Government

Town Approves $120,500 Contract for Waveny House Roof Repair

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New Canaan is entering a $120,500 contract with a White Plains, N.Y.-based architectural firm as it pursues a much-needed repair of the roof at Waveny House. The 14,000-square-foot roof has been leaking, according to Bill Oestmann, superintendent of buildings and fleet with the town’s Department of Public Works. “Replacing the concrete that the roof is made of would be very difficult and expensive,” Oestmann told the Board of Selectmen at their regular monthly meeting on May 17. “We’re actually going to be using lumber to repair failed sections of the roof.”

The town is retaining the services of KSQ Architects—the same firm that worked on the Town Hall renovation and expansion—for the job. The $120,500 figure covers plans, specifications, administrative fees and $10,500 in contingency.

Around Town

Former Waveny House Resident, Actor Christopher Lloyd, To Attend Children’s Book Launch There on Sunday

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The widely anticipated launch of a Waveny-inspired children’s book on Sunday is drawing back one of the cherished public building’s most prominent former residents, officials say: Christopher Lloyd. The Emmy Award-winning actor—of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Taxi” and “Back To The Future” fame—is the son of Ruth Lapham Lloyd, and grew up in Waveny House before his mother gave it, as well as all other buildings and the sprawling acreage that made up the estate, to the town. His attendance at the launch of “Waveny: New Canaan’s Treasure” is “significant and wonderful,” said Arianne Faber Kolb, author of the book, which is illustrated by Nicole Johnson Murphy and whose publication was made possible by a New Canaan Community Foundation grant and funding from the town. “He is really the history of this place and it’s his story and his family’s history and his own personal story is so tied to Waveny and the house, so it is really special for the town and community that he is still attached to this and would like to continue to be involved with anything that has to do with Waveny, and he has expressed that.”

He’s also made good on that promise. Lloyd attended the 100th anniversary celebration of Waveny House in 2012—an event organized by the New Canaan Preservation Alliance—and told attendees stories about growing up at the beloved building and property.

News

The ‘Herter Looms’ Tapestry: A Treasure Is Discovered at Waveny House

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For years, Mimi Findlay had thought that the ‘H.L.’ signature on a hunting-scene tapestry hanging in the dining room at Waveny House referred to a member of the Lapham family. That’s understandable, as the tapestry is dated 1912, the year the Laphams had the iconic brick mansion built on their sprawling property that flanked South Avenue (then a popular horseracing road sometimes called the “New Road” to Darien or “Two-mile road,” historians say). Then, earlier this year, as restoration began on the limestone fireplace in Waveny House’s Great Hall—that work undertaken thanks to the generosity of an organization that Findlay had helped found eight years ago, the New Canaan Preservation Alliance—Recreation Director Steve Benko came upon a handwritten note in his archives that quoted a Lapham relative, David Lapham, in reference to the tapestry. According to Benko, Ruth Lapham Lloyd prior to passing and had told this relative that all the wallpaper in the Grand Hall, Dining Room and upstairs and hallway had been done by a firm out of New York City called Herter Looms.

On Tuesday, Benko told the Board of Selectmen—by way of requesting $5,230 in order to have a specialist firm out of South Salem, N.Y. clean, fumigate, re-back and otherwise restore the tapestry—that he looked up ‘Herter Looms’ and quickly found that the firm, and tapestry, “has historical significance.”

In fact, Findlay—herself a thorough local historian—explained in an email to NewCanaanite.com that Herter Looms was a business created by a remarkable 19th and early-20th Century man from an equally celebrated family. “Herter Looms was founded by the artists Adele and Albert Herter in 1909, Findlay said.

Government

‘What Do We Want That Building To Be?’: Future Use of Waveny House an Open Question

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Waveny House needs so much work to get up to code and operate as a public building that—after baseline repairs are made, such as to its leaky roof—residents must decide just what role the cherished building should play in town, officials say. The Board of Selectmen should establish a committee that looks at Waveny House and answers this basic question, the town’s highest official said Tuesday: “What do we want that building to be?”

“Do we want it to be the offices of [the Recreation Department] and to store stuff?” First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said at the board’s regular monthly meeting, held at Town Hall. “Do we want it to have 150 weddings a year and be a revenue generator?”

The comments came as the selectmen voted 3-0 to approve a $37,500 contract with a White Plains, N.Y.-based architectural firm to prepare for the first phase of capital work at Waveny. The architectural services from KSQ Architects will be based on a 2010 capital facilities plan that encompassed 16 structures in New Canaan (see page 35 of the Executive Summary and page 503 for detailed line items). That plan calls for roof replacement as well as ADA ramps and toilets at Waveny House, a kitchen rebuild and new boiler and piping, among other projects.

Around Town

Plans To Refurbish Waveny House Plantings Approved

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Town officials cited the effects of a brutal winter, combined with 25 years of wear-and-tear on planting at Waveny House in moving to authorize funding for new landscaping around the cherished town-owned structure. Over the years, plants have grown to obstruct the view from the Waveny House balcony to the fields and gazebo behind it, the Board of Selectmen said at their July 7 meeting. The tipping point to action was the large number of foundational plants and holly’s which were devastated by the brutal winter, Recreation Director Steve Benko said at the meeting, held in the Training Room at the New Canaan Police Department. The measure was passed 2-0 by First Selectman Rob Mallozzi and board member Beth Jones. Selectman Nick Williams did not attend the meeting.