Victorian Tea - From Downton Abbey to Camelot

The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum will host its annual Victorian Tea on Sunday, Nov. 6 at 2 p.m. This event will feature a talk by textiles, fashion merchandising, and design expert Susan J. Jerome titled, From Downton Abbey to Camelot, at 295 West Avenue, Norwalk, CT.

Susan J. Jerome is Collections Manager at the University of Rhode Island Historic Textile and Costume Collection. Her talk will explore how the highly popular television show, Downton Abbey, illustrates the clothing worn by the aristocracy during the first years of the 20^th century, while Jacqueline Kennedy reigned over a modern American gentry in a parallel Camelot, inspiring designers even as social forces re-defined fashion’s inspirations. The Mansion’s Victorian Tea will feature a traditional English tea menu by Susan Kane Catering and a hat contest with prizes.

This fascinating talk on clothing fit for royalty, surrounded by the timeless splendor of this iconic National Historic Landmark, is a perfect pairing to a quintessential English tea and an afternoon not to be missed and sure to brighten an afternoon in November. 

Tickets for the Tea are $35 for members and $45 for non-members. Proceeds will support the Museum’s artistic, cultural and educational programs. For Victorian Tea reservations please contact: info@lockwoodmathewsmansion.com, 203-838-9799.

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9th Annual Washington Green Cemetery Tour

Led by tour guides dressed in Vintage attire, visitors to this year's Washington Green Cemetery Tour held on October 28 from 6:15 to 8:30 p.m. in Washington will be thrilled with tales and unforgettable characters. The theme of this year's tour, with all new characters, is "Uncommon Tales from Common Folk". 

Groups of visitors will meet at the Museum located on 5 Wykham Road and be led by Tour Guides dressed in vintage attire along a path of luminaries through the Cemetery to meet some of Washington's unforgettable residents from the past. Unique, memorable and familiar citizens from the last century will be brought to life by costumed actors who will tell stories of their life; some amusing, some sad, some tragic — even horrific!

Cemetery Tour attendees should come to the Gunn Historical Museum and form a line to get numbered tickets for the tours, handed out on a first-come first-serve basis, starting at 6:15 p.m. on Oct. 28, and continuing through the evening until the tickets run out. Tours of the Cemetery depart from the Gunn Museum in groups of fifteen people every eight minutes between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. and last approximately one hour. While there is no fee to attend the Cemetery Tour, but, donations are greatly appreciated.

A Halloween themed movie will be shown in the Wykeham Room of the Gunn Library where attendees can wait inside for their tour group to depart. Visitors are urged to bring a flashlight, dress warmly, and wear comfortable walking shoes. 

The Gunn Museum is located at 5 Wykeham Road, at the intersection of Wykeham Road and Route 47, in Washington, Connecticut. Parking at the Gunn is limited, please carpool and use nearby lots and side streets.

The rain date for the Cemetery Tour is Sunday October 30 from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

The 2nd Annual Cemetery Tour November 1st @ New Canaan Historical Soceity

Halloween continues for an extra day with our second Cemetery Tour on November 1st.  Patricia Funt Oxman, antique dealer and Historical Society volunteer, is joined by Patricia Brooks, author of Where the Bodies Are, to conduct the tour.

The group will tour a classic country graveyard in North Stamford to visit the final resting place of a number of famous and noteworthy people, including Gilda Radner and Benny Goodman.  Some stories of their interesting lives will be told by Mrs. Oxman. 

Upon returning to The New Canaan Historical Society, enjoy a snack of cider and donuts, while listening to a brief talk by author Mrs. Brooks on the three books she has written about this fascinating subject.

Those going on the tour are asked to meet at the Historical Society at
12:45 pm.  The tour van will be leaving promptly at 1:00 pm.  The cost is $20 per person, and space is limited. To sign up for the tour, please call (203) 966-1776 or email newcanaan.historical@gmail.com.   

Whoooo Lives in the Enchanted Forest?

Attend a hoot of a Halloween happening at The Connecticut Audubon Society’s Enchanted Forest located on 2325 Burr Street in Fairfield on Friday, October 28 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.  This is an alternative, nature-themed Halloween celebration, the Enchanted Forest also introduces fascinating, entertaining and educational information about nocturnal animals in their natural habitat.

