News

Music Festival Planned for Sept. 19 at New Canaan Nature Center

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The Summer Internship Program is sponsored by the New Canaan Racquet Club. A new community music festival will make its debut at the New Canaan Nature Center this September after receiving unanimous approval from the Parks & Recreation Commission. The commission voted in favor of the proposed New Canaan Music Festival, a daylong event planned for Saturday, Sept. 19, following a presentation from organizer Michael Smith and New Canaan Nature Center Executive Director Bill Flynn. Smith, a musician and New Canaan resident of about 12 years, told commissioners the goal is to create a family-friendly event that brings the community together through live music.

Government

Town: Fourth Of July Fireworks Attendance Drops Sharply Amid Heat, Storm Forecast

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The Summer Internship Program is sponsored by the New Canaan Racquet Club. Attendance at New Canaan’s annual Fourth of July fireworks celebration at Waveny Park fell dramatically from last year, with town officials estimating only 2,000 to 3,000 people attended the event, according to Parks & Recreation Commission member David Shea. Speaking during the commission’s July 8 meeting at Lapham Center, Shea said unofficial attendance figures were far below the nearly 8,000 people who attended the 2025 celebration. “The unofficial attendance was really down from 2025,” Shea said. “The estimates that we have from parking cars, somewhere between 2,000 to 3,000, which is really well off the almost 8,000 of 2025.”

Around Town

Waveny Fireworks Return July 4 with New ‘Launch Site’ and ‘Sensory Zone’ for the U.S. 250th

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The Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Karp Associates. New Canaan’s Fourth of July fireworks, set for this Saturday at Waveny, are getting two changes this year, officials say: a relocated “launch site” meant to ease post-show traffic, and a new Sensory Zone for attendees sensitive to the noise. Parks & Recreation Commission member David Shea said organizers are “very happy with the improvements we’re doing, which is moving the location of the fireworks so that the South Lapham Road egress is going to be open, so people getting out will be faster. The town is also rolling out a new traffic notification system tied to this year’s entrance passes, he said,” Shea told fellow members of the appointed body during their June 10 meeting at Lapham Center. “The next [new feature] is the usage of the notification system, where all entrance passes sold will have a QR code on them to receive traffic notifications,” Shea said.

Government

Elevator at Waveny House Now Projected for Late-Summer Use

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Though the town is trying to make the work site of a new elevator going in at Waveny House as inconspicuous as possible, the apparatus itself won’t be ready for use until late-summer, several months into the wedding season, according to new projections. The first wedding at Waveny was scheduled for Saturday, April 18, and while the elevator next to the grand staircase in the main hall originally was supposed to be done April 1, “we are now looking at the end of July, the latest mid-August,” according to Parks & Recreation Director John Howe. “So we’re going to be going through the whole spring wedding season where they’re going to be able to work during the week and then the whole place needs to be cleaned up and then they need to be out of there,” Howe told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their April 15 meeting, held at Lapham Center and via videoconference. 

“The main thing of note for this group [Parks & Rec] is: That means we’ve had to cancel almost all meetings, events during the week so they can work. So any community organization that was planning to have a meeting there et cetera, we’ve had the fun task of having to call them and say, ‘Listen we can’t accommodate you.’ ”

The comments came during Howe’s regular update to the Commission. 

Discussed for nearly a decade by municipal officials, the elevator had once appeared to be a priority for the town, which even created a Waveny House Renovation Advisory Committee to help plan for it. The Committee’s meeting minutes from October 2018 called for formal planning for the elevator to commence the following month for an early-2020 project completion.

Government

Parks Department: 92 of 120 Out-of-Town Families Returning to Steve Benko Pool This Season

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Of about 120 non-New Canaan families that held passes to the Steve Benko Pool last year, 92 have said they want to come back for this season, parks officials say. Thrown into a lottery with hundreds of other non-resident families in years past, the town this year is offering “right of first refusal” to out-of-towners who want to return to the popular facility in Waveny. “We did give the option for out-of-town members to re-sign up so that they wouldn’t have to go into the lottery, so that if they make friends they’d be able to still come, and we had 92 families that wanted to come back,” according to Parks & Recreation Director John Howe. The town has always capped the number of nonresident families allowed to purchase the passes, which are far more expensive (up to $1,450 per season this year) than for New Canaanites ($455 as of 2020). While the town can accommodate the 92 returning out-of-town families, it can’t take “the other 300 families” from surrounding towns such as Darien who want to use the Steve Benko Pool, Howe told members of the Parks & Rec Commission at their most recent meeting.