New Canaan

New Canaan, Connecticut
—  Town  —
Location in Fairfield County, Connecticut
Coordinates: 41°08′48.48″N 73°29′41.64″W / 41.1468°N 73.4949°W / 41.1468; -73.4949
Country	United States
State	Connecticut
NECTA	Bridgeport-Stamford
Region	South Western Region
Incorporated	1801
Government
- Type	Selectman-town council
- First Selectman	Jeb Walker
Area
- Total	22.5 sq mi (58.3 km2)
- Land	22.1 sq mi (57.3 km2)
- Water	0.4 sq mi (0.9 km2)
Elevation	344 ft (105 m)
Population (2005)[1]
- Total	19,984
- Density	904/sq mi (349/km2)
Time zone	Eastern (UTC-5)
- Summer (DST)	Eastern (UTC-4)
ZIP code	06840
Area code(s)	203
FIPS code	09-50580
GNIS feature ID	0213468
Website	http://www.newcanaan.info/

New Canaan is an upscale town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Stamford, on the Five Mile River. The population was 19,395 at the 2000 census.

The town is one of the most affluent communities in the United States. CNN Money ranked New Canaan first in the nation with the highest median family income. ^[2]

New Canaan has two Metro-North railroad stations: the New Canaan station and the Talmadge Hill station, both on the New Canaan Branch of the New Haven Line. Travel time to Grand Central Terminal is approximately one hour.

Geography

East view of the central part of New Canaan (1836) by John Warner Barber

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 22.5 square miles (58.2 km²), of which, 22.1 square miles (57.3 km²) of it is land and 0.3 square miles (0.9 km²) of it (1.56%) is water. The town is served by the Merritt Parkway, and by a spur line of the Metro North railroad. The downtown area consists of many restaurants, an old movie theater, and antique shops. There are also several churches in town, as well as the historic Roger Sherman Inn.

The town is bounded on the north by Lewisboro and Pound Ridge in Westchester County, New York, on the east by Wilton, on the southeast by Norwalk, on the south by Darien and on the southwest and west by Stamford.

The Silvermine neighborhood (which also extends into Norwalk and Wilton) is in the southeast part of town.

History

New Canaan train station

In 1731, Connecticut's colonial legislature established Canaan Parish as a religious entity in northwestern Norwalk and northeastern Stamford. The right to form a Congregational church was granted to the few families scattered through the area. As inhabitants of Norwalk or Stamford, Canaan Parish settlers still had to vote, pay taxes, serve on juries, and file deeds in their home towns. Because Canaan Parish was not planned as a town, New Canaan, when incorporated in 1801, found itself without a central common, a main street or a town hall.^[3]

Until the Revolutionary War, New Canaan was primarily an agricultural community. After the war, New Canaan's major industry was shoe making. As New Canaan's shoe business gathered momentum early in the nineteenth century, instead of a central village, regional settlements of clustered houses, mill, and school developed into distinct district centers. Some of the districts were centered on Ponus Ridge, West Road, Oenoke Ridge, Smith Ridge, Talmadge Hill and Silvermine, a pattern which the village gradually outgrew.^[3]

With the 1868 advent of the railroad to New Canaan, many of New York City's wealthy residents discovered the quiet, peaceful area and built magnificent summer homes. Eventually, many of the summer visitors settled year-round, commuting to their jobs in New York City and creating the residential community that exists today.^[3]

Lewis Lapham, a founder of Texaco and great-grandfather of long-time Harper's Magazine editor Lewis H. Lapham, spent summers with his family at their estate that is now 300-acre (1.2 km²) Waveny Park next to Talmadge Hill and the Merrit Parkway.

The "Harvard Five" and modern homes

New Canaan was an important center of the modern design movement from the late 1940s through roughly the 1960s, when about 80 modern homes were built in town. About 20 have been torn down since then.^[4]

"During the late 1940s and 50s, a group of students and teachers from the Harvard Graduate School of Design migrated to New Canaan ... and rocked the world of architectural design", according to an article in PureContemporary.com, an online architecture design magazine. "Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John M. Johansen and Eliot Noyes -- known as the Harvard Five -- began creating homes in a style that emerged as the complete antithesis of the traditional build. Using new materials and open floor plans, best captured by Johnson's Glass House, these treasures are being squandered as buyers are knocking down these architectural icons and replacing them with cookie-cutter new builds."^[5]

"Other architects, well known (Frank Lloyd Wright, for example) and not so well known, also contributed significant modern houses that elicited strong reactions from nearly everyone who saw them and are still astonishing today. ... New Canaan came to be the locus of the modern movement's experimentation in materials, construction methods, space, and form", according to an online description of The Harvard Five in New Canaan: Mid-Century Modern Houses, by William D. Earls.^[6]

Some other New Canaan architects designing modern homes were Victor Christ-Janer, John Black Lee, Allan Gelbin, and Hugh Smallen.^[4]

The film The Ice Storm (1997) shows many of New Canaan's modern houses, both inside and out.

