New Canaan has two Metro-North railroad stations. They are called "New Canaan" and "Talmadge Hill". Travel time to Grand Central Terminal is approximately one hour.
New Canaan is one of the most affluent communities in the United States.
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 58.2 km² (22.5 mi²). 57.3 km² (22.1 mi²) of it is land and 0.9 km² (0.3 mi²) 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.
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.[2]
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.[2]
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.[2]
Lewis Lapham, a founder of Texaco, spent summers with his family at the estate that is now part of the 300-acre Waveny Park.
On September 11, 2001, two New Canaanites were murdered in the terrorist attacks that day: Joseph J. Coppo Jr., 47, and Eamon J. McEneaney, 46, at the World Trade Center.[3]
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 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 and Allan Gelbin.[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)
There were 3,980 students enrolled in grades K-12 in the 2003-2004 school year and the total expenditure was $50,786,700.
Class of 2003 statistics:
Average SAT I Verbal: 585
Average SAT I Math: 598
48.3% of students attending 4 year colleges were accepted to schools ranked by Barron's Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges as Most Competitive and Highly Competitive.
Waveny Park on South Avenue "was developed in 1912 by Lewis H. Lapham on what had been Prospect Farm, an early summer estate. In 1967 the Town acquired the 'castle' and 300 acres of surrounding parkland."[2]
The 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.
New Canaan Advertiser. This weekly, the older of the two local newspapers, is owned by the Hersham Acorn chain of local weeklies, which is itself headquartered in town.
New Canaan News-Review is a more recent weekly covering the town. It is part of the Brooks Community Newspaper chain now owned by Media News Group, which also owns the daily Connecticut Post in Bridgeport.
Daily newspapers in the area
Dramatic events, especially disasters or crimes, are likely to be covered first by area daily newspapers, although the Advocate provides little regular coverage to the town and the Hour provides next to none.
As of the census2 of 2000, there were 19,395 people, 6,822 households, and 5,280 families residing in the town. The population density was 338.4/km² (876.5/mi²). There were 7,141 housing units at an average density of 124.6/km² (322.7/mi²). 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 was $141,788, and the median income for a family was $175,331. 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.
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.
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