Arianne Kolb

‘Women of Waveny’ Exhibition Opens at New Canaan Museum & Historical Society

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New Canaan’s Arianne Faber Kolb, an art historian, came across the name Abastenia St. Leger Eberle by accident one day several years ago. The water had been drained out of the lily pond in heart of the formal gardens east of Waveny House for a full cleaning, exposing the Eberle’s name at the base of a 1918 bronze of a nymph—the sculpture, “Lotus Fountain,” is known to thousands of New Canaanites—and prompting Faber Kolb to start researching. What she and fellow town resident Micaela Porta went on to discover about Eberle—a highly accomplished sculptor whose work has been shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—and four other women whose unique contributions helped form and document Waveny House and park as we know it today, would lead them to co-curate a new exhibition that launched last month at the New Canaan Museum & Historical Society. “Women of Waveny—Artists, Patrons and the Lapham Legacy” is open through March 31, 2022. 

Located in a second-floor gallery in the Historical Society’s main building (13 Oenoke Ridge), the exhibition features six sculptures from Eberle as well as many photographs from Frances Benjamin Johnston—an early American photographer and photojournalist who took pictures of Waveny—and paintings, prints, ephemera and other works and images that tell the story of how they and Antoinette Lapham, Ruth Lapham Lloyd and Elise Lapham contributed to Waveny and beyond—women whose lives spanned 1864 to 2011, according to the show’s 35-page program, written by Porta.

Around Town

Q&A: Waveny Park Conservancy To Hold Third Annual ‘Tailgate Party’ on Sept. 29

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The local organization leading restoration and improvement projects at Waveny is now selling a limited number of tickets to attend a popular social gathering at the park. To be held 4 to 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29 on the lawn behind the main house, the Waveny Park Conservancy’s third annual Tailgate Party will feature live music by Short Bus, prizes for most creatively done vehicles, Conservancy merchandise, firepit and college football on a giant inflatable screen, according to New Canaan’s Arianne Faber Kolb, an event organizer and member of the WPC Board of Directors. The first 100 cars to register—$500 per vehicle for up to six people for the first row (just 20 available) and $300 per vehicle for the 80 remaining spots (also up to six people), $50-per-person for extra guest tickets—will park in rows, with spaces assigned on a first-come, first-served basis for the party, a fundraiser for the Conservancy. (Tickets are available here, parking spots cannot be purchased the night of the event.)

We caught up with Faber Kolb and put some questions to her on the Tailgate Party.

Around Town

PHOTOS: Christopher Lloyd Regales Waveny Park Conservancy, Supporters Ahead of Dec. 2 ‘Golden Gala’; Lloyds To Serve as Honorary Chairpersons

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Christopher Lloyd on Wednesday night stepped toward the limestone fireplace in the grand hall of his childhood home in New Canaan, turned and told about 50 town residents gathered there that returning to Waveny House reminds him of his past. On this evening—a cocktail party hosted by the Waveny Park Conservancy to honor the organization’s founders and supporters, and kick off fundraising plans for 2017—the actor said he found himself thinking about “one particular incident” involving his father, Samuel R. Lloyd Jr.

“My father liked to have a cigar from time to time, and there was a humidor in that room, the billiard room,” he said, pointing past the staircase that New Canaanites for decades have climbed to reach the Recreation Department’s offices. “There’s still a billiard table in there, though for some reason it’s kind of dark. And there’s a humidor, and when I was seven, eight, nine years old, I became aware that it contained cigars, and I experimented. I kind of secreted one, went outside, lit it up.

Around Town

Letter: ‘Thank You’ for Support of Waveny Book Launch

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On behalf of the New Canaan Preservation Alliance, I would like to thank the community of New Canaan for the overwhelming support of the launch of my book Waveny: New Canaan’s Treasure. What a treat to have Christopher Lloyd return to his hometown of New Canaan for this family event, which helps build awareness of this unique historic estate that his mother gifted to the town in 1967. Much thought went into producing this book by a small group of dedicated people, who all donated their time and expertise. First, I would like to thank the talented artist and illustrator Nicole Johnson Murphy for devoting over a year to working with me on this project, which was truly a labor of love for both of us. Julia O-Dowd brought the significant Herter Looms murals to life with her detailed photographs. Rose Scott Long’s photographs further highlighted many of the decorative elements in the house, while the graphic designer John Kearns and Robert La Banca of Impression Point packaged and printed the book beautifully.

Around Town

‘It Was An Amazing Place To Live’: Actor Christopher Lloyd Returns To Waveny House

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About 12 years ago, Christopher Lloyd, the actor, re-visited Waveny House, his childhood home in New Canaan and centerpiece of the sprawling property, now a beloved park, that his mother Ruth Lapham Lloyd conveyed to the town in 1967. It was a Fourth of July weekend, Lloyd recalled, and he was “sitting out in the field, and the fireworks were going off down near the parkway and I looked back and I saw all those faces and the people and they had a band playing and all kinds of barbecues going on.”

“And I thought, if my mother could come back and see that, she would feel that her dream was coming true,” Lloyd recalled from the Great Hall at Waveny House on Sunday afternoon, standing a few feet away from the recently restored floor-to-ceiling limestone fireplace that has greeted generations of New Canaanites entering the 1912-built structure. “That Waveny hadn’t been turned into gas stations and mini-malls—not that we don’t need those—but something that was preserved ‘in perpetuity’ so to speak, where the people who live in this area can come and enjoy what it offers. That’s a great pleasure, to come back and see that.”

He got a good dose on Sunday, attending the sold-out launch of a children’s book, “Waveny: New Canaan’s Treasure,” written by town resident Arianne Kolb and illustrated by Nicole Johnson Murphy. A max-capacity crowd of more than 150 picked up copies of the book, mixed and took photos with Lloyd, learned about the work of a nonprofit organization that co-presented the event with the town, the New Canaan Preservation Alliance, and perused contemporary photographs of the Waveny grounds by New Canaan artist Torrance York, while New Canaan Music owner Phil Williams entertained the crowd with live music from his band, Scavenger Trio.