• 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 […]

  • A Look Into Norfolk’s Past

    Exhibit Explores Pupin’s Haven of Happiness on Westside Road By Patricia Platt The Norfolk Historical Museum graces Norfolk’s village green with the reserve and understated elegance of a New Englander well worth getting to know. Visitors who step inside will find exhibits that tell the stories of the town’s past, often with intriguing ties to […]

  • Norfolk Past and Present

    The Summer Chapel Eases Gracefully Into Its 130 Years By Elizabeth Bailey Ayreslea Rowland Denny began attending services at The Church of the Transfiguration in Norfolk in 1939 on the eve of World War II. A New Yorker, she was a student at the Chapin School in New York City, but her family had been […]

  • Church Steeple Shines Once Again

    Local dignitaries and friends of Norfolk’s Church of Christ Congregational gathered on Saturday, May 25, to formally celebrate the completion of the steeple restoration project. The Rev. Erick Olsen thanked the community for supporting the years-long effort and welcomed everyone to enjoy a splendid cake featuring an image of the steeple.

  • Making the Native… Personal

    Cheryl Heller Builds a Wild Garden in Norfolk By Joe Kelly Gardens are best when they’re personal, argued the late Fred McGourty, who remains Norfolk’s best- known plantsmen. McGourty’s 1989 book, “The Perennial Gardener,” recounts the gardens he and his wife, Mary Ann, created at Hillside, their home near Dennis Hill State Park. Were he […]

  • This Old Norfolk House

    Stevens House By Joe KellyWhen our Puritan forebears arrived on these shores in the early 1600s, they were no doubt surprised todiscover how the traditional thatched roof cottages they knew from back home were no match for thewind and cold of a typical New England winter. But it would have likely surprised them even more […]

  • Can wildlife safely cross Norfolk’s Roads?

    By Shelley Harms Where are animals crossing Norfolk’s roads? Are they making it across? Is it possible to make theircrossings safer? Julia Rogers, Senior Land Protection Manager at the Housatonic Valley Association (HVA), helped agroup of interested Norfolk residents explore these questions at a training session sponsored by theNorfolk Land Trust on March 22 at […]

  • Great Mountain Forest’s New Executive Director Returns to His Connecticut Roots

    By David Beers Mike Zarfos started his new position as executive director of Great Mountain Forest (GMF) at the end ofFebruary. It has been a lively time for Zarfos and his family; in addition to moving from Washington,D.C., to Connecticut, they are expecting a baby in April. Zarfos grew up in Deep River, Conn., where […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    In the late 19th century, the arrival of every train at the depot on Station Place was widely anticipated.There were freight trains, milk trains and passenger trains unloading throngs of summer visitors. Theattractive station pictured here was built in 1898, replacing an earlier modest structure. Constructed ofnative granite, it was designed by Hill & Turner, […]

Articles

Historical Society’s Summer Exhibit

“Norfolk in the Great War” opens May 27   On April 6, 1917, the United States entered the Great War, and life in Norfolk changed quickly. The Eldridge Gymnasium (now Town Hall) became an armory and the setting for outdoor drills with a rifle range set up on the rocky ledge behind Fox Hill, home […]

William Eggers Loves to Make Stuff

  By Ruth Melville When Bill Eggers was 10 years old, he took the motor out of the family lawnmower and put it into a little wooden car he had built himself. A policeman brought him home and complained to his mother that he had been going 50 miles an hour on the highway. She […]

Botelle Students Perform ‘Charlotte’s Web’

By Lauren Valentino The curtain rose for Botelle School’s performance of “Charlotte’s Web” on Thursday, April 6 and the audience—young, old and in-between—was entertained by this long-time favorite story of an unlikely friendship between a young pig and a wise spider. Directed by Bruce Connelly and Elizabeth Allyn as part of the Norfolk After School […]

The Nuts, Bolts and Tools to Start Your Own Business

The Entrepreneurial Center of Northwest Connecticut offers training and support By Colleen Gundlach With increasing technology and internet access, more and more people are leaving traditional jobs to pursue the dream of owning their own businesses. Going solo into a new business can be a difficult, time-consuming and expensive endeavor, but a new program at […]

The Murky Origin of Norfolk Street Names

  By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo For one of the largest towns in the state (geographically), there are relatively few roads in Norfolk, and the ingenuity in their naming is generally at a minimum. Many street names denote their ultimate destination—Bald Mountain, Goshen East, Litchfield, Meekertown, North Colebrook, South Sandisfield, State Line and Winchester, for example, […]

Getting a Second WIN

It’s early days yet, but town organizations are starting to plan their events for the second Weekend in Norfolk, scheduled this year for August 4, 5 and 6. At a meeting on March 11 in Town Hall, a few organizations sent representatives, while many others wrote in suggestions. All participating groups are urged to submit […]

Botelle Beat

Student Council Works to Make the School the Best It Can Be By Mackenzie Casey  At Botelle School, the student council represents the school’s belief that students should be responsible, respectful, persevering, honest and good at collaborating with others. This council is made up of eight members of the 5th and 6th grades: Olivia Olsen, […]

Crissey Place: The Changing Shape of 19th-Century Norfolk

By Ryan Bachman Like many New England towns, Norfolk boasts an impressive selection of historic architecture. Colonial-era farmhouses face seldom-traveled backroads, surviving industrial buildings stand along the Blackberry River and Gilded Age summer homes line the shores of various lakes. Individually, each of these buildings illustrates a select period of the town’s history, and efforts […]

Where Wise Men Also Fish

A bookstore in the Berkshires   By Wiley Wood The Bookstore has been in the same brick building in Lenox, Mass., for five decades and is something of a pilgrimage site. Still, why travel to a bookstore when just about any book you can think of is available online? As I push open the bookstore’s […]

Kirk and Cindy Sinclair Face the Most Difficult Journey of All

From Walking Sticks to Pedicabs By Colleen Gundlach For their fifth date, Kirk and Cindy Sinclair hiked the entire 2,200 miles of the Appalachian Trail. Avid hikers, the pair met when he was a University of Connecticut alumnus and she was a student there. Having reached their 30th wedding anniversary together, their exercise routine is […]

The Stained Glass Windows of Norfolk

A Tale of Two Masters By Babs Perkins When stained glass is mentioned in conversation, for many, the first name that springs to mind is Tiffany: Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of jeweler and Tiffany & Co. founder Charles Lewis Tiffany. When stained glass windows and Norfolk are referenced, the windows in Battell Chapel, the library […]

Coffee, Cake and Community Storytelling

  Photo by Bruce Frisch Last month’s Coffee House in Battell Chapel was a warm and convivial evening. Conceived as a different kind of fundraiser for the Congregational Church, the event offered a warm, candlelit setting, delicious homemade desserts and coffee and also storytelling and poetry reading by local authors. Gloria Gourley, a member of […]