News

Owner of Antique Home on Valley Road Applies for Demolition Permit

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Saying it’s too expensive to maintain and insure a vacant, antique house in northeastern New Canaan, the property’s owners on Monday filed an application to demolish it. The first taxing district of Norwalk has no immediate plans for the ca. 1750-built house and 4-acre property it owns at 1124 Valley Road, according to James Fulton, an attorney who serves as trustee for the district. “If someone offers us enough money, they can buy the whole property with the house on it, too,” Fulton told NewCanaanite.com. “But for the amount of money that some people think the property is worth and are willing to pay, it is actually worth more to the district to keep it for its future use.

Around Town

New Canaan Historic Preservationists Select Firm To Prepare Waveny’s Listing on National Register of Historic Places

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A nonprofit organization dedicated to historic preservation in New Canaan is hiring a Pawtucket, R.I.-based firm to put together an application to list one of the town’s most cherished properties on the National Register of Historic Places. It isn’t clear yet just which buildings or portion of the grounds at Waveny—beyond the 1912-built main house—will be included in the application that Public Archeology Laboratory Inc. is to prepare, according to Rose Scott Long, co-president of the New Canaan Preservation Alliance. If approved, Waveny will become the first public property in New Canaan to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town three years ago voted to back the Preservation Alliance in pursuing the listing. The listing itself has absolutely no bearing on what the town does with main house, grounds or any outbuildings.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Saying his tenant hadn’t paid rent since November, the owner of a 7,000-square-foot home on Juniper Road has filed for eviction in state Superior Court. According to a complaint filed Tuesday, the tenants had agreed starting June 1, 2015, to pay $8,800 the first year, $9,000 the second and $9,200 the third year of a lease that would run to July 2018. The plaintiff brought a Notice to Quit Possession on May 8, according to the complaint, though the tenants still occupied the property on May 13. ***

The arraignment for the New Canaan man arrested last month for interfering with an emergency call has been continued to June 9, according to Connecticut Judicial Branch records. His son also is to be arraigned, now on June 29.

Around Town

Connecticut Trust Honors New Canaan’s Mimi Findlay, Janet Lindstrom for Work in Historic Preservation

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A prominent state organization has honored two New Canaan women for their decades-long and far-reaching work in historic preservation. Janet Lindstrom, recently retired executive director of the New Canaan Historical Society, has received the Jainschigg Award from the Hamden-based Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, while the organization created a new award honoring Mimi Findlay, co-founder and chairman emerita of the New Canaan Preservation Alliance. The ‘Mimi Findlay Award for Young Preservationists’ will recognize individuals or groups of people 35-and-younger involved in preservation of historic buildings, districts, landscapes or sites in Connecticut. Asked how she feels about the honor, Findlay told NewCanaanite.com that she’s “thankful.”

“I hope it may inspire other young people to take up the challenge and spread the word—old houses, old buildings, old furnishings have many new uses and should be recycled,” she said. “Digging up the artifacts buried in a trash pit is all part of discovering the way people lived in the past and part of the big cultural picture.”

She added: “This award makes me very happy and proud of my life’s accomplishments, and pleased that they are recognized.”

Lindstrom was not immediately available for comment.

Government

Even ‘Richmond Hill Garage’ Gets a Fresh Look from Group Appointed to Evaluate Town Buildings

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Like all other town-owned buildings, the disused brick structure at 64 Richmond Hill Road—slated for demolition in 2010 and described as a “garage” by some, “barn” by others—is getting a fresh evaluation now by an appointed volunteer group. The Town Building Evaluation and Use Committee in September is to report back to the town on the conditions, uses and capital needs of the 44-plus structures that New Canaan owns (except for the public schools). The group is expected to make recommendations to the town about how buildings may be used differently, or whether New Canaan should continue to own them at all. In their meeting Monday, members discussed the possibility that the Richmond Hill Garage, located at the northern edge of Mead Park, roughly opposite Grove Street, could be restored for some useful purpose. It’s an empty space that, “with a decent amount of money, could be put into useful condition,” committee member Ben Bilus said during the meeting, held in Town Hall.