USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 45
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The especial charm of the house is the feel- ing that it gives of having been built originally for a practical purpose-not only to shelter the owner and his family but to support them, and changes seem to have been made from the point of view of utility. As a family increased, rooms were added; if light was needed, a new dormer was built. Nothing so real can be born overnight on an architect's drawing board.
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There are a number of interesting and un- usual features about the house, one being the living room which was made from four of the small original rooms, and is L-shaped with a large pillar in the middle. Each leg of the L is wide and has a fireplace, one with a Dutch oven. The Valentines have added a large small- paned window at the rear of the room, through which can be seen the long sloping meadow, the orchard valued now more for the blossoms than the fruit, and towering gracefully over the Silver Minc River in the distance an elm said to be 175 years old.
Another unique touch is that the house has two main staircases. One skirts a side wall of the living room and is the one in more con- stant use. The other, the original central stair- case, formerly opened in a small hall at the front of the house. Some owner must have wished that the stairs ran the other way, and, living in an age of common sense, made a virtue of necessity and turned them around. Now the huge central chimney is completely surrounded by a narrow hall from which all
the bedrooms open, like an island in the middle of a lake. The original small upstairs hall where the staircase used to end overlooks it, but over a balustrade. These stairs are stcep and wind- ing, with high risers and narrow treads.
Across the street and a few rods farther from the village is a small graveyard, in which there are 17 graves, mostly Hickoks. As was custo- mary in those rugged early days, the women therc seem to outnumber the men, although the stones are worn from weathering and the inscriptions are hard to decipher. It has not been disturbed for many years, nor cared for; still it is a pleasant and restful spot, with long grass softening the outlines of the graves, tall pines shadowing the enclosure and the sur- rounding stone wall. But if you look closely you will see that here, too, utility played its part, and Puritan thrift. In some places the stone wall has crumbled away, but no stone mason was called in to repair it with new stones. The family patched it up themselves with some of the older tombstones.
HOUSE OF MARCEL BREUER
CONSTANCE BREUER, Author [March 30, 1950]
In the Historical Society's Annual, Vol. 2, No. 2, of June, 1948, in an article by Isabel C. Cutler, we find the land, of which our property is a small part, described as follows: "Norwalk Properties, Fourth District-Joseph Platt's 170 acres bounded east and south by Haynes, west by Perambulation Line and the highway (Weed Street) on the north; by John Betts' land north of West Road.
"Joseph Platt did not live on what became known at Platt's Farm, nor did his descendants inherit it, for we know that at an early date
David Waterbury had acquired 120 acres of this farm which was bought from him in 1742 ·by James Hait. Therefore this land recorded in various deeds as 120 or 124 acres, changed hands frequently. Through several purely speculative purchases it passed from James Hait in 1757 to Captain John Alexander of New York and was repurchased by Hait four years later.
"In 1764 or 1765 he sold it again to Captain Jonathan Husted, who was living on the edge of this property at that date, too, but most of it
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House of Marcel Breuer
was preserved as a unit and was bought and built on later by the Child family in 1893. (Lewis and Mary Chichester once owned this farm bought by Lewis and Mary Child). It is now owned in part by Milligans, Moores, Hal- steads, Beningtons and others."
My neighbor, Mrs. Halstead, has told me that the Child Estate was developed in a very interesting way. Extensive drainage was put in. The hay barn is now the remodeled house of the Sheehans. Apparently there were bull and sheep pens, all equipment for farming on a large and profitable scale. Our original in- terest in the land, however, was not in its his- tory, but in its geography. As far as our own two odd acres goes, there is not much more to say about them that I can discover.
After one winter with our four and a half year old son in New York it was not difficult to conclude that what we desired most pro- foundly was space-all kinds of space, both indoors and out. Ideally, this space should be close to New York, within reach of good public schools, and overrun by other children. The
result of this unanimous decision was a vigor- ous search for land, ending inevitably in New Canaan.
The land we found is open meadow, with a hill at the back, and a strip of woods at one side. There is a grotesque old sycamore tree, which perhaps won us to this particular site, and which we look out upon from almost every window. As far as we know this piece has never been built on before, but was once part of "Platt's Farm," and later belonged to the Child Estate.
