Faced with numerous and expensive baseline repairs that are needed to get Waveny House running as an ADA-compliant public building, town officials on Tuesday appointed a committee that will help determine just how the cherished New Canaan structure should be used. The “Waveny House Committee” is expected to recommend whether the 1912-built home continues to house the Recreation Department, operate more extensively as a paid special events venue, serve as a storage space or perform other functions—a wide range of possibilities that could shape the scope of New Canaan’s capital investment in the facility (more on that below). The committee will consist of Bill Holmes, Suzanne Jonker, Steve Parrett and Penny Young, members of the Board of Selectmen said during their regular meeting, with Recreation Director Steve Benko, Parks & Recreation Commission Chairman Sally Campbell and DPW Buildings Superintendent Bill Oestmann to join at some point. First Selectman Rob Mallozzi said: “There is an attempt to identify some dollars that we can go to the public with over the next two or three years to do an improvement on Waveny House, and we all thought it was important that we just don’t take what is there and redo it, but we should have input as to what the usage should be of that house, how it functions, what the parameters are for the usage of that house.”
The committee is not a “building committee” (which is formed to study, recommend and oversee a specific capital project) and is different from the nonprofit Waveny Park Conservancy, a private group that’s focused on Waveny’s grounds, specifically in the southwest quadrant of the park. Selectman Beth Jones said it was “great to have” Holmes on the committee—he’s a member of the Conservancy, too, as a representative from the New Canaan Preservation Alliance.