On the National Register of Historic Places

• Hampton Inn — 179 Oenoke Ridge; Also known as The Maples Inn, it was built by the Elwood brothers in Queene Anne, Colonial Revival style. (added November 27, 2004)
• Hanford Davenport House — 353 Oenoke Ridge (added September 3, 1989)
• John Rogers Studio — 33 Oenoke Ridge; built in 1878 by John Rogers, who was called "the people's sculptor" in the later 19th century. The studio houses a collection of the artist's famous groups of statuary, many sculpted on site. The studio was closed during needed restoration and scheduled to reopen in the summer of 2006. (added November 15, 1966)^[7] "He used this studio from 1876 to the end of his life. The John Rogers studio houses one of the finest collections of Rogers Groups in the nation."^[8]
• Landis Gores House — 192 Cross Ridge Rd. "With its flat-roofed single-story form, full-height glass walls, and emphasis on horizontal planes, the house he designed for himself in New Canaan is an outstanding example" of modernist architecture.^[9] (added April 21, 2002)
• Maxwell E. Perkins House — 63 Park St. (added June 6, 2004)
• Philip Johnson Glass House — 798-856 Ponus Ridge Rd. (added March 18, 1997)
• Richard and Geraldine Hodgson House — 881 Ponus Ridge Rd. (added February 28, 2005)

Demographics

As of the census^{[10][page needed]} of 2000, there were 19,395 people, 6,822 households, and 5,280 families residing in the town. The population density was 876.5 people per square mile (338.4/km²). There were 7,141 housing units at an average density of 322.7/sq mi (124.6/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 95.27% White, 1.04% African American, 0.04% Native American, 2.29% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.38% from other races, and 0.98% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.74% of the population.

There were 6,822 households out of which 41.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 69.2% were married couples living together, 6.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.6% were non-families. 19.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.83 and the average family size was 3.26.

In the town the population was spread out with 31.2% under the age of 18, 3.3% from 18 to 24, 25.4% from 25 to 44, 26.6% from 45 to 64, and 13.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 91.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.7 males.

The median income for a household in the town in 2007 was $178,651 ^[11] and the median income for a family was $231,138, the highest in Connecticut. Males had a median income of $100,000 versus $53,924 for females. The per capita income for the town was $82,049. About 1.4% of families and 2.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.2% of those under age 18 and 2.2% of those age 65 or over.

According to the New Canaan Advertiser's 2008 town answer book, in 2007, 254 single family homes were sold in New Canaan with a median sale price of $1.85 million and an average sale price of $2,301,608.

Education

Saxe Middle School

The front also bows out

New Canaan has five public schools:

• Elementary School: East School, South School, West School
• Middle School: Saxe Middle School
• High School: New Canaan High School

There were 3,980 students enrolled in grades K-12 in the 2003-2004 school year and the total expenditure was $50,786,700.

Connecticut Magazine in it's bi-annual Rate the Towns article rates New Canaan' Schools as first in it's catagory that includes Ridgefield, Wilton, Avon, Darien, Simsbury, Madison, Farmington, Southbury, Guilford and 19 other towns. The rating was based on: the 2007, 2008, 2009 statewide mastery tests for the 4th, 6th and 7th grades; results from the 2007, 2008, 2009 Connecticut Academic Performace Tests; local SAT scores for 2006, 2007 and 2008; and percentage of 2007 public school children who went on to collage. The 2008 median SAT scores(verbal, math, writing) for public school childen was 1804.