Next my husband settled down to the dis- cipline of designing a house which, while maintaining a tender regard for costs, would allow us a generous feeling of plenty of room. The long shape separates the two major kinds of activities as much as possible, allowing priv- acy for both: sleeping and private study or work at one end, living room and dining room at the other. He took advantage of the hill at the back of our site by building the founda- tion walls against it, thereby securing a first floor substantially above ground on three sides.
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The Architectural Record put it: "What Breuer has done in effect is to build a small basement story above ground and then balance a full size one story house neatly atop it, can- tilevered on all sides, with really long canti- levers at the ends." The top level of the house is 74 feet by 20 feet, and overhangs its base 10 feet at each end, which gives a maximum space on minimum foundations.
At ground level we have a large workshop, playroom, small bedroom, cold storage room, heating-drying room, big closet and bath. The top level has two good size bedrooms, roomy enough to be used as private studies, (in fact the larger contains a piano), a living room, din- ing room, kitchen and utility room and bath.
The architect, my husband, planned the house flexible enough to conform easily to our changing demands of it (small child, obviously bigger later on, studio possibilities, frequent guests and not just one or two), and at the same time to be as simple as possible to main- tain.
One result of this way of thinking is the centrally located kitchen. This means I never have to go far to reach any part of my rather long house. Also I can see a large terrain from the kitchen window and more or less keep track of my child. Having the utility-laundry room next to the kitchen rather than downstairs means that I or whoever is helping can accom- plish much more than if we had to run down to attend the automatic washer.
Our kitchen shelving is quite simple: we saved by having natural unpainted walls. Near- ly everything is open, without doors: there is not much dust here in the country. The copper pots and pans hang cheerfully and quickly reached on the wall above the stove.
On the other hand I have excellent equip- ment, dishwasher, electric mixer, garbage dis- posal, etc. It is I think, a happy place to work, using to my advantage the simplicity of the old provincial kitchen and the time saving ideas of modern up-to-date equipment. The form is new-neither a quaint imitation of old country kitchens nor a modernistic, stream- lined concoction.
Another point of ease: our dining room is separated from the kitchen by a wall contain- ing sliding doors, which reveal two-way shel- ving and a wide counter at dining table height. Our table is placed against this wall at right angles, so we can easily pass through dishes between courses and shut them off.from sight. The shelves above have all the china, glasses and silver we use for dining within comfortable reach. When one or more of the three panels is open, the hostess who produces her own dinner may be at least conversationally con- nected with her guests in the other room.
Having the children's playroom downstairs with its own entrance mercifully spares the upper floor of a great deal of mud-tracking and noise. In practice this makes even more difference than we had hoped. The playroom floor is subject to all kinds of abuse, including rusty truck wheels, roller skate wheels, objects being scraped along, objects being heavily dragged along, indiscriminate pounding, melt- ing snow pools, paint spilling, pogo stick leap- ing, rope jumping.
An economy which was at the same time an aesthetic improvement was to put all closets serving the two upstairs bedrooms along the corridor outside their doors. This means that both rooms have far more wall space free than otherwise. Consequently they are more easily furnished for purposes other than sleeping and dressing alone. Their use is not limited only to eight hours a day.
To return to the other end of the house, as you enter you look over a low partition, through the dining room window, out to the sycamore. The living room and dining room are separted by the free-standing fireplace only; this gives the feeling of one, uninterrup- ted space.
The ceiling is natural cypress, most walls are white, with various smaller surfaces in clear blue, Chinese red, lemon yellow and shades of grey. These clear colors and the natural wood surfaces emphasize the elements of our indoor space.
Opening from the living room is a suspended porch which swings out over the landscape.
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We enjoy eating there from spring through fall. Running along above our window and porch is a louvered sunshade, which protects the indoors from the summer sun.
We have left the land practically the same meadow it always was. We have restricted our efforts to maintaining the good trees, and planting a few ones. In the fall we enjoy very
much the fruit trees which were planted by Miss Child's mother, and eat quantities of apples and applesauce. It is a perfect place for children: with the variety of open meadow, hill and woods, fine for skiing, sledding, or the endless conflict with the Indians, which still seems to hover over this land as we watch our sons at play.
