• Sweets on the Green

    A Decade of Decadent Desserts By Andra Moss How is your naughty versus nice rating? Those needing to influence Santa with an especially impressive treat should grab their stockings and head to the Norfolk Historical Society (NHS) for the 10th Annual Cake Auction on Saturday, Dec. 7.     Now a Norfolk holiday tradition, the event was […]

  • Artist Tom Burr Brings His Torrington Project to an End

    Performances celebrate studio closing By Stephen Melville Norfolk resident and artist Tom Burr organized a day of performances and exhibition at his studio in Torrington on Oct. 26, marking an end to what he has called “The Torrington Project.” For the past three and a half years, Burr has rented a vast—15,000 square foot—former industrial […]

  • New Meanings for a Monument

    Light Shines on the Memorial Green By Joe Kelly On Monday, Nov. 11, Veterans Day, a crowd of about 100 gathered for the rededication of Norfolk’s World War 1 memorial, artfully restored under the auspices of the Norfolk Community Association. It was sunny. Temperatures in the low ‘60’s. Another day of no rain. Everyone talked […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This 1920s postcard shows Memorial Green just after the War Memorial, designed by Alfredo Taylor, was built. It was Taylor’s wife Minna who first proposed that a memorial “heroes grove” be planted on the small lot of land known as the Triangle opposite the Catholic Church. The lot had been left empty with the demolition […]

  • Restored war memorial to be celebrated on veterans day

    plaque now honors all who served By Patricia Platt A World War I monument, designed by Alfredo Taylor and erected on Norfolk’s Memorial Green in 1921, bears the inscription, “for those who gave and those who offered their lives for liberty, the people of Norfolk have built this monument and crowned it with the Liberty […]

  • NLT Tail Ablaze with Runners

    More than 120 runners enjoyed perfect fall weather as they wound their way through picturesque Barbour Woods in the 11th Annual Norfolk Land Trust Trail Race. Some chose to add a challenging loop over Haystack Mountain, while the half-marathoners just kept moving on up—topping out at over 2,000 feet of elevation gain. *photo by June […]

  • Can you spot the Real Curler?

    There was movie magic ice to be made, and the pros of the Norfolk Curling Club were the first to get the call. In October, NCC’s Jon Barbagallo, Lou Barbagallo, Rachel Barbagallo, Mark Walsh, Harvey Chalmers and Phill West were hired by a production company to make curling ice at a Rhode Island hockey rink […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This 1917 photograph is a timely reminder of the long struggle fought by many dedicated women for basic civil liberties, including the right to own property, hold public office, sit on juries, participate in public assemblies and vote. The group of 25 suffragists—20 women and five men—gathered on the porch following their meeting with Congressman […]

  • The chicken who wanted to be a star and other tales from a norfolk movie set

    By Andra Moss Secrets and small towns don’t often pair well, and Norfolk is a small town. Yet, for eight weeks this summer, a crew of nearly 100 people quietly transformed Tim and Paula Webster’s 1908 Norfolk farmhouse into a film set for a feature-length production, all the while staying under the local radar.  It […]

  • great blue heron rookeries

    working together to provide sustainable breeding habitats By Jude Mead Great Blue Herons are a familiar sight in Norfolk and are one of the largest of all North American herons, standing up to four feet tall with a wingspan of close to six feet. They are most noticeable in flight as they soar across the […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    Tennis at Town Hall? The building we know as Town Hall was originally the Eldridge Gymnasium, built in 1892. Located within easy walking distance of hotels and boarding houses in Norfolk at the turn of the last century, the Gymnasium was a popular gathering place for both residents and visitors. People played croquet on the lawn […]

  • Looking Back Over the Years

    The End of an Era for Norfolk Now By Colleen Gundlach After 10 years and over 30 issues, Ruth Melville has put on her Norfolk Now editor’s hat for the last time. In June, the paper marked the end of an era with the publication of Ruth’s final issue as one of the executive editors […]

Articles

Lost Ruby Farm Has Found a Worthy Successor for Its Cheese-Making Business

Supporting Local Farms Text By Avice MeehanFeatured Image by Ashley Skatoff It’s a cold, rainy March afternoon just before Antonio Guindon’s 60th birthday and he’s having fun: Irish music coming from a speaker, a stove burning bright, and maple sap boiling in a small evaporator.  “Every spring, sap fever hits me, and the beauty of […]

