• 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

Agricultural Fair a Success

By Sally Quale Norfolk’s first Agricultural Fair, which took place on August 24 at the weekly farmer’s market on Maple Avenue, was “a huge success and will be repeated next year on Saturday, August 14, 2014,” reports market manager Lisa Auclair. It ran an hour longer than the usual market – 4 rather than 3 […]

Plans For New Firehouse Go To Finance Board

Town Would Borrow Money Through a Bond Issue/ By Wiley Wood Plans for a new firehouse were presented to the Board of Finance on August 13. The design, which incorporates and expands the existing building on Shepard Rd., was described by architect Michael Fortuna as “pretty bare bones.” Total costs are budgeted at $2.7 million. […]

Record Number Of Norfolk Homes On Market

Local Realtors Guardedly Optimistic By Sally Quale Reports show that 56 single-family residences in Norfolk are currently on the market, over 6 percent of its housing stock. “It’s by far the largest number of single-family houses for sale that I’ve known in my twenty-two years in Norfolk,” reports Betsy Little of Betsy Little Real Estate. […]

Norfolk’s Pension Fund $1 Million In Debt

By Wiley Wood At a gathering of the Coalition for Sound Growth on August 25 Michael Sconyers, chairman of Norfolk’s board of finance, reported that the town’s pension fund is $1 million in debt. “We had been underfunding the pension plan,” said Sconyers, “and then the market went down and didn’t rebound enough. This is […]

Heavy Rainfall Breaks Beaver Dam

A Road Is Damaged And A Pond Ecosystem Lost: by John Anderson Early on the stormy night of August 10th a catastrophic event occurred: after nearly six inches of rainfall, a beaver dam impounding 20 acres of water in Aton Forest broke. One person living nearby heard what she thought was a falling tree during […]

Norfolk Land Trust Completes Purchase of Camp Iwakta Property

Public Trails Planned For Newly Renamed “Pine Mountain” Parcel The Norfolk Land Trust (NLT) has finalized the purchase of a 311-acre parcel of forestland from the Girl Scouts of Connecticut. The property, located off Grantville and Winchester roads, has long been considered a preservation priority by federal and state officials because of its headwater stream […]

Connecticut Public Radio Host to Moderate Norfolk 2023!

By Rosanna Trestman John Dankosky, host of the NPR morning radio show Where We Live, happens to live just next door in Winsted. From 9 to 10 a.m. each weekday morning he takes his listeners through the ins and outs of Connecticut’s communities, ranging from New Haven to Norfolk and beyond. Dankosky will bring this […]

Lions Club Honors Barbara Tracey

Barbara Tracey recently stepped down as the long-time treasurer of the Norfolk Lions Club. For her many years of service safeguarding the club’s financial health and for her exemplary help with countless other projects, Tracey was presented the Melvin Jones Fellowship Award, a nation-wide award named after the founder of Lions Club International, and one […]

Community Talent Provides After-School Program for Botelle Students

By Janet Gokay Life in Norfolk is greatly enriched by the work of volunteers—and the Norfolk After School Program (NASP) is no exception. Coordinated by two parent volunteers, Kim Crone and Kathy Yelsits, the program offers a potpourri of classes to any grade-school-aged child in Norfolk, not just those attending Botelle. Many of those classes […]

Norfolk Fire Department Awards Memorial Day Race Scholarships

The traditional kick-off to Norfolk’s summer season, the five-mile Memorial Day Road Race is won by the fleet of foot. But the Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department, which organizes the race, also dedicates all proceeds from entrance fees, advertising and donations to its NVFD Scholarship Fund. This year, the fund distributed $3,500 to five Norfolk students. […]

Norfolk Lions Club Scholarships Announced

The Norfolk Lions Club recently awarded scholarships to four Norfolk students who will be attending college this fall. The recipients include: Taylor Allyn, daughter of John and Lisa Allyn, enrolled at New College of Sarasota, Florida with a major in English; Shannon Bollard, daughter of Alfred and Angela Bollard and also an English major, attending […]

Fiber Optics Would Improve Cell Phone Service in Norfolk

EDC welcomes call for strong community involvement By Kurt Steele Following Kim Maxwell’s May briefing of the Economic Development Commission (EDC) about the benefits of installing a fiber optic network in Norfolk, Maxwell now believes that a significant dividend would be a vast improvement in the town’s cell phone coverage. Maxwell, who has a distinguished […]