Business

‘Taste of the Town Stroll’ Benefitting Food Pantry, Lions Club Set for Thursday Evening

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The weather forecast calls for clear, sunny skies on Thursday for New Canaan’s annual Taste of the Town Stroll. A “food-raiser” for the New Canaan Food Pantry that this year will double as a benefit for the Lions Club (see below), the Taste of the Town Stroll is to be held 6 to 9 p.m. on Aug. 24. Sponsored exclusively by Berkshire Hathaway New England Properties and organized by the Chamber of Commerce, this year’s event downtown will feature 24 participating shops and restaurants “that are going to provide food or a taste of some sort,” Chamber Executive Director Tucker Murphy said. “A new feature this year is that we partnered with the Lions Club so not only can people bring a food donation but you can bring gently used eyeglasses or hearing aids that will be refurbished and donated to people that need them,” she said.

Business

Stewarts Spirits To Open Friday in New Elm Street Building

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One of New Canaan’s best-established anchor businesses is set to open Friday in a brand-new, open, naturally lit and highly visible commercial space on Elm Street. Stewarts Spirits in moving across the parking lot from Walter Stewart’s Market, has doubled its floor space, according to New Canaan brothers Doug and Alex Stewart, great-grandsons of Walter and Nellie Stewart. “We are really excited,” Doug Stewart said as he joined store manager John Robinson and others stocking the tall shelves and wide new refrigerator at 215 Elm St. “It’s been a lot of work, and the work has paid off. We’re excited to open.

Around Town

New Canaan Chamber of Commerce Adds Eight Directors

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The New Canaan Chamber of Commerce is pleased to announce the addition of eight new members to its Board of Directors as well the creation of a new, dedicated board composed of past chamber presidents that will help oversee the organization’s charitable foundation. Nimble, engaged and innovative, the new chamber directors form an exciting group of business and organization leaders in town, according to Tucker Murphy, executive director of the chamber. “Our mission is ‘connecting community with commerce,’ and we kept those four words very much top of mind in putting together this board,” Murphy said. “Our new directors not only represent successful local businesses stories—they’re also deeply involved in our town. Beyond participating in chamber events such as the Sidewalk Sales, Holiday Stroll and Taste of the Town, they actively fundraise for community agencies, volunteer with service organizations and connect with each other for their mutual benefit.”

The newly appointed directors each have started serving a 3-year term, and they are:

David E. Hoyle Esq.—Hawthorne, Ackerly & Dorrance
Lisa Oldham—New Canaan Library
Mamoune Tazi—Le Boudoir
Anna Simons—New Canaan Pediatric Dentistry
Michael Dinan—NewCanaanite.com
Ben & Elaine Young—New Canaan Dance Academy
Sara Koch—Oxygen Fitness
Kinsey Ferguson—Vineyard Vines

Helping to acclimate them are three current directors who now form a new executive committee for the chamber: Steve Risbridger of Reynolds & Rowella is president, Tom Stadler of the Town of New Canaan First Selectman’s Office is treasurer and HamletHub’s Rachel Lampen is secretary.

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Audrey Stewart: Matriarch of the Market

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[This is the first installment in a four-part series “Matriarchs of Main & Elm,” profiling the women behind New Canaan’s great business families.]

Audrey Bailey Stewart had recently married Walter Stewart, Sr. when the young couple moved in with her husband’s parents—Walter Stewart, who had founded his eponymous food market on Main Street in 1907 and his rather formidable wife, Nellie, New Canaan’s first woman elected to the state legislature—at the Hoyt Street home that’s still in the family. A smart, strong-willed woman in her own right, Audrey didn’t always have an easy time living with the in-laws and “she didn’t always get along with Nellie,” family historian Karen Brockway Izzo said, recalling one funny story from her grandmother. “Once, Nellie told her that she didn’t like the color purple,” Izzo recalled. “Grandmother apparently had a bit of a rebellious streak, and after a disagreement, painted her entire apartment purple. Even the bathroom.”

After meeting her would-be husband through a chance encounter after taking in a movie at the (then relatively new) New Canaan Playhouse on Elm Street while still a teenager, Audrey Stewart would go on to immerse herself in one of the town’s most important and civic-minded business families. From humble beginnings and acquainted with tragedy even as a young girl, Audrey Stewart would go on to forge a definitive and direct positive impact on the family business during a crucial period of growth, while rearing and raising an entire generation of Stewarts well known to locals.