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Historic District Commission Approves Addition on Oenoke Lane

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The volunteer panel that oversees New Canaan’s Historic District—the area around God’s Acre, generally speaking—last week voted 5-0 to approve a plan to build a mudroom and three-car garage onto an Oenoke Lane home. Just part of the 1962-built Colonial at 20 Oenoke Lane is located within the district, according to a map on the town website. As such, the Historic District Commission’s interest in the homeowner’s project is “focused on what you are doing on the east side of the house, where you are doing a major addition which is in District,” Commission Vice Chair Carl Rothbart said during the appointed body’s July 22 meeting, held via videoconference. “What you are adding at the bedrooms and back of the house really is beyond our purview,” he said. Darien-based architect Neil Tod Hauck, representing the homeowners, said a glass-enclosed mudroom would lead to the new two-story garage on the east side of the house, with a metal roof featuring three “doghouse” dormers and topped with a cupola.

Government

Historical Society Plans To Install New Brick Walkways

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The oldest historical society in Fairfield County is seeking permission from an appointed town body to install new brick walkways connecting buildings on its Oenoke Ridge campus with each other as well as a planned new terrace. The New Canaan Museum & Historical Society has applied to the Historic District Commission for permission to install a “brick pathway to connect the historic museums–the Rock School and the Hanford-Silliman house—with the existing path to the Rogers Studio.”

“There is also a 20-by-20-foot terrace at the top of the hill, which will have some benches for visitors to use,” according to the organization’s Feb. 22 application for a Certificate of Appropriateness. “The idea is to integrate the campus and provide a better outdoor experience. The plan was designed by Keith Simpson and will work visually with the approved terrace by the main building.”

The Commission is scheduled to take up the application at its regular meeting, scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday.

Government

Commission Approves Sidewalk Extensions, Reconstruction Around God’s Acre

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The volunteer group that oversees New Canaan’s Historic District last week approved three sidewalk projects that cross into the area of God’s Acre. The projects include new and reconstructed sidewalks on Main and Park Streets. 

One calls for a reconstructed sidewalk climbing the hill on the east side of God’s Acre from Heritage Hill Road all the way along Oenoke Ridge to Parade Hill Road, according to Tiger Mann, the town’s public works director. The other two effectively will create continuous sidewalk access for pedestrians coming up Park Street in front of the Congregational church and will wrap around the corner at Oenoke “in order to give sight lines and then there will be a crosswalk so that, in essence, you are getting right across the street to the district itself or to the Historical Society itself,” Mann told members of the Historic District Commission at their July 23 meeting, held via videoconference. 

Commissioner Pam Randon said, “It’s sorely needed.”

“It’s terrible, really bad,” she said. “You cannot even push a wheelchair on it now.”

Randon, Chair Tom Nissley, Secretary Carl Rothbart and Commissioners Marty Skrelunas and Todd Lampert voted 5-0 to approve the project. Under the town’s Historic District regulations, the appointed body’s approval is needed for such alterations. 

The sidewalks themselves in the district will be colored gray concrete, Mann said.

Carl Rothbart

Historical Society Seeks Approval for Cedar- and Asphalt-Shingle Roof Project

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The volunteer body that oversees New Canaan’s Historic District is poised to approve a request from an organization located on God’s Acre to replace cedar shingles on part of a building there with asphalt shingles. The New Canaan Museum and Historical Society is seeking to replace keep the shingles on its 1825 “Town House” building facing Oenoke Ridge as cedar, but to use asphalt shingles for the roof of a 2000 addition that houses the Lindstrom conference room, officials said. “We have a number of leaks,” the organization’s executive director, Nancy Geary, told members of the Historic District Commission at their July 23 meeting, held via videoconference. 

“One of the problems that we have is under roof of Lindstrom Room as part of of the library roof is where we store our extensive clothing and textile collection,” she said. “So we are very worried about water damage in there. It’s already leaking in the attic extensively.

Carl Rothbart

New Museum Planned for Park Street To Focus on Historic Preservation 

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Town officials on Thursday heard more details on plans to convert a well-known Park Street home into a museum focused primarily on historic preservation. 

Once the home of the great Scribners editor Maxwell Perkins, the Greek Revival at 63 Park St. will house a philanthropic organization and feature exhibits and lectures, according to Wilton-based architect William Earls. “It being so walkable in the center of town and also so close to the Historical Society—and also not only is the house itself so much part of that program but having, of course, the Glass House and Fred Noyes’s house and Grace Farms—all seemed to have this happy synergy with David’s intent there,” Earls told members of the Historic District Commission at their May 28 meeting, held via videoconference. 

He referred to David Peterson, principal of the limited liability company that purchased the ca.-1836 house and its .33 acres for nearly $2.5 million in November 2018. The town in March received a building permit for an estimated $750,000 interior renovation on the structure. Because the project involves some exterior changes to parts of the building that are visible from the public street, the Commission’s approval also is required.