canaan Now & Then’ is sponsored by Brown Harris Stevens Realtors Joanne Santulli, Karen Ceraso, Bettina Hegel and Schuyler Morris. Part 1 of 2 of this installment can be found here.

Daniel G. Weed sold the house, the buildings, and 10 acres to his half brother, Andrew, on May 10, 1868. 

The Weed brothers bought and sold a lot of land in the neighborhood and apparently remodeled several homes. The estate of Andrew Weed sold the property to Holly B. Slauson of Norwalk in 1914. Three years later, Mrs. Franklin S. [A.] Colby bought the property in August. 

Olive Colby was the daughter of Laban Arnold and Delia Ann Gaines Arnold who were married in 1848 in New York. Ms. Gaines Arnold was his second wife and they had two daughters, Elma and Olive. Olive married Franklin Colby in 1873. Their son, Franklin S. Colby Jr. inherited the property in 1920. Mr. Colby was an architect and had graduated from the Ecole des Beaux Arts. 

There is a note in the Museum’s file noting that he designed the facade of the Frick House but no further documentation could be found. Mr. Colby rented the main house rather than living in it, according to these same NCM&HS records. Mr. Colby moved to what was the old shoe factory and in 1950 he deeded this property to his wife with an acre and a half of land. Mrs. Colby died in 1951 and Mr. Colby inherited it. 

In 1950 he sold the main house to Mary Seymour Lucas of Greenwich. She moved to the property with her mother and sister. Ms. Lucas was the head of the middle school at New Canaan Country School beginning in 1948 and remained an employee of the school until 1967. Ms. Lucas sold off 3.8 acres of the property along the Five Mile River to David and Anne P. Mitchell in August 1958. At the same time she sold a 25-foot right-of-way to Richard and Catherine Brinckerhoff. 

When Ms.Lucas left New Canaan, she went to the Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts. She died in 2003 at the age of 91. The property was sold on July 11, 1963 to Jean E. Crego of New York. Ms. Crego was elected to the Board of Directors of New Canaan’s Red Cross in 1964. In March 1965 she applied for a building permit for $10,000 of work on the interior of her home. Ms. Crego requested a detailed search of the property dated December 1969 that provided many of the details included.

In November 1980 the property was purchased by Arthur and Consuela Loomis for $317,500. The Loomises had four daughters and became synonymous with women’s lacrosse in Fairfield County. Connie Loomis was active at the onstart of the New Canaan Nature Center and was the first volunteer coordinator at the center in 1982. In 1983 Ms. Loomis became the JV lacrosse coach at the high school, remarking that she had stepped up because no one else had wanted to do it. She attended a three-day clinic at Harvard and received help from then head coach Betsy Farmakiss and most importantly received coaching tips from her daughters. Ms. Loomis would become the head coach in 1986 and would continue to coach for eleven years. Two short years after her retirement, her daughter, Meredith, took over as coach in 1995. 

In 1997 the property was listed for sale, the whole property being sold for $925,000 and included 2.24 acres and the outbuildings or just the main house being offered at $575,000. The main house property was purchased by Sidney Mashburn in May 1998. Mr. Mashburn is a fashion designer who started at J.Crew menswear and worked for Ralph Lauren, Hilfinger and now has his own label. Mr. Mashburn is credited with designing one of J.Crew’s “heritage” pieces – the “Barn Jacket”. In 1992 he used images (with permission) from his own 1968 high school yearbook from Brandon Mississippi to create a designer boxer short known as the “1968” where 27 yearbook photos were used as a black and white graphic. Mr. Mashburn and his wife, Ann, returned to New York City and eventually moved to Atlanta where they opened their flagship store of Sid Mashburn. 

The next owners of the property were William and Caroline Featherston who purchased the property in June of 1999. The property was sold in September 2003 to Garth Appelt. The Appelts applied for a permit to build a barn like structure on their property, which required a variance. The property was listed for sale again in 2009 for $995,000 and was purchased by Amanda Zorumski in May of that year. Ms. Zorumski sold the property to the current owners in May of 2015. In February of this year a building permit was issued for interior renovations and an updating of the mechanics.