Papyrus on Elm Street To Close

A stationery shop that fronts both Elm Street and Morse Court is closing, officials say. Papyrus at 32 Elm St. is liquidating and doesn’t have a firm closing date, though the store is shutting down, according to one of its workers. 

The news comes as the retail chain announces that it’s closing all 450 Papyrus locations nationwide. 

In New Canaan, the change comes amid several others in downtown stores. Nantucket Monogram on Morse Court is moving onto Elm to share space with Taylor Luggage, while the Adirondack Store & Gallery prepares to move into the former Family Britches space across Elm. Another store that New Canaanites long have gone to for greeting cards, Mackenzie’s, also is closing this month.

Family-Owned Geiger’s Settles into Frogtown Nursery Space

A family-owned business that traces its Connecticut roots to the 19th Century and formed in its current iteration in the early-1950s has moved into the sprawling, pond-flanked commercial lot at the bottom of Frogtown Road—known for decades to New Canaanites under names such as Kimberly or Frogtown Farms & Nurseries. Geiger’s Landscape has been serving New Canaan for more than six decades, in a variety of ways: residents have been customers of the business, dozens of New Canaan storefronts for years have had Geiger’s container gardens and plantings out front and, more recently, the company has helped beautify town pocket parks and the Talmadge Hill trail station. Senior Landscape Architect John Geiger (son of company founder Frank) said New Canaan long has been a key town for the business. “We’ve never had an office or garden center there in the past, but we’ve been working there and obviously it’s a wonderful community,” Geiger said on a recent afternoon during an interview at his Westport headquarters. “And when the Frogtown Nursery came up, we said, ‘What an opportunity to have an business in New Canaan.’ ”

With a physical location in New Canaan and focus on landscape architecture, design, construction and property care, including organic options—in part because, though the Frogtown Road space is a retail nursery and garden center, that part of the industry has become increasingly challenging from a business perspective—Geiger said the company is eager to support the local community.