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