THE HANFORD-SEELYE- FAUNTLEROY-PORTER HOUSE
ANNE ROE ROBBINS, Author
LOUIS H. PORTER, Artist
[ April 6, 1950]
The brown shingled, side hill house with the trumpet vine climbing to the roof, on South Main Street nearly opposite the entrance to the cemetery, is one of New Canaan's landmarks in origin, although it has been considerably rebuilt and enlarged in recent times. Outside there is a sign reading "Ebenezer Hanford- 1794."
The Hanford family was founded in this country by Thomas Hanford in 1643 and seven generations later totaled some 2,000 descen- dants, most of whom ignored the needs of subsequent historians and failed to keep de- tailed personal records. However, it is prac- tically certain that Ebenezer Hanford built this house with his own hands and lived in it for many years.
Ebenezer Hanford was born in 1757. His father Theophilus owned considerable land in the region known as White Oak Shade. Ebe- nezer, according to legend, wanted to build a house for himself, and had started hewing his beams, when the Revolutionary War needed his services-so he stuck his ax in a log and off he went.
On his return the ax was just where he had left it, so he continued his interrupted labors. He was married in 1780, and in 1794 paid his father sixty pounds fifteen shillings for two pieces of land along "the highway" (now South Main Street)-one of ten acres without dwel- ling on the east side and the other on the west side with 5 acres, a house and fruit trees. So it is logical to assume he had built his house on his father's land, and was now an estab- lished farmer able to purchase his property and sufficiently provident to plant fruit trees for his growing family.
The family started seven months after the marriage, and in twenty years his wife Lu- cretia bore him eight children. All of them survived infancy, which was rare in those days. Ebenezer was a prominent leader of the com- munity at the time New Canaan was divided into eight school districts. When he died and his estate was divided a younger son, George, inherited the family house-a house identified as one Ebenezer had built on land he owned. This also seems logical since the older brothers had left this part of the country.
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George died in 1838, a few years after his father, when he was only forty. He left his estate, inventoried at $3,607.90, to his wife Evaline. She remarried within six years and her second husband was Stephen Seelye. They both lived to a very advanced age.
After the Seelyes died, the property was sold in 1890 to Francis Brown and Benjamin P. Mead. It then consisted of twenty-four acres. Ebenezer Hanford's original acreage had been extended in 1844 when Mrs. Seelye bought ad- ditional land from Holly Hanford.
The record of this purchase also includes ". .. for $200.38 for her sole and separate use as her separate estate independent of the con- trols of her husband the following articles of personal property, viz: 1 wood bowl and tray 30c, 1 gridiron 25c, 1 frying pan 25c, 2 iron pots $1.00, 1 feather bed and case $10.00, 13 bed quilts $18.00, 8 pairs linen sheets 10.00, 8 pairs linen pillow cases $2.00, 1 pewter plat- ter $2.00, 1 kitchen table 20c."
When Stephen Seelye died, the New Canaan Messenger of February 1, 1890, said: “Stephen Seelye was buried on Wednesday last, with Masonic honors. He was nearly 85 years old. There are a number of hale old men in this region yet.'
Apparently New Canaan, or at any rate the White Oak Shade section, was noted for the longevity and virility of its male population. The Messenger, during the same year, carried the story of a New York visitor who wrote to his wife urging her to join him. "This is a splen- did place: the men live to a good old age, and every man seems to have his third or fourth wife." She replied: "Dear husband, I guess not."
In 1898, after most of the 24 acres of land had been sold, Benjamin P. Mead bought out the remaining half interest of Francis Brown. The property changed hands twice during the next few years, subject to a mortgage held by Benjamin P. Mead, to whom the house with about one acre of land was deeded back in 1904.
After Benjamin P. Mead died, his estate was distributed in 1915. His widow, Benjamin H.
Mead, Harold H. Mead, Stanley P. Mead and Florence L. Mead each inherited a one-fifth interest in a number of tracts of real estate, including this one.
During this period the house was only oc- casionally rented. Mr. Woods of Woods' Ga- rage lived there when he was a boy, and the house was then unmodernized and without plumbing. It became very dilapidated. In 1921, an adventurous lady, Mrs. Fauntleroy Hoyt, bought the property from the Mead family.
