New Canaan Country School Neighbors Voice Concerns Over Light from Athletic Facility

Saying they’re already experiencing unwanted light from the new athletic facility that New Canaan Country School is building off of Frogtown Road, neighbors are urging the town to deny a request to modify a condition of the project’s approval. An attorney representing the private school applied to the Planning & Zoning Commission to remove a requirement that “black-out shades” be installed for all windows visible from a property to the east “and including any window from which light can be projected or reflected.”

Attorney Steve Finn of Stamford-based Wofsey, Rosen, Kweskin. Kuriansky LLP noted that the abutting neighbor whose concerns prompted the Commission to create the condition—a woman who sued the town in appealing the original approval—no longer resides at 579 Frogtown Road. In fact, Finn said, she sold the property to New Canaan Country School as part of a settlement agreement. 

He also cited a lighting company’s finding that “that there will be no measurable light at or beyond the property line [between the school campus and 579 Frogtown Road]” and that “the use of black-out shades will not reduce the exterior light levels because the interior lighting has no impact on the exterior light levels.”

Yet two neighbors who live directly across Frogtown Road from the school—Joseph and Kim Bozzella of 584 Frogtown Road and Jack and Carol Liebau of 568 Frogtown Road—filed letters of objection with P&Z urging them to deny the application. 

The Liebaus said in their letter that “the lighting from the interior of the athletic facility, shining through the glassed-in portion near its ceiling, is quite glaring after dark from both the first and second stories of our home—including our kitchen; home office; play/study room; and glassed-in library where we frequently entertain.”

“We have always been glad to be neighbors to both Country School (where our children have attended since 2011) and the Winter Club,” the letter said. “We want to be good neighbors; the problem with this light, however, is that every evening, our home feels like it is now located in much more of a ‘mixed use’ area than the darker suburban location into which we thought we had purchased.

Come See Grades 1-4 Close-Up @ NC Country School

Parents are invited to get a closer look at New Canaan Country School’s academic curriculum, athletic and music programs deliberately designed to meet the needs of students in grades 1 through 4. Registration is encouraged; drop-ins welcome. Location: New Canaan Country School
635 Frogtown Rd
New Canaan CT
Please visit our website for more information: www.countryschool.net/visit or call (203) 801-5608.

Town Imposes 90-Day Demolition Delay on New Canaan Country School Barn

Town officials on Tuesday imposed a 90-day stay of demolition for an antique barn on New Canaan Country School property. In planning to raze the structure as well as a row of smaller sheds that originally had been used as chicken coops to make way for a new outdoor pool and pool house, the Frogtown Road private school appears not to have considered using the original barn in some way, according to members of the Historical Review Committee. Committee member Marty Skrelunas said he was disappointed that the project’s architect appeared not to looked at the “adaptive reuse” of the barn. “Given the structure, the style of construction, it would be a very easy building to redesign,” Skrelunas said during the Committee’s meeting, held in the Janet Lindstrom Room of the New Canaan Historical Society. “It is not like a brick building where the spaces are defined by the structure.

Objection Filed to Proposed Demolition of Barn on New Canaan Country School Property

Saying a barn on New Canaan Country School property has architectural and historical significance, a town resident has filed a formal objection to its proposed demolition. 

The private school on Aug. 1 applied to the New Canaan Building Department to demolish the estimated 4,500-square-foot, ca. 1870-built red barn, records show. Citing Mary Louise King’s history “A Portrait of New Canaan,” Mimi Findlay, a founder of the New Canaan Preservation Alliance, said the barn once was part of William Davenport’s farm. “King relates that the farm was purchased from foreclosure by the the New Canaan Savings Bank at the end of the century by the Grace Church in NYC,” Findlay wrote in her objection letter, filed Wednesday with the chief building official.