• Norfolk Crowds Return to New Farmers Market

    By Andra Moss The crowd was large, loud and loving it at July’s Northwest Farm to Fork farmers market, held under the pavilion at Norbrook Farm Brewery. “We were very pleased with the turnout, with approximately 230 customers coming through and 16 food and farm vendors,” says Lisa Auclair, a co-founder, with Devin Grosso and […]

  • Friday Night on the Green Celebrates America’s 250th

    July 3 was a picture-perfect night for the community-wide event cel-ebrating America’s Independence. Following a quick parade, picnickers enjoyed burgers and ice cream while judges dug into the entries in the pie baking contest. First Selectman Hen-ry Tirrell moved seamlessly from his welcome speech to the dunk tank, and a few folks, like Pete Sanders […]

  • NORFOLK REMEMBERS Laurene Mary Wallace

    Laurene Mary Wallace, 77, of Colebrook passed peacefully at home surrounded by her family on Friday, July 10, 2026. Laurene was born on April 28, 1949, in Bridgeport, the last of four children born to the late Lawrence and Irene (Misencik) Firmender of Stratford. A retired registered nurse, Laurene’s career in nursing and cardiac rehabilitation […]

  • Norfolk Remembers Sally Sterling Ellis Quale

    Sally Sterling Ellis Quale, of Norfolk and St. Petersburg, Fla., formerly of Bronxville, N.Y., died unexpectedly of heart failure on July 7 at the age of 87. Sally will be remembered for her deep commitment to her family and communities and for her warmth, kindness, intelligence, creativity … and, of course, for her beautiful smile […]

  • Norfolk Then…

    This charming house, still standing on the west side of Litchfield Rd., was built in 1905 for Richmond Paine, the newly appointed conductor of the Litchfield County Choral Union (LCCU). Carl and Ellen Battell Stoeckel engaged the architect Ehrick Rossiter to design the house for Paine as well as the Music Shed for performances by […]

  • Norfolk’s Newest Neighborhood Puts Down Roots

    Haystack Woods lauded as a “model for the state” By Joe Kelly Norfolk’s newest neighborhood, the Haystack Woods affordable housing development, has officially come to life. A year ago, the 39-acre location—a former gravel pit off Old Colony Road—was little more than a muddy building site. Now construction of the 10, two- and three-bedroom homes […]

  • Winsted Church Auctions Tiffany Window for $1.25 Million

    Sale highlights women’s role in Tiffany designs By Joe Kelly When medieval architects found ways to build taller cathedrals, the techniques they developed also made possible the enormous stained-glass windows that we so enjoy today, such as at Chartres and Sainte-Chapelle in France and Canterbury Cathedral in England. American-made stained glass is more recent, dating […]

  • A Revolutionary Year

    1776 Norfolk explored in summer exhibition By Andra Moss Communities across the country are looking back with wonder at 1776, the year that 13 British colonies initiated a revolution that, against astonishing odds, led to the birth of an independent republic. In Norfolk, two curators have combed the Norfolk Historical Society’s (NHS) collection for colonial-era […]

  • SUMMER MUSIC: Familiar Quartets, New Composers at Yale Chamber Festival

    By Patricia Platt The Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, running from July 3 until Aug. 22, will present an exciting season of classical, innovative and international music. This summer, the Brentano Quartet, Shanghai Quartet, Ying Quartet and the Horszowski Trio are among those who will perform during weekend concerts and serve as artist-in-residence mentors to the […]

  • Botelle Students Move Up

    By Avice Meehan Four sixth graders bid farewell to Botelle Elementary School at a laughter-filled, but occasionally serious, ceremony on June 16 that was attended by family, friends and town officials. First Selectmen Henry Tirrell, a Botelle graduate whose mother and aunt taught at the school for many years, reminded the students that they would […]

  • Norfolk Rail-Trail Project Pedals Forward

    By Jude Mead After more than a decade of planning, permiting and redesign work, Norfolk’s long-await-ed Rails-to-Trails initiative has reached a major milestone, bringing the community closer to the creation of a new multi-use recreational trail along a historic railroad corridor. The project is the North Brook Trail, a planned three-quarter-mile ADA-accessi-ble pathway that will […]

  • LEGISLATIVE UPDATE: Budgets, Beetles, Nips and More

    By Avice Meehan State Rep. Maria Horn came prepared to share details about the Connecticut budget (she is co-chair of the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee) and the progress that has been made toward paying down the state’s unfunded pension liability, increasing the rainy day fund (now up to $18 billion) and allocating more state funds […]

