News

‘Caffeine & Carburetors’ Raises $27,000 for Waveny Park Conservancy

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The October installment of Caffeine & Carburetors, the popular car show, raised more than $27,000 for a nonprofit organization that works to ensure that Waveny Park continues to thrive. The Waveny Park Conservancy is “thrilled” to receive the support from Caffeine & Carburetors, according to the organization’s chair, Fell Herdeg. “It’s a meaningful gift to the Conservancy,” he said Thursday evening from the forecourt of Waveny House, accepting the gift alongside Conservancy Executive Director Michelle Crookenden from C&C from founder Doug Zumbach and Director of Business Development Claire Drexler. 

Herdeg added: “We love that they’re able to hold it here and I think it draws more people into town—the beauty of our town, the beauty of the park, get to experience the park, all which we think are just wonderful benefits. We’re very appreciative of their support.”

Launched by Zumbach outside his eponymous coffee shop on Pine Street, C&C since last year has raised tens of thousands of dollars for local causes and organizations including the Conservancy, New Canaan Community Foundation, Automotive Assistance Fund and New Canaan Chamber of Commerce “Shop New Canaan” gift card program. 

The total raised from October’s show, which requires antique and specialty show car owners to register for a fee, was $27,476. Overall, Drexler said, C&C — which now is held twice per year, once downtown and once at Waveny — “has become much more organized.”

“We have established great communication channels with all of our partners involved, including the police, the CERT volunteers and the town of New Canaan,” Drexler said.

Around Town

Conservancy Plans ‘Merritt Parkway Trail’ Improvements in Waveny

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The nonprofit organization that works to ensure that New Canaan’s most popular park continues to thrive has a plan to improve one of its major walking trails. The southernmost trail at Waveny—running about .75 miles alongside the Merritt Parkway, from the Lapham Road overpass to the Exit 37 (now 14) southbound on/off ramps—is exposed to the state road at multiple points. For Waveny walkers, that exposure can disrupt visitors’ enjoyment of nature by spoiling the woodland view and bringing in motor vehicle noise, according to the Waveny Park Conservancy. “Let’s move it away, move the trail away from the highway, and get all this buffer from additional woodlands,” the Conservancy’s board chair, Fell Herdeg, told members of the Board of Selectmen last week. “And then put some of the design ethos back in there from the Olmsted Brothers.

Charles Crookenden

Parks & Rec Approves Installation of Two Sculpted Benches in Waveny

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Parks officials last week approved the installation of two new benches in Waveny. The Parks & Rec Commission during its regular meeting March 15 voted unanimously to allow a local nonprofit organization to purchase and install the benches, created by a British sculptor. They are expected to add “a really interesting new dimension to the park that enriches current residents’ experience of the park and actually can attract new visitors,” Charles Crookenden, treasurer of the Waveny Park Conservancy, told the Commission during its meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. Nigel Ross’s benches “are functional and attractive sculptures,” he said. “By that I mean that they are designed to be played on, to be sat on,” Crookenden continued.

Around Town

VIDEO: 200-Year-Old Oak Tree at Waveny Comes Down

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Officials on Friday finished taking down the estimated 200-year-old dead white oak tree near the pond at Waveny, setting up a months-long project whereby its wood will be used to create a range of sellable items to help support the park. The Waveny Park Conservancy believes the tree was the very oldest in the whole park, according to Charles Crookenden, a member of the nonprofit organization’s board. “Unfortunately it had reached the end of its life,” Crookenden told NewCanaanite.com. “We are replacing it with another white oak.” (The replacement tree will be 20 to 30 feet tall, officials say.)
In the meantime, the Conservancy—thanks to an idea from board member Chris Schipper—plans to have the tree’s wood dried and milled in order to create several heirloom and novelty products, as well as backless benches to be placed in Waveny and oak boards for future projects, with all remaining wood to be chipped or chopped up for firewood. According to Crookenden, the new products will include a Jenga set, bread board, tray and cellphone holder, all bearing the Waveny Park Conservancy logo and priced at $39 to $99.

Government

Two Bluestone Walkways at Waveny To Be Replaced

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The Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting approved an approximately $70,000 contract with a local company to replace parts of bluestone walkways within Waveny. The selectmen voted 3-0 at their July 12 meeting in favor of a $70,030 contract with Fortino Escalante Inc. to replace two of the four walkways emanating from the fountain below the recently changed parterre garden east of the main house. “This will involve taking out all the bluestone, saving what we can save, re-bedding the entire process,” Public Works Director Tiger Mann told the selectmen at their regular meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference. “Then putting the bluestone back and supplementing it with new bluestone for any piece that had broken or is in disrepair.”

The town and Waveny Park Conservancy—an organization brought forward a “concern” about the walkways, Mann said—are roughly splitting the cost of the project. 

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the contract. 

The two two walkways to get work will be the one headed from the fountain toward the gazebo (south) and the one that heads down the sledding hill toward the pond, Mann said. As it is now, there are two to three small seps that lead from a service area to the gazebo which “would not be ADA-compliant,” he said.