Wayne Jenkins Recalls Almost 60 Years of Syrup Making

A Labor of Love Text By Jude MeadPhoto by Scott Whalen The maple syrup season is once again wrapping up for the year. For most producers, the season started off strong,  one of the earliest ever noted in the area according to ACSERnet, an international network of scientists studying the maple tree’s ecology. Maple syrup […]

Norfolk Library Opens New Teen Alcove in the Great Hall

Dedicated space for teens to study and hang out Text By Kelly Kandra Hughes  Photo Courtesy of the Norfolk Library  After two years of planning, design and construction, the Norfolk Library’s new place for teens has opened. Community discussions on teen mental health had suggested that teens didn’t have any place of their own in Norfolk. […]

Connecticut-Asia Cultural Center Reopens for 2023 Season

Text By Patricia PlattPhoto Courtesy of the CT-Asia Cultural Center Norfolk residents and visitors will want to add the Connecticut-Asia Cultural Center to their list of local places to visit this spring and summer. On April 1, the center, at 207A Westside Road, reopens for a new season. The museum will be open to the […]

Local Inn Reopens as Luxury Bed and Breakfast

Welcome to the Wildwood1880 By Andra Moss It was, virtually, love at first sight. From her kitchen table in Northern California last July, Sarah Dreyer followed intently as her realtor used a mobile phone camera to walk her room by room through the Mountain View Green Retreat in Norfolk. Dreyer definitely liked what she saw. […]

Children’s Foundation Works to Enrich Lives of Local Students 

By Avice Meehan Thirty-five years after its founding, the Norfolk Connecticut Children’s Foundation is now led by Babs Perkins, whose father, Roderick J. Perkins, helped create the foundation following the closure of the Laurel School. The foundation’s mission is straightforward: to enrich the lives of Norfolk’s children by supporting cultural and educational experiences, camps and […]

Yarn for Good (and Food)

By Janet G. Mead When the Norfolk Knitters were asked to participate in WIN weekend at the end of February, several came up with a brilliant idea: let’s sell all that yarn that’s been sitting in a closet, reserved for projects that never inched beyond the concept stage, and donate the funds to the Norfolk […]

Canaan Couple Is Passionate About Coffee

Colombian growers of Ilse Coffee’s beans are carefully chosen By Colleen Gundlach    When a person has a cup of coffee that actually “tastes like something,” they will never go back to drinking ordinary coffee again—the belief on which Rebecca Grossman and Lucas Smith have built their gourmet coffee-roasting business, Ilse Coffee. The couple, who have […]

Crowd Turns Out to Debate Merits of Norfolk Dog Park

Location and parking issues discussed at P&Z Meeting By Susan MacEachron The proposal to create a private dog park, open to all dog owners, on Westside Road south of Mountain Road generated a large turnout at the Planning & Zoning Commission (P&Z) public hearing on Feb. 14. The Friends of the Norfolk Community Dog Park […]

Town Garage Crew Has Its Act Together

A Well-Oiled Team By David Beers Tucked away between Haystack Mountain and Center Cemetery is our town garage at 36 Old Colony Road. It is from this base of operations that the town’s six-person crew maintains our town’s public infrastructure. Troy LaMere is the supervisor.  Tommy Gorski has been the crew foreman for over 20 […]

Unacceptable Response Time by Eversource to Car Accident

Power not shut off for over an hour By Jonathan Barbagallo On a quiet Tuesday afternoon on Jan. 17 at 2:45 p.m., a local Norfolk husband and wife were headed back to town after grocery shopping and lunch.  The rest of their day was shattered when their car struck a telephone pole at the driveway […]

Frontier Proposal to Provide High Speed Internet Under Consideration

Town wants assurances that all residents will be covered By Ruth Melville Discussions with Frontier Communications about wiring Norfolk with fiber optic cable are ongoing. Frontier has already begun installing fiber optic cable in several towns in the Northwest Corner, including Barkhamsted, Winsted, Norfolk, Torrington, Harwinton, New Hartford and Falls Village. In Barkhamsted and Winsted, […]