Business

Stewarts Spirits To Move Into New Elm Street Building This Fall

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The modern, two-story building that’s been taking shape this year in a prominent, conspicuous location opposite the train station on Elm Street is set to welcome its first major tenant in the coming weeks, officials say. Stewarts Spirits, the fine wine shop added in 1974 to the New Canaan’s family’s longtime market by Robert Bailey Stewart—grandson of Walter and Nellie Stewart and son of Walter A. Stewart Sr. and Audrey Bailey Stewart—is on track to open in the brand-new structure this fall, according to Doug Stewart. “We are excited that the new home of Stewart’s Wine & Spirits is taking shape and we seem to be in the home stretch,” he said. The shop will occupy the 1,623-square-foot first floor of the building, designed by Westport-based Frederick William Hoag Architect. Melissa Engel, who owns the property and has overseen the new building’s construction as project manager, said the glass walls of the second floor space will go in this week.

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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.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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Here’s a ‘Happy Birthday’ to a gem and gentleman of a local man. David Borglum, a 1949 New Canaan High School graduate and the longest-serving member of the wonderful Kiwanis Club of New Canaan, recently celebrated his “67th” birthday (he tells us). Happy birthday, David, here’s to 67 more. ***

Officials are looking to slow down motorists traveling on Weed Street between Wahackme and Dunning, where the 85th percentile of drivers recently were clocked by speed sentries at 36 mph in northbound and southbound lanes, according to the New Canaan Traffic Calming Work Group. ***

The Park & Recreation Commission is looking into acquiring a heater for the Waveny Pool following a successful season where one of the isolated asks from pass-holders was warmer temperatures for little kids.