Children are encouraged to wear costumes for this unique and fun – but not scary – event. Experience the Larsen Sanctuary at night while being escorted along the luminary trail by volunteers who light the way with flashlights. The festivities also feature fall-themed craft making, Halloween snacks and a chance to meet some of the Center’s creepy, crawly critters. The Enchanted Forest is held rain or ‘moon’ shine.  

Guided walks leave every fifteen minutes beginning at 5:30 p.m.; the last walk leaves at 7:30 p.m. Pre-registration and pre-payment are required. Ticket prices are: CAS members--$10/child, $2/adult; non-members--$15/child, $2/adult. To purchase your tickets on-line, visit: www.ctaudubon.org/center-at-fairfield, or call 203-259-6305 ext. 109. Sign-up early to reserve your walk time of choice.

 Visit The Connecticut Audubon Society’s website at www.ctaudubon.org for a complete list of their fall programs and special events.

Monroe Halloween Fall Foliage Creepy Cemetery Tour and Hike for Families

A fall foliage walk over a short segment of the Paugussett Trail has been combined with a  peek back at the historical intrigue of Monroe’s East Village, creating a family-oriented outing Oct. 29, the Saturday morning before Halloween. Participants will meet at 8:45 a.m. for this fascinating tour that lasts from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., reservations for this free event are required and can be made at  www.monroerec.org.

 

Everything starts and finishes at the Meeting House (at the intersection of East Village Road and Barn Hill Road) where parking is available. All are asked to assemble there by 8:45 a.m. for an excursion that unfolds on foot and also by bus, focusing on the East Village with its sites steeped in the life—and interment-- of the Monroe of the 1800s and earlier.

 

 The Meeting House itself is an historic treasure, established as a Methodist Church in 1811 and today a repository for antiquities and heirlooms—everything from World War I uniforms to indian arrowheads-- assembled by the history society in one of its three buildings preserving  Monroe’s legacy of years past.   

 

 Next a bus carries the hikers to the Paugussett trailhead on East Village Road for a hike over a short stretch of the trail—hopefully ablaze with fall colors—led by David Solek, Monroe’s park ranger and tree warden.  Leaving the wooded area, the route takes you across Barn Hill Road to the stone ruins and wheel pit of the hoopskirt and corset factory that Foster Cargill operated in the mid-1800s for an informed commentary by cyberspace archeologist Kevin Daly.

Across the street are the contemporary versions of homes of Cargill and William Tucker,  the neighbor he was acquitted of murdering with a knife  in 1845 when  long-simmering animosity between the two was supposedly ignited by a slight to Cargill’s wife.

Both men are interred only feet apart and a short bus ride away in the East Village Cemetery (est. 1766) where tombstones mark the graves of Henry Plumb, the farmer-entrepreneur who converted Monroe’s indian caves into a tourist attraction in the 1890s, and his daughter Mary, reputedly so obese that P.T. Barnum wanted to recruit her as the fat lady in his circus. Here Vic Casaretti, the president of the historical society, and docent Nancy Zorena provide commentary.

  The tour then returns by bus to the Meeting House for apple cider and informal conversation intended to generate interest in Monroe’s past and allow participants to share their family heritage and experiences with life in the community as it once was, their own brushes with history.    

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Conversations @ The Glass House in New Canaan

Glass House located on 199 Elm Street in New Canaan is presenting an ongoing series of public programs — including conversations, performances, and gatherings — that sustain the site’s historic role as a meeting place for artists, architects, and other creative minds. On Thursday, October 27 from 6 pm to 8 pm, Toshiko Mori and Nicholas Fox Weber for a conversation about the legacy and impact of Anni and Josef Albers, as well as Mori’s engagement with New Canaan modernism.

Josef Albers, Variant / Adobe, 1956. Oil on masonite. 15 7/8 x 30 3/8 in. (40.3 x 77.2 cm) © 2016 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society, New York

Toshiko Mori is the Robert P. Hubbard Professor in the Practice of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and the principal of Toshiko Mori Architect, PLLC. Her firm’s recent work includes the Cambridge Headquarters for the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research; Master Plans for the Brooklyn Public Library and Buffalo Botanical Gardens; Thread, a Cultural Center and Artists’Residences, in rural Senegal; and new canopies for the #7 Subway line for the Hudson Park and Boulevard in New York City.