New Canaan also has 3 private schools:

• St. Aloysius School K-8
• St. Luke's School: 5-12
• New Canaan Country School: PS-9

Points of interest

• New Canaan Nature Center
• Glass House
• Waveny Park on South Avenue "was developed in 1912 by Lewis Lapham on what had been Prospect Farm, an early summer estate. In 1967 the Town acquired the 'castle' and 300 acres (1.2 km²) of surrounding parkland."^[3]

Pictures

Postcard of The Country Club, ca. 1906	Grace House in the Fields, ca. 1915	Waveny mansion in Waveny Park	Center School, ca. 1912 (now demolished)
Hampton Inn, ca. 1909

Notable institutions and organizations

• New Canaan Historical Society, 13 Oenoke Ridge, operates seven museums, preserves five historic buildings, collects and preserves material thought to be of local historical value, and supports education programs such as school tours, special exhibits, seminars and publications on New Canaan history. The society was founded in 1889.
• Silvermine Arts Guild, 1837 Silvermine Road
• Voices of September 11th
• New Canaan Fire Co. #1 Combination Career and Volunteer fire company serving since 1881.
• New Canaan Red Cross
• New Canaan Volunteer Ambulance Corps NCVAC - 100% Free, 100% Volunteer ambulance corps with three ambulances plus two paramedic fly-cars

Media

Online daily, local weeklies and a monthly

• New Canaan Patch. A news Web site and information hub updated daily. Patch.com launched New Canaan Patch August 3, 2009.
• New Canaan-Darien magazine. This glossy monthly is owned by Moffly Publications.
• New Canaan Advertiser. This 100 year old weekly, is owned by the Hersam family of New Canaan and by Hersam Acorn Newsapapers, publishers of several local hometown weeklies. The paper is headquartered in town. The paper's publisher, V. Donald Hersam, Jr., is also the town treasurer and the former Chief of the New Canaan Fire Company #1.
• New Canaan News-Review is a more recently established weekly covering the town. It is part of the Brooks Community Newspaper chain owned by Hearst Newspapers, which also owns the daily Connecticut Post in city of Bridgeport; and The Advocate in the city of Stamford.

Daily newspapers in the area

Two daily newspapers service the surrounding area.

• The Hour of Norwalk
• The Advocate of Stamford

Notable people, past and present

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2008)

For more information, see List of people from New Canaan, Connecticut

• Thomas J. Baldwin, CEO of Morton's Restaurant Group, resident^[12]
• Emily Barringer (1876-1961), physician and the first female ambulance surgeon, lived in town.
• Glenn Beck, conservative TV Show host on Fox News, host of The Glenn Beck Program, the 3rd largest syndicated talk radio show in the Country and best selling author.
• Lorenzo Borghese, the bachelor for season 9 of The Bachelor
• Solon Borglum, a sculptor
• L. Paul Bremer, Director of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for post-war Iraq - raised in New Canaan
• H. Keith H. Brodie, former Duke University president - former resident
• Bliss Carman, Canadian poet - resident for the last 20 years of his life (1909-1929)
• Henry S. Coleman (1926-2006), acting dean of Columbia College, Columbia University who was held hostage during the Columbia University protests of 1968.^[13]
• Anthony Comstock namesake of Comstock Law, born in town (George Bernard Shaw coined "comstockery" after him), namesake of Comstock Hill Rd in town
• Harry Connick Jr., singer - resident
• Ann Coulter, commentator - raised in town
• Norman Cousins, editor, peace activist - former resident^[14]
• Roland Crandall, early animator - lived in town
• A. J. Cronin, Scottish novelist - former resident
• Paul Dano, Actor - raised in town
• Jack Douglas, writer - former resident
• Phoebe Dunn (author) Writer and photographer - former resident (until her death)
• Gerald Green (1922-2006), author of The Last Angry Man among other works, lived in town
• Florence Harding, First Lady - According to the book Florence Harding: The First Lady, The Jazz Age, And The Death Of America's Most Scandalous President by Carl Sferrazza Anthony spent some time living across from the old Methodist Church on Main Street and Church as a young lady.
• Katherine Heigl, actress - raised in town
• Carl Hovde (1926-2009), professor and Dean during the Columbia University protests of 1968.^[15]
• Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric - lives in town
• Philip C. Johnson (1906–2005), architect who built and lived in the famous Glass House in town
• David Letterman, Late Show host - former resident
• Christopher Lloyd, actor - distant relative of Lapham family who sold Waveny Park to New Canaan.
• Douglas Marland, soap opera head writer
• Martin Mull (b. 1943), actor and comedian of Roseanne and My Bodyguard, moved to town when he was 15 and graduated from New Canaan High School
• David Neeleman, Founder of JetBlue Airways - resident
• Eliot Noyes, Architect - former resident. Member of The Harvard Five, a group of architects including Philip Johnson, John Johansen, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores and John Black Lee who built modern homes in the town during period from the 1940s through the 70's.
• Maxwell Perkins, the late, notable editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe and others - former resident
• Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo, sports talk-show personality formerly of WFAN radio, currently with Sirius XM Radio - resident
• Paul Simon, singer and songwriter - resident
• Warren Allen Smith, author of "Who's Who in Hell"
• Stuart Symington, U.S. Senator and Secretary of the Air Force - died in town
• Arthur Szyk, famous anti-Nazi cartoonist and book illustrator and artist
• Bill Toomey, 1968 Olympic decathlon champion - former resident
• Heidi Voight, Miss Connecticut 2006, actress- resident
• Barry Williams of The Brady Bunch - former resident
• Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News - resident
• Max Pacioretty, Montreal Canadians forward

