• 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

School Board Proposes Flat Budget as Costs Rise and State Aid Dwindles

Town ponders an increase in property taxes   By Wiley Wood If the town accepts the budget passed by the Board of Education on Feb. 8, it will be the fifth year in a row that the Botelle School has been flat-funded or seen an actual decrease in its funding. The Board of Finance, which […]

A New England Pastor, a Dutch Classicist and a Roman Stoic in One Book

Treasures From the Rare Book Room   By Lucy Mookerjee Plenty of Norfolkians know a rare bird when they see one. But many birders would be hard-pressed to identify the markings of a “rare” book. What makes a rare book rare? It depends—age, scarcity, market value. Whether you’ve spotted it or not, the Norfolk Library […]

View from the Green

Enduring Village Landmark in Limbo   By Michael Kelly Civic enrichment in Norfolk Town is humming right along: what with the library’s compelling new terra cotta roof, the impressive restoration of Alfredo Taylor’s railroad railing and lamps, the reassuring church bells ringing again on the Village Green, the ambitious reimagining of City Meadow, the budding […]

Norfolk Represented in Women’s March on Washington

Residents travel to D.C believing nation’s moral values threatened   By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo At least 20 Norfolkians travelled to Washington, D.C.—by car, bus, train and plane—on January 21 for the Women’s March. Two separate, large groups of Norfolk women were never able to meet up at the march but shared a very similar experience. The first […]

Convenience Store and Deli Opens in Downtown Norfolk

Residents Offer Strong Show of Support   By Wiley Wood It’s not the Corner Store. The musty gray carpet is gone, the cave-like interior, the flat fluorescent lighting. The Berkshire Country Store—bright, cheerful and inviting—is something else. It opened without fanfare in the pre-dawn dusk of January 4. Within minutes, the grill was delivering hot […]

Dogs and Cats and Bears, Oh My!

Lauren Foley is Norfolk’s New Animal Control Officer   By Colleen Gundlach When Norfolk’s longtime animal control officer, Glen Wheeler, passed away last year, his position remained unfilled until Lauren Foley stepped over the line from Canaan to lend a hand. North Canaan’s animal control officer (ACO) since 2013 and Torrington’s assistant ACO, Foley has […]

Affordable Housing Gets State Funds

Construction to start in the spring   By Julie Scharnberg As reported in the March 2016 issue of Norfolk Now, the Foundation for Norfolk Living (FNL) was poised to move ahead with a formal closing in order to access the $2.99 million in state grant funds and anticipated a spring 2016 start date for construction. […]

Aton Forest Holds Annual Census of Early Winter Birds

    By Wiley Wood Although she has been taking part in Christmas Bird Counts for over 50 years, when Ayreslea Denny describes her bird encounters on the morning of December 31 in Aton Forest, her voice is full of excitement. “The number of birds we got was just unbelievable,” she said. A small group, […]

Dance Group Hosts Flash Mob in Great Barrington

  By Ruth Melville On a frigid evening last December, the streets of Great Barrington were crowded with holiday shoppers taking part in the town’s annual Holiday Stroll. Slowly, a group of about 30 people—kids, teenagers and adults, gathered at the foot of Railroad Street. At first, nobody paid them much attention, but then a […]

Novelist and Cartoonist Peter Steiner Exhibits His Paintings

February’s Featured Artist at the Norfolk Library   By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo There don’t seem to be enough creative expressions to satisfy Sharon resident Peter Steiner. His life path took him from college professor to cartoonist to novelist, with lots of painting along the way. Steiner was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and attended University of […]

Norfolk Land Trust Takes On 24 Acres in North Canaan

By Sally Quale   Last September, the Norfolk Land Trust (NLT) was given 24 acres in North Canaan, located within the 1,500-acre Robbins Swamp, the state’s largest inland wetland complex. The majority of Robbins Swamp is a calcareous wetland with a small upland portion of primarily pine and hemlock. The Nature Conservancy and the state […]

Berkshire National Fish Hatchery

Volunteers work to preserve indigenous fish habitats   By Michael Kelly It’s all about the water. At the Berkshire National Fish Hatchery (BNFH) in Hartsville, a hamlet of New Marlborough, Mass., 14 miles from Norfolk’s Village Green, 200 gallons a minute of pure 45-degree water from a deep underground aquifer course through 148 acres of […]