Government

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

By |

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.

0684-Old

PHOTOS: New Canaanites Who Died While Serving in World War II

By |

[gallery_bank type=”images” format=”filmstrip” title=”true” desc=”true” img_in_row=”3″ display=”all” sort_by=”random” animation_effect=”bounce” image_width=”600″ album_title=”true” album_id=”34″]

Since creating a memorial walk dedicated to New Canaanites who perished during World War II in 2003 in Mead Park, town resident Jim Bach, a Korean War veteran, has spearheaded efforts to improve the visibility and appearance of this town landmark. Those efforts have included re-planting of trees along the “Gold Star Walk,” creating a second footbridge to extend it and installing a new walkway and map—and a venerable nonprofit organization now is offering to help Bach preserve the memorial, which features a plaque listing names of the 38 men who died during the war (see gallery above for information on the servicemen). The memorial has stood for more than 10 years, and Bach—a 1947 New Canaan High School graduate who served as a U.S. Army sergeant from 1952 to 1954—said he wants to add some finishing touches, to ensure its longevity. “I want to see it done, it was part of my life a long time ago and it kept me out of trouble at one time,” Bach said. “The final thing that I wanted to get done with the memorial is to put in a bridge across the main stream that enters the park, on the west side of the garage.

Government

‘We Are Encountering Some Really Rather Peculiar Hostility’: Neighbors Petition for Public Hearing on Weed Street Inland Wetlands Application

By |

Neighbors of a Weed Street homeowner have petitioned town officials to hold a public hearing for what appears to be a straightforward application to repair part of a driveway where it spans a small stream. If the neighbors in the case of the project planned at 590 Weed St. had come forward with genuine, relevant concerns regarding how the proposed work would affect their own properties, landscape architect Keith Simpson said that he would be “totally understanding.”

“But we have a very hostile law firm representing neighbors, writing and claiming things about this application which, quite frankly, have nothing to do with this application,” Simpson, representing the applicant, told members of the Inland Wetlands Commission during a special meeting, held Monday at Town Hall. “We are encountering some really rather peculiar hostility to this application and some claims which don’t even relate to the jurisdiction of the commission.”

It isn’t clear just what those claims are. Town officials last week received a petition with 42 signatures—said to total 65 by the time of Monday’s meeting—from a Stamford-based attorney.

Around Town

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

By |

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.

Government

Officials Support Proposed ‘Twin Bridges’ Design for WWII Memorial Walk at Mead Park

By |

When funds are in hand to repair a failing footbridge at Mead Park—whether that money comes from the town or is raised privately—the structure itself should mirror a proposed new footbridge, so that together they help form a cohesive World War II memorial walk there, parks officials say. The “Gold Star Walk”—a footpath along the northern and eastern edges of Mead Pond that’s dedicated to the 38 New Canaan men who died during Second World War—requires two bridges to traverse the underground streams that supply the pond’s water. Though its foundation is secure, the decking and handrails on one of those bridges, already in place, are in dire need of replacement—an approximately $15,000 to $17,000 job. A private group led by  1947 New Canaan High School graduate Jim Bach has secured nearly all of the $37,000 needed to build the second footbridge, but the two structures aesthetically must look exactly alike, according to local landscape architect Keith Simpson, who is helping him. “What I am afraid of is that we will get the funds to do this [new bridge] and it will look really good, and then this [existing bridge] will be band-aided by the town with a way that goes about doing things ‘financially’ and the two bridges will actually never look alike,” Simpson told members of the Park & Recreation Commission during their regular meeting Wednesday.