New Canaan in the media

Films shot in New Canaan

• The Capture of New York (1912) (a short documentary)
• The Swimmer (1968)
• The Ice Storm (1997)
• The Object of My Affection (1998)
• Pigeonholed (1999)
• Fishing for Love (2001) (a comedy short)
• Peter (2004)
• The Stepford Wives (2004)
• Red War Paint (2004) (a short documentary)

Books about New Canaan

• Public Schools Should Learn to Ski, by Stephen E. Rubin
• The Ice Storm, by Rick Moody

References in popular culture

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2009)

• In the movie Fools Rush In, Matthew Perry's character grew up in New Canaan.
• The exteriors of Waveny Mansion are used as Palmer Cortlandt's home in the ABC soap opera All My Children.
• Karen suggests that Jack's father may be one of the "eight Black brothers of New Canaan, CT" in an episode of Will and Grace.
• In the ABC drama Commander in Chief, Geena Davis' family home was in New Canaan
• In the television program Carnivàle Brother Justin is shown to have founded New Canaan
• The Neighbors are Scaring My Wolf by comic writer Jack Douglas was a 1968 book based on his experiences living in town.
• In The Cricket In Times Square, main character Chester Cricket lives near New Canaan.
• In one of the books in the series Gossip Girl, a minor character says he needs to stop in New Canaan.
• The Official Preppy Handbook makes reference to New Canaan as one of the "preppiest" towns in the country.
• In the ABC television series Sports Night, Managing Editor Isaac Jaffe (played by Robert Guillaume) lives in New Canaan.
• In the 1947 movie Gentleman's Agreement, New Canaan is mentioned as a heavily anti-semitic town that won't allow real estate to be rented or sold to Jews.
• In the USA television series Royal Pains Hank tells Tucker to take his father to a fictional rehab center called simon ranch in New Canaan CT.

For further reading

• A Guide to God’s Acre, a walking tour of the Historic District; available from the New Canaan Historical Society.
• My Impressions of the Hour, a journal written by an early New Canaan teacher, Margaret Mary Corrigan; available from the society.
• New Canaan: Texture of a Community, available from the society.
• Portrait of New Canaan, available from the society.
• A Student's Memoir, edited by Robert W.P. Cutler. A history of the Little Red Schoolhouse, based on recollections of some of the school’s graduates.

References

External links

Methodist Episcopal Church, postcard mailed 1917

GOVERNMENT:

• Town of New Canaan, Connecticut

EDUCATION:

• New Canaan Public Schools

ARTS:

• Carriage Barn Arts Center
• Town Players community theater group

OTHER:

• Coastal Fairfield County Convention & Visitor Bureau
• New Canaan Nature Center
• Outback: the town teen center
• Lapham Community Center and Senior Center of New Canaan
• New Canaan Historical Society
• New Canaan Fire Company No. 1
• New Canaan Volunteer Ambulance Corps (NCVAC)
• New Canaan Library
• New Canaan Community Foundation
• New Canaan Chamber of Commerce
• "New Canaan: Town of Both Showiness and Quaintness," by Lisa Prevost, article in the Real Estate section of The New York Times, October 21, 2001, accessed August 29, 2006

• New Canaan, Connecticut is at coordinates 41°08′48″N 73°29′42″W / 41.1468°N 73.4949°W / 41.1468; -73.4949 (New Canaan, Connecticut)Coordinates: 41°08′48″N 73°29′42″W / 41.1468°N 73.4949°W / 41.1468; -73.4949 (New Canaan, Connecticut)

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