She told me that there was little standing upright except the chimney, and that the roof had fallen in. She said many people considered her crazy to buy the house, and that women who tried to renovate old houses were treated with considerable animosity. She raised and rebuilt the roof, thereby adding the third floor, and doubled the size of the rear second floor bedroom. She also built an addition, part of which was used as a garage, and she believes she was one of the first people in the early 20's to put a garage under the house roof.
Her kitchen was on the second floor until the complaints of salesmen convinced her that a first floor kitchen was wiser. Ebenezer Han- ford's original rafters were built into the living room ceiling. His original hearthstone, which was pulverized by generations of woodchop- ping, she replaced, using oxen to pull in the new hearthstone which stands there now. The entrance, which had faced South Main Street, she changed to look out over the lawn towards Harrison Street. Ebenezer's well, in front of the new entrance, was covered with a well house.
Seven years later, in 1928, Evan C. Dresser, a New York banker, bought the house for a summer home.
In 1943 the house was bought by its present owner, an artist, Louis H. Porter, Jr. He tore down the old out-house, which was still exist- ing, and also the new well house. He covered the well with a flagstone instead to allow an uninterrupted view from the front of the house.
A small stream runs along this side of the street, and Mr. Porter obtained permission to
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The Hanford-Seelye-Fauntleroy-Porter House
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pipe it onto his land to make a small pond.
Inside the house, Mr. Porter has made sev- eral changes. The living room was originally L-shaped, and he has partitioned off the back part for a dining room. The front bedroom, with Ebenezer Hanford's corner posts show- ing, now has modern furniture and a Picasso drawing over an old mantel-piece.
The room above the garage, used by Mr. Porter as a studio, was not large enough for his needs, so one windy March day he knocked one wall out with a sledge hammer and pro-
ceeded to make the studio twice as large, do- ing all the work himself.
Although so much of the house has been re- built, it still has a definitely "old" atmosphere: the two levels on the first floor, the fireplaces in both the large second floor bedrooms, the winding stairway circling the original chimney, and above all the rafters and the huge fireplace in the living room with its built-in oven give a feeling of the eighteenth-century-while Mr. Porter's interesting modern paintings spring straight from the 20th century.
HAYS-DE FOREST-MURPHY HOUSE
MARGERY B. VALENTINE, Author
LORENA NAYLOR, Artist
[April 13, 1950]
On the west side of the North Wilton Road, a little north of the junction of this highway and Valley Road, stands the present Murphy House. Some years ago, in 1906, when Mr. Farmer Murphy was seeking a permanent foothold in the country, this house must have presented then-as it does now-a promise of stability and repose. Especially did it appeal to Mr. Murphy whose journalistic activities were often to lead him far afield.
The house's proximity to the road assured accessibilty and neighborliness, and the sense of warm friendliness was further emphasized by its appearance. The handmade shingles were weathered to a soft gray and the sturdy chimney rose from the center in traditional style, giving evidence of numerous fireplaces within. A small porch offered protection to the substantial front door, and the windows were the usual type of the period, with nine panes above and six below.
The property consisted of 76 acres, 54 sur- rounding the house and barn, and 22 across the road to the west. Mr. Murphy bought the
house, while his friend Dr. LeFetra took the acreage on the other side of the road, building what eventually became the present Donald Crane house.
The earliest record of the land seems to in- dicate that it belonged to John Benedict, ac- quired by him in 1759, either through division of the common land or by purchase, which is not known. Subsequently it passed into the possession of John Hays, for in 1800 we find him and his wife living there.
A James Hays also owned property in this vicinity, for in 1762 he is recorded on certain old maps as owning 61 acres. His property did not include the picce occupied later by John Hays, but he was undoubtedly of the same family. The Hays traced their ancestry back to Nathaniel Hays, one of the original Norwalk settlers of 1651, and there were numerous des- cendants. John, the reputed builder and first occupant of the present Murphy house, and his wife, Mary, were members of the Congre- gational Church in 1798, and in 1800 when the census was taken for the newly formed Fifth
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HA
ME.MURPHY
Lorena naylor '50
The Hays-DeForest-Murphy House
School District, they were described as living in this particular house.
