Did You Hear … ?

One of New Canaan’s most prominent, historic and beloved homes has hit the market. The 1897-built Colonial at 299 South Ave.—a favorite home of many New Canaanites who walk and drive along the main corridor into town—is being advertised by Christine Saxe, sales vice president at William Raveis Real Estate in New Canaan (see photos above). A lovingly restored and preserved three-story home, it originally was a tuberculosis hospital established by Dr. Myron Brooks (known as ‘Brooks Sanatorium’), who gave his name to a side street alongside it. ***

Members of a Town Council subcommittee said Tuesday that they’re hearing the new cell tower erected on Silver Hill Hospital property is not, at this point, improving service for residents of eastern New Canaan in any measurable way. ***

Brother kittens, likely abandoned, were found under a bush on Millport Avenue on Monday, according to Officer Allyson Halm of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control section.

Did You Hear … ?

We hear New Canaan native Bruce Pauley, retired last year to Vermont, has been putting on a timber frame addition to his house in the “Green Mountain State” that uses oak trees felled during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy in New Canaan (see photos above). He’s also using mostly storm-related white pine trees for the house’s exterior and the new addition is being called “The Storm Room.”

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A demolition crew on Wednesday came for the long-vacant and neglected home at 39 Richmond Hill Road—facing complaints from neighbors and the prospect of a blight citation. ***

The committee charged with studying public and private options for restoring the town-owned New Canaan Playhouse at the “50-yard-line” of Elm Street on Wednesday finalized a document that will see interested parties propose ways to purchase or otherwise acquire, renovate and operate the 1923-built brick building. The New Canaan Playhouse Committee is seeking to make a decision about the future of the cherished, cupola-topped structure by Thanksgiving. Town leaders say New Canaan is not in danger of losing the iconic building, though its capital needs are extensive.

‘I Think It’s the Greatest Thing’: High Praise for New Trail at Waveny

Since last month, Hannah Socci, a rising senior at New Canaan High School and regular runner at Waveny, has been eyeing the new trail that workers began carving out of the hill that rises alongside a blind turn in the main road through the park, opposite the Orchard softball field. Daughter of New Canaan Fire Capt. Mike Socci and granddaughter of former Center School nurse Vicki Socci, Hannah said the new trail creates a far safer running route than road itself. “It’s all we had for options,” she said on a recent afternoon during a brief break from her run. “When I saw this come in a few weeks ago, I was so excited. It’s safer and it’s better on your knees, also.

First ‘Waveny Park Conservancy’ Project Imminent: New Pedestrian Trail To Be Installed at Park

New Canaanites can expect work to commence soon on the first project conceived and funded by a nonprofit organization that’s taking on the restoration and beautification of Waveny’s most cherished and widely enjoyed grounds. The Waveny Park Conservancy (see brochure embedded below) is providing $27,515 for a contract with a Bedford Hills, N.Y.-based company to create a new 8-foot-wide trail that’s designed to help pedestrians stay off of the main road through the park at an especially dangerous, twisting section with limited sight lines for motorists. The Board of Selectmen at its regular meeting Tuesday voted 3-0 in favor of the contract with Cambareri Masonry. Broached by the Park & Recreation Commission last fall and endorsed enthusiastically by that group when the conservancy brought forward a formal proposal in March, plans call for a trail that will start at the base of the hill that climbs up past the Orchard softball field, on the southern side of the road, through a disused wooded section that leads to the parking lots in front of Waveny House. The trail’s designer and a board member of the donor-supported conservancy, New Canaan-based landscape architect Keith Simpson, said during the selectmen’s meeting that his own firm has used Cambareri for decades.

‘It Was An Amazing Place To Live’: Actor Christopher Lloyd Returns To Waveny House

About 12 years ago, Christopher Lloyd, the actor, re-visited Waveny House, his childhood home in New Canaan and centerpiece of the sprawling property, now a beloved park, that his mother Ruth Lapham Lloyd conveyed to the town in 1967. It was a Fourth of July weekend, Lloyd recalled, and he was “sitting out in the field, and the fireworks were going off down near the parkway and I looked back and I saw all those faces and the people and they had a band playing and all kinds of barbecues going on.”

“And I thought, if my mother could come back and see that, she would feel that her dream was coming true,” Lloyd recalled from the Great Hall at Waveny House on Sunday afternoon, standing a few feet away from the recently restored floor-to-ceiling limestone fireplace that has greeted generations of New Canaanites entering the 1912-built structure. “That Waveny hadn’t been turned into gas stations and mini-malls—not that we don’t need those—but something that was preserved ‘in perpetuity’ so to speak, where the people who live in this area can come and enjoy what it offers. That’s a great pleasure, to come back and see that.”

He got a good dose on Sunday, attending the sold-out launch of a children’s book, “Waveny: New Canaan’s Treasure,” written by town resident Arianne Kolb and illustrated by Nicole Johnson Murphy. A max-capacity crowd of more than 150 picked up copies of the book, mixed and took photos with Lloyd, learned about the work of a nonprofit organization that co-presented the event with the town, the New Canaan Preservation Alliance, and perused contemporary photographs of the Waveny grounds by New Canaan artist Torrance York, while New Canaan Music owner Phil Williams entertained the crowd with live music from his band, Scavenger Trio.