The 19th Newtown Historical Society House and Garden Tour, featuring four unique homes and three hidden gardens in Newtown and Sandy Hook, will take place Sunday, June 28. Ticket holders will be welcome to visit the seven properties between 11 am and 5 pm, rain or shine.

Tickets are $25 if purchased in advance, and $30 the date of the tour for adults. Tickets for children ages 8-12 are $10 and $15, respectively. Addresses for the properties will be provided with ticket purchase.

Advance tickets can be purchased at Cyrenius H. Booth Library, 25 Main Street; The UPS Store in Waterfall Plaza, 261 South Main Street; and through Newtown Historical Society’s website, www.newtownhistory.org.

On the day of the tour tickets will only be available from 10 am until 2 pm in front of the Matthew Curtiss House, 44 Main Street.

This Year’s Homes

The properties on this year’s tour include The Scudder-Smith House at 17 Main Street. A 1904 shingle-style home, originally a two-family dwelling, the house was built by one of Newtown’s most prominent families.

The house, today owned by Cyndy and Eric DaSilva, features a fieldstone foundation and an expansive front porch with a bead board ceiling painted blue. The main floor of the house will be open for the tour, and features extensive restoration done in 2011 by the property’s previous owners. Among other special features, guides will note that all of the windows on the first floor, with the exception of those in the kitchen and mudroom, are the original windows, six panes over one.

At the opposite end of Main Street — or the head of the street, on the west side — the home owned by Ellen and George Whalen was built by Charles B. Glover in 1897. The house, a beautiful example of high-style Italianate architecture, is one of five homes built in that style by Glover in Newtown.

This property was once a small active farm, primarily dairy. The house has nine-foot-high ceilings and crown molding throughout the main level. The windows, with their original glass and sashes, are four-over-four or six-over-six; and the floors are the original pine boards.

Complimenting the antique features of the home, ticket-holders on Saturday will also enjoy passing through the kitchen out to a 32- by 15-foot back deck, an addition made by the Whalens about a decade ago.

House & Garden

On Underhill Road, the home of Jane and Don Sharpe is a beautifully appointed lakeside Ward Cedar Log home seated on 200 feet of waterfront property in a cove on Lake Zoar. The contemporary house was designed by Mrs Sharpe and built in 1990.

Colorful terraced gardens lead down to the waterside. Still in evidence are cobblestone walls and steps installed in the 1930s using stones torn up from New York City streets.  The house has a large floating dock, for swimming and to moor boats, while an octagonal log gazebo holds swim and gardening equipment.

Mrs Sharpe, an avid gardener, also designed the garden. She had two things in mind with her design: low maintenance and three-season color. Visitors will see a color scheme with primary colors for flowers, while the background offers flora of chartreuse and dark green with purple accents. 

Also offering their home and garden to visitors are Betsy and David Kerr, whose house is a 1930s cape that has been expanded sides, most recently with a large attached “barn”/in-law apartment. Visitors to the Old Bethel Road location should note that all the renovations, interior and exterior painting, and decorating have been done by the homeowners themselves. 

Numerous gardens, all meticulously tended, surround the home. One on side is a small garden tucked into one corner, while a climbing hydrangea fills another corner. Another garden borders the fence at the roadside, where the yellow-orange flowers of Hemerocallis day lilies mix with Asiatic lilies and phlox. Russian sage, Knock-Out roses, succulent sedum, and peonies are some of the other plants that also call this location home.

Gardens

All three of the owner-designed hidden gardens on this year’s tour are located within Sandy Hook.

On Longview Road, guests will be invited to visit the gardens created by Chris Lincoln. From natural stone walkways leading to a waterfall to inspirational sayings incorporated into natural elements, the stonework and artwork are all Ms Lincoln’s handicraft.

The highlight of property tour is a 30-foot waterfall at the back of the house. Recirculated water bubbles from a stone water tower, coursing down the long sluice lined with rocks, and ending at a small pool where a water pump sends it back to repeat the flow.

Nearby, the Toddy Hill Road property of Judy and David Beers welcomes visitors with natural plans growing in the woods to either side of the driveway. Encouraging and caring for the native plants is an important part of gardening for the Beerses.

A pair of “walk around” gardens will encourage visits, showing off arching fronds of bleeding heart, Andromeda bushes, and anemones in one location, and greenery including a huge spirea, a Wine and Rose weigela and a Knock-Our rose bush beckons from the other.  Hydrangea (both oak leaf and lace cap varieties), Joe Pye weed, pine Regosa rose bushes, phlox, red bee balm, ornamental grasses and delicate sweet peas all call this property home, among countless other plantings.

Also nearby, a shaded woodlands garden is in one section of the Little Brook Lane property Ed and Arline Shanley call home. The garden features a mulched pathway, with birdhouses placed along the way while walking toward the road’s namesake, which borders the property. A plot of May Apple, with glossy, deeply cut leaves borders the path to the right. Native ferns and skunk cabbage are plentiful in this peaceful garden.

Stone steps that lead through an arbor covered in clematis and honeysuckle vines, pots of annuals that add color to gardens, and an arbor built from two gates recovered from a church on Long Island are just a few of the additional enjoyments ticket-holders will enjoy on this year’s tour.

Guides will welcome guests to each property, and they will have detailed descriptions of each location.

The house and garden tour is an annual event presented by Newtown Historical Society, which benefits from the proceeds of ticket sales.

In conjunction with the tour, The Inn at Newtown, at 19 Main Street, will offer a 10 percent discount for lunch to ticket holders on the day of the tour.