New Canaan is often cited as a haven for modern architecture, including famously the Glass House of Philip Johnson, but also the works of a cadre of Harvard-trained architects who settled there and left their marks in glass and stone.
The New Canaan Historical Society promotes that heritage and seemingly dozens more ”“ including sculpture, books, clocks, map collections, even a massive apothecary setup that includes the nostrums of the town”™s century-old Cody Pharmacy ”“ and makes the treasures open for the public and for business groups of up to 35.
The meeting room is itself historic, featuring three Works Progress Administration murals ”“ wall-sized in the manner of Depression-era WPA murals ”“ of life in Colonial New Canaan. (Canaan, broadly, was the land of the Bible and the murals embrace piety as their theme.)
Architecture spanning classic New England saltboxes to supermodern cubes infuses New Canaan’s DNA. The historical society’s executive director, Janet Lindstrom, keeps framed local examples of old and new architectural styles on her desk. She was married to a Harvard-trained architect, now deceased, who designed the home on 2 acres in which she lives.
Lindstrom oversees the New Canaan Historical Society campus as well as its satellites, including the Gores Pavilion at Irwin Park. The historical society has for 10 years run the pavilion, the one-time studio of architect Landis Gores, as a center with a mission “to promote awareness of New Canaan’s modern house treasures.”
Lindstrom’s office is in the Town House and Library, which also houses garments from the 18th through 20th centuries. Lindstrom said the clothing collections end in the 1930s. The bar for entry today would be a piece by a top designer or a piece worn by a notable New Canaan resident. The society sponsors two costume shows per year.
The Town House, which was New Canaan’s first Town Hall, and the ca. 1764 Hanford-Silliman House are original to the historical society”™s Oenoke Ridge 2-acre parcel. The Hanford-Silliman House is home to the society’s mid-18th-century works. The building was a former tavern and, appropriately, pewter works are a notable historical society collection.
The satellite Gores Pavilion has an off-site cousin in the Little Red School House on Carter Street.
Other on-site New Canaan Historical Society’s buildings include the John Rogers Studio. The 1878 studio, which is on the National Register of Historic Places as well as being a National Historic Landmark, was moved to the historical society campus 55 years ago and today celebrates his work and that of other sculptors.
The Oenoke Ridge site features collections of books on subjects like antiques and a trove of genealogical data. The Harry Hilbert collection, for example, features books on antiques. Hilbert was a well-known antique dealer and basket maker, whose baskets fill the collections of major museums and of the historical society. Another collection features books written by New Canaan authors.
“It is fascinating to see people really get interested in their more scandalous ancestors,” Lindstrom said. “They love it when they find some fact that is ”“ what to call it? ”“ frightening, maybe a stabbing. There”™s an interest in the people who were quite known as the bad boys in town.”
The campus also features “A Winter”™s Tale,” going on until March, something of a tour de force of antique clothing. If a museum”™s job is, at least partly, to light the imagination by bringing the past to life, “A Winter”™s Tale” is an appropriate example. In it, stylish residents of Victorian-era New Caanan sashay around a room in the company of their elegantly dressed peers (all are mannequins) on their way to a holiday celebration.
Lindstrom, who along with Penny Havard heads the costume committee consisting of Pamela Huth, Jenn Milani, Mike Murphy and Nancy Stass, said nicer clothes tended to get preserved. “We have the tuxedoes,” she said. “The clothes they worked in, that got holes in them, those we don”™t have.”
Mindful of wintertime transportation at the time, the historical society offers details like a stone foot warmer and an authentic buffalo blanket for that one-horse open sleigh ride.
The website for the 125-year-old historical society is NCHistory.org.
