The building we now know as the Art Barn, home to Yale Norfolk School of Art, was built in 1898 as a carriage house and barn for Carl and Ellen Battell Stoeckel. The elegant brick building was used for more than just housing horses and carriages. The Stoeckels hosted annual meetings of the Litchfield County University Club there every June. Members of the club first gathered in the library of the Stoeckel residence, Whitehouse, and then processed to dinner through grounds brilliantly lit with torches, led by a band playing Marching Through Georgia. The carriage room was converted into a banquet hall, festooned with streamers and college banners, and dinner was served by Delmonicos. These evenings of fellowship hosted by the Stoeckels were long remembered by members as “ambrosial nights.”

Text By Ann Havemeyer
Photo Courtesy of the Norfolk Historical Society