Articles

Torrington’s Five Points Gallery: Art Mecca and Tool for City Revitalization

Out and About   By Ruth Melville Five Points Gallery, located in a historic building at the corner of Water and Main Streets in Torrington, has been in existence for less than three years, but it has already played a significant role in the revitalization of the city’s downtown. With its high ceilings and big […]

Aija Ends Its Run on Station Place

Pop-up planned for spring   By Ruth Melville For four and a half years, Bella Erder’s shop Aija, selling jewelry, accessories, tableware and other gifts, has been a lively and colorful part of Station Place. But last December Erder reluctantly decided it was time to close her doors. Erder and her family first bought a […]

Local Author Sees the Funny Side of Norfolk Life

Tony Thomson’s Second Career   By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo A glance at Tony Thomson on paper (he was educated at Deerfield and Yale, served in the army during Vietnam, obtained graduate degrees from Oxford and Stanford and had a 30-year career in various investment management firms in London) doesn’t tell the whole story. While Thomson […]

Plantin’ Seeds in North Canaan Celebrates Farming

  By Ruth Melville Plantin’ Seeds Farm Kitchen, a new café and gathering place in North Canaan, is not your traditional restaurant. For one thing, it doesn’t charge money for its meals. Instead, it is a community resource, a mission and a project still taking shape. Plantin’ Seeds is the brainchild of Dale McDonald, a […]

Gearheads Working on New Robot

Northwestern robotics team receives grants from The Community Foundation of Northwest Connecticut   By Julie Scharnberg FIRST Robotics Team NRG4055 – better known as The Gearheads – from Northwestern Regional High School will build their robot this year with a new set of tools, thanks to a grant from the Ruth and Robert Cron Endowment […]

Wind Turbine Neighbors Report Adverse Effects

Green Energy, Sick Neighbors   By Wiley Wood It was mid-October, and Peg Papanek was thinking how lucky she was to live on Schoolhouse Road and bask in Norfolk’s beautiful weather and fall colors. She had built a fabulous patio during the summer. Now she was packing for a trip to Asheville, N.C., where she […]

Art Show in Norfolk’s Downtown

Aija, the gift store in Norfolk’s Station Place, will host an exhibition of ten local artists during the month of December. The artists sre Katherine Griswold, Tom Hlas (left, above), Fay O’Meara, Babs Perkins, Gary Rawson, David Roelofs, Turi Rostad, Susan Rood, Harmony Tanguay, Castle Yuran and Robin Yuran. Photos by Bruce Frisch.

Sue Dyer Wins Re-Election in Close Race

Voter Turn-Out Is 58 Percent   By Wiley Wood In an off-year election that drew 58 percent of the electorate to the polls, Sue Dyer, Norfolk’s incumbent first selectman, defeated first-time challenger Matt Riiska with 53 percent of the votes, winning 317 to 286. The other positions on the Board of Selectmen were uncontested. The […]

Norfolk’s Pension Plan Judged ‘Actuarily Solvent’

  By Susan MacEachron Only a few years ago, it was widely circulated that Norfolk’s pension plan for town employees was underfunded by $1 million and that the town would have to borrow to cover the shortfall. The market crash in 2008 had put the town’s plan in serious straits, according to Michael Sconyers, chairman […]

Onward and Upward With Botelle School

A Conversation With Superintendent Mary Beth Iacobelli   With the effort to consolidate the Norfolk and Colebrook primary schools defeated, Norfolk Now’s Wiley Wood visited Superintendent Mary Beth Iacobelli for a discussion of the present and future of Botelle School. The following interview has been edited and condensed.   NN: So Botelle School continues on. […]

Norfolk Resident Bob Gilchrest Guides Redesign of Falls Village

New Paving and Lights Make Main Street Safer for Pedestrians   By Ruth Melville   Thanks in large part to the efforts of Norfolk resident Bob Gilchrest, the town of Falls Village has a newly redone town center, designed to be both safer and more attractive. The Falls Village project was instigated by safety concerns. […]

Photographing a Long and Winding Road

Route 22 North   By Lindsey Pizzica Rotolo Part-time Norfolk resident Rick Schatzberg was interested in photography as a collector for decades, but didn’t start taking photos himself until five years ago. He spends a lot of time on a bicycle, in Brooklyn, where he and his wife, Marilyn, also have a home, and in […]