Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Angelina Hubertus (December 20, 2015) 8-year-old pianist playing Mozart ” Rondol Alla Turca”

Turkish March

Congratulations to West School third-grader Angelina Hubertus, 8, who on Dec. 20 played at Carnegie Hall (see video above). Though she’s only played piano for three years, the New Canaan resident this year was the “Honorable Winner” of the American Protégé International Music Talent Competition. In addition to Music, Angelina loves skating, swimming, tennis and golf, and is a member of New Canaan YMCA basketball Junior Eagle team. New Canaanite readers may remember her from an article that ran this past summer, after a 300-year-old apple tree fell on an Oenoke Ridge Road property.

News

Owners of Historic, Prominent New Canaan Home Seek Subdivision That Would Protect It

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The longtime owners of an iconic and prominent New Canaan house—a home that historians say was the first in town to be lighted by gas, in the 1870s—are seeking special permission to subdivide their 1.8-acre lot in order to preserve the historic structure. Under the New Canaan Zoning Regulations, there isn’t quite enough buildable land at 528 Main St. to carve out a second parcel within the lot that includes the stately white mid-Victorian-style villa home that historians date to about 1852. Yet by expanding a section of the zoning regulations that deals with historic preservation—specifically, to offer some relief from density requirements, as that relief exists now for dimensions and total area—New Canaan could “allow for preservation of a special and significant dwelling and a piece of our history that would otherwise be lost,” according to Michael Sweeney, an attorney with Stamford-based Carmody, Torrance, Sandak & Hennessey LLP. The homes owners for 18 years, Thomas and Marianne Reifenheiser (it’s been in the family since 1946) “have tried to sell the property over the past seven or eight years, and really without success,” Sweeney told members of the Planning & Zoning Commission during their Nov.