SNEAK PEEK: ‘The Cultivated Collector’ To Open Saturday on Vitti Street

The Cultivated Collector—a classic and exotic car showroom and clubhouse—will launch at its newly renovated 19 Vitti St. location on Saturday, during an invite-only grand opening. Led by company President Matthew Ivanhoe and Vice President Anne Ivanhoe, industry veterans known to auto enthusiasts in the area, The Cultivated Collector’s business will focus primarily on collector car sales—specifically, investment-grade European sports and exotic cars, from 1950’s to ’70s Italian, German, and Aston Martin cars, to modern collectible drivers’ cars, such as V12 powered, manual transmission Ferraris and Aston Martins, as well as GT2/GT3 Porsches. Cars that will be shown at next weekend’s opening include a 1959 Aston Martin DB4 GT, 1967 Lamborghini Miura Barn Find and 1984 Ferrari 288 GTO. Anne Ivanhoe gave us a “sneak peek” tour of the newly renovated, comfortable space upstairs—see photo gallery above. Read more background on The Cultivated Collector here.

‘The Cultivated Collector’: Classic and Exotic Car Showroom, Clubhouse Planned for Vitti Street

A new business featuring classic and exotic cars is slated to open this spring in a largely disused Vitti Street lot and structure that once housed an auto body shop—the latest dramatic change in a corner of downtown New Canaan where officials envision a more vibrant, pedestrian-friendly neighborhood. ‘The Cultivated Collector’ at 19 Vitti St. will include a street-level showroom of what founder Matthew Ivanhoe called “investment-grade collectible vehicles,” second-level “clubhouse” for auto enthusiasts seeking camaraderie and connections to services for the owners of the valuable cars themselves. “It is our objective to be a shining cultural Mecca that represents the town,” Ivanhoe, a Greenwich resident and former principal at a Bedford Hills, N.Y.-based auto business that last year sponsored New Canaan’s popular Caffeine & Carburetors gathering. “We are not just car enthusiasts—we are art collectors, we are wine collectors, we are watch collectors, and we hope to share that with the town and be a beacon that represents the change that this area is undergoing.”

Ivanhoe underscored that The Cultivated Collector will serve as a passive space for auto enthusiasts and is not a repair shop or anything similar.