Norfolk Then

Miss Anna Thompson built her Shingle Style “cottage” on Laurel Way in 1894. By then, Norfolk had become a popular summer resort, and the arrival of summer visitors and residents was announced weekly in the local paper. On May 9, 1895, it was reported that “Miss A. K. Thompson who keeps a select boarding school for young ladies in New York was in town Tuesday at her new residence on Laurel Way.” The boarding school, known as the Peebles Thompson School, was founded by Anna Thompson and Victoria Peebles and located at 32 East 57th Street. Miss Thompson sold her Norfolk summer residence to Amos Barnes in 1913, about the time Frank DeMars, proprietor of the popular Art Store in Winsted, took this photograph. The house, now partially hidden behind foliage, still stands on Laurel Way.

—Ann Havemeyer

Photo courtesy of the Norfolk Historical Society