Pleasance Ornament To Be Sold At The Parade

The Newtown Woman’s Club’s 14th annual pewter Christmas ornament, showing a view of The Pleasance, will be introduced and sold at the Labor Day Parade in front of the Booth Library. Proceeds from the sale of this ornament will be donated to local charitable and civic organizations.

Located at 1 Main Street, The Pleasance is the gateway to the Village of Newtown. According to Town Historian Daniel Cruson, this property was unusual in that during the town’s early history, the land remained open space. The first structure was finally built upon the property in 1924 when Louis Lovell moved his auto repair business from South Main Street to a new garage on the corner of Main Street and Sugar Street (Route 302). Mr Lovell not only repaired automobiles at this location, but he also was a dealer of Durant and Star autos, and later a General Motors dealer.

Louis Lovell and his associate, Harry Greenman, continued to do business at this location until 1988, when it was purchased by The Bee Publishing Company, publisher of The Newtown Bee and Antiques and The Arts Weekly.

It had been the intention of The Bee to build a new facility for the offices and presses of the newspaper, but the bids on the construction came in so high that the building plans were scrapped. A new facility for just the presses was built on Commerce Road, leaving the offices in their 1903 building on Church Hill Road.

Rather than see this prime piece of property at 1 Main Street developed, publisher R. Scudder Smith decided to tear down the old garage, which had become an eyesore, and build a garden. The centerpiece was to be a circa 1890 cast iron, three-tiered Fiske water fountain which he had acquired some years earlier. Around this fountain he arranged a circuit of gravel paths and plantings which included a variety of grasses, flowering shrubs, and border perennials. Mr Smith installed a gazebo with tables and chairs where visitors can sit and enjoy the sights, sounds, and scents of the garden, and a bocce court for the more athletic. During the Christmas holidays, The Pleasance is decorated with white lights, forming a companion display to the town Christmas tree that is lit on the southwest corner of the Ram Pasture on the first weekend in December.

The sale of the ornaments, $8 each, is the chief fundraiser of the Newtown Woman’s Club, GFWC. All proceeds are donated to area charities or organizations chosen by the club members. These have included such recipients as the Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Association, the Regional Hospice, the Newtown Woman’s Club Scholarship, FAITH Food Pantry, Newtown Meals on Wheels, the C.H. Booth Library, Newtown FISH, and others.

Lorraine VanderWende and Mary Antey are co-chairpersons of the ornament project.

Previous ornaments in the series also are still available and are $10 each. These include Newtown rooster weathervane, 1988; The Bee weathervane, 1989; the flagpole and the Meeting House, 1990; the General Store, 1991; the former Yankee Drover Inn, 1992; Edmond Town Hall, 1993; the Cyrenius H. Booth Library, 1994; the Ram Pasture, 1995; the Matthew Curtiss House, 1996; Hawley School, 1997; the former Fabric Fire House Company, 1998; the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument at the head of Main Street, 1999; and the view from Castle Hill, 2000.

In addition to being sold at the parade, the 2001 ornament will be available after the holiday at the library, the Drug Center Pharmacy, Lexington Gardens, Joy’s Hallmark, the town clerk’s office in Edmond Town Hall, and The Newtown Bee. Past ornaments are available at the C.H. Booth Library for $10 each.