Selectmen Approve $45,000 Contract for Waveny Wall Repair Work

The Board of Selectmen last week approved a $45,200 contract with a Ridgefield-based company to reconstruct Waveny’s stone walls along Lapham Road. 

The contractor, Greg of Fallaci Masonry—a man known to many who frequent the popular park, as he has been rebuilding the fieldstone walls there in recent years—charges $900 per day for his services, according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann.

That figure would beat what the town and its partner in many projects at the park, the Waveny Park Conservancy, would pay to a contractor if the job went out to bid, he said.

“Overall he’s saving us money if we were to actually go out and bid this to another masonry contractor,” Mann told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held March 5 in Town Hall and via videoconference. “And he’s done the entire wall to date, and it looks fantastic. So we just want to finish the two ends up by the Benko Pool and then down by the leaf mulch site until they run into the trees. And once they run into the trees, then that visual aspect is gone.”

The nonprofit Conservancy is paying for the work on the southern portion for approximately $23,850 while the town is picking up the balance of the contract for the northern portion, he said.

First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the contract. 

“He’s an artist,” Karl said, and Mann agreed, saying, “He’s very excited. If you go down there and visit, you can get a lesson in stone masonry in 15 minutes. I would suggest it, to be honest.”

The selectmen asked whether Fallaci is still getting community volunteers to help with some of the wall projects (yes, for example, in the past he’s had New Canaan High School interns) and how a $3,600 contingency will be divided between the paying parties (it will be applied to whichever side Fallaci is working on should those funds need to be spent). 

Fallaci “predominantly” has worked by himself and has received some help from the town, mostly backhoe work in supplying the stones though not placing them, Mann said.

“It’s an engineering feat for one man, one gentleman to move it, but it’s quite interesting because he sets up a series of stairs, so to speak, and then rolls a stone from one stair to the next, and is able to place in the location he wants, and then moves those stones again as well,” he said. “So it’s quite interesting to watch.”