Mary and John had no children, and in John's will, dated 1816, he leaves "to my wife Mary, my landed interests for use during her lifetime and ... unto John Hays, son of James Hays, now living with me, the remainder of my estate ... and at the decease of my wife Mary, all my lands and buildings."
In the rather frustrating manner of the period, no boundary of the property is given- reference being made only to "my landed in- terests." The distribution of the estate, how- ever, describes the homestead land as about 20 acres, another piece, 12 acres, and an old barn and house.
At Mary's death in 1821 the house became the possession of John Hays, 2nd, and his wife Charlotte. No mention is found of their having had children, and when they sold the house in
about 1827, they faded out of the New Canaan picture, leaving the memory of their associa- tion here and very tangible evidence of their tenure in the house.
The impress of their personalities and lives must have been strong, for in 1908 we still find reference to them in a letter written at that time to the New Canaan Messenger by P. S. Bartow, wherein while describing a walk up North Wilton Road he writes of ". . . house on the hill where John Hays and later Edward deForest lived, next David deForest, then old school house, house of William Fitch, then house and store of Eliud deForest, next Charles deForest, and now on the Wilton line."
Sixteen years were to elapse before the pro- perty came into the deForest family. During this time it belonged to Michael Lockwood, then to Carmi Lockwood-the Lockwood fam- ily were owners of considerable property in
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this region-but it appears to have once been occupied by the William H. Brownfamily. This we deduct as it is frequently referred to in the records as the Brown Place. In a quit claim from Carmi Lockwood and William H. Brown to Eliud and Edward deForest in 1843, it passes to the deForests-the homestead piece consisting of 24 acres. At Eliud's death in 1850 the property described as the Brown Place be- came the possession of Edward, Eliud's young- est son, together with other parcels of land.
While information about the Brown occu- pancy seems to be meager, such is not the case with the deForests. Much has already been written about that colorful clan, who, during the 1800s, dominated and became the largest landowners along both sides of the North Wil- ton Road-from the junction with Valley Road to the Wilton line. The road has since been designated as deForest Road in their honor.
The deForests were a Walloon family from the French portion of the Low Countries. The first American ancestor lived in Haarlem and was made a Great Burgher of New Amsterdam by Peter Stuyvesant in 1658. Their first foot- hold in this region is recorded in 1759-an eight acre homelot, house and barn having been sold to David deForest by Joseph and Eliza- beth Truesdal. David was Edward's grand- father.
To this house then, gift of his father, and steeped in the tradition of the Hays and Brown families, Edward brought his wife, Mary Ab- bott. Here they were in turn, to bring up their family, five children in all. Mary Abbott her- self had the blood of the countryside in her veins, for she was descended from an old and illustrious family of the region, her parents having been Jonathan, Jr., and Polly Olmstead Abbott. Their homestead stood on Upper Smith Ridge.
One of Mary's ancestors survived the Great Swamp Fight, and of him it is recorded: "also granted to Jonathan Abbott (in 1682) as he was a souldier, ten acres of land to be taken up where it lies free, not yet pitched upon any person." This was in line with the prevailing custom of awarding undivided common land
in Canaan to patriotic citizens of Stamford and Norwalk in recognition of their services.
When the Farmer Murphys came in 1906, Mary at the ripe age of 89, had just left the house to which she had come as a young ma- tron, still cooking with the old fashioned crane in the big dutch oven fireplace, declaring that food cooked in the new fangled wood stove never tasted as good! Her son, Charles Eliud, a widower, who had lived with her, had just taken her to live with another son in New Jer- sey, where she died five years later.
Mary's recollections of her early girlhood were quoted by her great-grandnephew, the Rev. Charles R. Abbott, in his St. Mark's Cen- tennial address in 1891, and included the then only personal memories extant of Indians liv- ing in this region. She remembered a few old ones attending church services and recalled they were always seated near the door, as they inevitably fell asleep and snored, and so could be the more easily removed.
The house on the exterior is much the same as when Mary lived there. The plain and simple lines are unaltered, and the changes in the interior contribute to its livability without detracting from the inherent charm which generations of living seem to bestow upon a house. Gone is the practical navy blue and dark brown woodwork found upon the Mur- phy's arrival, to be replaced with white, and the precipitous front stairs, too hazardous for small Murphy feet, have given way to a closet -a convenience all too scarce in the house.
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