Nicholas Fox Weber is a cultural historian and Executive Director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. He has written extensively about both Josef and Anni Albers and curated many major exhibitions and retrospectives dedicated to their work. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Yale University and author of fourteen books including Patron Saints, The Art of Babar, The Drawings of Josef Albers, The Clarks of Cooperstown, Balthus, Le Corbusier: A Life, and The Bauhaus Group.

Tickets are $50 per person and are available online at http://theglasshouse.org/whats-on/toshiko-mori-nicholas-fox-weber.

Instituto Ling. Photo by Fernando Finotti.

On November 22 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Isay Weinfeld— one of Brazil’s most renowned architects — will discuss his work and current projects, at the Glass House  including the new Four Seasons restaurant in New York, with Pulitzer Prize-winning criticPaul Goldberger.

Isay Weinfeld is the head architect of a studio in São Paulo that bears his name. Amongst countless projects developed over a career that spans nearly 40 years, highlights include the hotels designed for Grupo Fasano in São Paulo, Punta del Este and Porto Feliz; the Livraria da Vila bookstores in São Paulo; the Square Nine Hotel in Belgrade; the feature film Fogo e Paixão; and a line of office furniture designed for Geiger/Herman Miller. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Prêmio Rino Levi awarded by Instituto de Arquitetos do Brasil/SP (for Casa Inglaterra, in 2000), Prêmio da VI Bienal Internacional de Arquitetura de São Paulo (for Praça da Amauri, in 2005) and MIPIM AR Future Project Awards, organized by British magazine Architectural Review (for Edifício 360º, in 2009, and for Edifício Oka, in 2012).

Paul Goldberger, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, spent fifteen years as the architecture critic forThe New Yorker and began his career at the New York Times, where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism for his writing on architecture. Goldberger is the author of many books, most recently Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, Why Architecture Matters,Building Up and Tearing Down: Reflections on the Age of Architecture, and Up From Zero. He is also the chairman of the Advisory Council of the Glass House and the Joseph Urban Professor of Design and Architecture at the New School.

Tickets are $50 and available online at http://theglasshouse.org/whats-on/isay-weinfeld-paul-goldberger

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A Thanksgiving Cooking Class @ The Silo

Fall and the harvest are a deep part of the cultural heritage of New England -- it is the time of year when the leaves turn while the flowers are still in bloom, the skies are a rich blue and there is a hint of frost in the air. Thanksgiving originated as a harvest festival in New England and has been celebrated since 1789 all across America. It is a time when families and friends come together to give thanks for all that they have and to celebrate life.

Cooking and entertaining is part of any celebration and the Silo at Hunt Hill Farm located on 44 Upland Road in New Milford is making cooking and planning for Thanksgiving easy by offering a "Classic Thanksgiving" cooking class on November 5 from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. with Chef Daniel Rosati. The cost is $110 for full participation and can be reserved online.

Participants will learn how to cook a mouth watering menu that is sure to make your guests beg for more with recipes  so good that they will become part of your Thanksgiving holiday tradition!  The menu includes: Parmesan Herb Quick Bread, Autumn Corn Chowder, Butterflied Herb Grilled Turkey with Pomegranate Molasses Glaze, Brioche Sausage Sage Stuffing, Sweet Potato Gratin with Caramelized Shallots and Aged Gouda, Green Beans with Hazelnut Brown Butter, and Warm Miniature Pumpkin Cheesecakes to finish off the feast.

As a follow up to this class, don't miss the gingerbread classes that are being planned for kids and for adults in December! For more information www.litchfieldhills.com

Ghostly Sightings and Macabre Tales @ Lockwood Mathews Mansion

The Lockwood Mathews Mansion in Norwalk has organized two weekends of spooktacular fun on October 2- 23 and 28- 30 at 4 p.m., 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.  

A special Halloween tour, "Ghostly Sightings & Macabre Tales of the Victorian Era" will focus on the history of the house and the chilling customs and mourning traditions of the Victorian era.

Visitors may run into the Mansion’s ghosts, who are haunted by the darker memories that are part of the rarely spoken history of the Lockwood and Mathews families. These ghosts will wander throughout the first and second floors of the Mansion, but only during this very special and spooky Halloween tour.

Children under 16 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Tours are $20 per person; advance payment and reservation are required. The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum is a National Historic Landmark. For more information on schedules and programs please visit www.lockwoodmathewsmansion.com, e-mail info@lockwoodmathewsmansion.com, or call 203-838-9799.

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