Around Town
‘A Marvelous Destination’: Waveny Park Conservancy Pursues Project at Cornfields; Tailgate Fundraiser To Be Held Saturday
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An unsightly clearing in the southeastern corner of Waveny, laden with an invasive grass species grown out of the dredged material that in recent years has been piled there, is to be transformed into a newly landscaped and inviting destination, according to a nonprofit organization that’s taken on the restoration and beautification of the park. Known as “the cornfields”—a name that recalls Waveny’s pre-Lapham agricultural roots—the long-untouched area in recent years and until last summer had served as a sort of storage and staging ground for what had been dredged from Mill and Mead Ponds. Under a new plan developed by the Waveny Park Conservancy—and backed financially by a foundation established by a generous, recently deceased New Canaanite—the area “will become more of a meadow,” said Bob Seelert, chairman of the conservancy’s board. “It will be a marvelous destination spot, and in that regard, quite frankly, when you talk about continuing to inspire and serve the people of New Canaan forever, this is a transformational kind of destination spot.”
One of the first five projects taken on by the conservancy—projects that undergo the required town approval process prior to any physical work, though they’re funded through the nonprofit organization—the reimagining of the cornfields complements and is tied inextricably to a major plan to restore and beautify the Waveny Pond nearby (at the bottom of the sledding hill). In order to do that work, the conservancy is relying on New Canaanites who enjoy Waveny to support the organization through donations—see details below of its first major fundraiser, to be held Saturday.
