New Canaanites traveling South Avenue in recent days may have noticed that one of the main residential drag’s most prominent homes has become a bit more conspicuous to passersby.
A picket fence has replaced the privet that long stood out front of the historic home at 299 South Ave. Credit: Michael Dinan
The owners of the 1897-built, stucco Colonial at 299 South Ave. decided to remove a row of privets out front and show off the historic home they’ve spent more than four years restoring and reviving.
The bushes were “on the thin side, required a lot of maintenance, blocking the house yet not providing much privacy,” Meg Marciano, who has owned the New Canaan landmark with her husband Lance since 2011, said when asked recently about the very noticeable change to the front lawn.
South Ave. at the turn of the century. The Brooks Sanatorium is visible in this postcard.
“So we are throwing privacy to the wind, at least until the plantings mature,” said Marciano, a 1990 New Canaan High School graduate.
Along with a new fence that as of Sunday afternoon stood along the South Avenue side of the house (it’ll continue up the southern end, on Brooks Road, next week), more evergreens and rhododendrons will come in, to be planted “heavier on the corners of the property keeping a curtain like opening to the old Brooks Sanatorium.”
Originally a sanatorium or hospital, and later converted to an inn until it became a private residence in 1960, the home at 299 South Ave. had been created by Ellen Josephine Hall as part of 11-acre property on South Avenue with the intention of building a sanatorium for her nephew Dr. Charles Osborne, according to an article from Mary Louise King in the New Canaan Historical Society‘s 1982 annual.
In December 1900, Hall sold the property to Stamford residents Dr. Myron J. and Marion Brooks, tax records show—a family that would give its name to a dead-end street that later would be carved out of South Avenue just below the hospital.
A postcard from the early 20th century of the Brooks Sanatorium.
New Canaan was a popular summer destination for well-to-do Manhattan residents to escape the oppressive city heat for the clean country air. Brooks used this reputation and with a clever marketing strategy, the Brooks Sanatorium soon became a successful and well-known recovery home for tuberculosis patients. Brooks himself was so well regarded that by the time World War I broke out, he was appointed New Canaan’s health officer and medical examiner—posts he maintained until 1929.
New Canaanites passing by on South Avenue have a much clearer view now of the historic home that Meg and Lance Marciano have spent years restoring and updating. Credit: Michael Dinan
Marciano said she hopes that maple trees planted on the corners of the property will provide nice shade for the sidewalk and that people passing by the home have been enthusiastic about being able to see it better.
“The general feedback from walkers and people around town has been it is so nice to see the old house better,” she said.
In fact, she said, one motorist passing along South Avenue was heard to shout out of the car: “I would have taken those bushes out 30 years ago!”
And that sits with Marciano just fine.
“After four-and-a-half years of renovating, we are happy to show her off a little,” she said.