Alicia Brandfellner

Local Businesses and COVID-19: Ciel Eau

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For today’s Q&A with a local business owner, we hear from Alicia Brandfellner of Ciel Eau. Opened five years ago on East Avenue, the day spa starting this week is offering body and eyebrow waxing, and massage therapy, among other services, by appointment. Here’s our exchange. 

New Canaanite: You got the green light to open recently [on June 17] after weeks of forced closure, as per the governor’s order. How are you doing? Alicia Brandfellner: Since the forced closure nearly three months ago, we are excited to start back on June 17.

Business

‘We Need To Find a Compromise’: ‘No Parking’ Signs To Go Up on East Avenue

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Officials say they’re going to post “No Parking” signs outside of an East Avenue business that’s been plagued by truck drivers idling outside the door to make deliveries around New Canaan. Though the truckers cannot park their vehicles outside day spa Ciel Eau at 1 East Ave.—because it’s illegal, bad for business owner Alicia Brandfellner and unsafe for motorists and pedestrians—still, those delivery drivers must be accommodated somewhere so that New Canaan restaurants get deliveries, Police Commission Chairman Stuart Sawabini said. “We clearly need to protect her [Brandfellner’s] business but we also cannot damage their [restaurants’] business,” Sawabini said during the commission’s regular monthly meeting, held Nov. 18 in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. “We need to find a compromise as we go through all this.”

Though there’s a designated 7 to 10 a.m. loading zone in front of Sleepy’s across East Avenue at the start of Forest Street, it’s rarely used because Forest is still in disarray with the mixed-use project going up by Locust Avenue, commissioners said.

Business

‘Ciel Eau’: A New Day Spa Opens Its Doors On East Avenue

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Ciel Eau—a new day spa offering facials, waxing treatments and massages, soon to add spray-tans, manicures and pedicures—has opened its doors at 1 East Ave. (just down from the corner of Main Street). Owned by Alicia Brandfellner and John Radzin, the spa has been named ‘Ciel Eau,’ which is French for “Sky Water,” is reflect its soothing and flowing atmosphere, Brandfellner said. An employee in New Canaan for 28 years at other spa locations, Brandfellner said she felt that the town was in real need for a peaceful and calm spa. “It’s like a secluded oasis in the downtown area,” Brandfellner said.