House Tour Expected To Be A Large Draw For Holiday Festival

By Shannon Hicks

The 21st annual Holiday Festival take place on Sunday, December 3, from 10 am to 5 pm. With the impending merger of Family Counseling Center and Newtown Youth Services, this year’s festival will in effect be a benefit for both agencies.

In addition to five historic homes on the tour, the Matthew Curtiss House and Trinity Episcopal Church will be open for viewing. Trinity will also host its traditional service of Lenten Lessons and Carols on Sunday afternoon at 2.

It was confirmed this week that The Dana-Holcombe House will also be open for visits this year. Former students of owners John and Jane Vouros will be serving as docents for the recently constructed bed and breakfast.

Other festival events include a children’s workshop, a Victorian tea room, an antiques show, the Festival of Trees at Cyrenius H. Booth Library, musical performances in the Alexandria Room at Edmond Town Hall, Newtown Choral Society’s annual concert at Newtown Meeting House, and caroling at various locations outdoors.

Admission to festival events is by ticket. Adult festival tickets are $23 in advance, $25 on December 3. Tickets for seniors and children between the ages of 6 and 14 are $15 in advance, $18 the day of the festival.

Tickets can be purchased until Friday evening at Family Counseling Center, C.H. Booth Library, Drug Center, and The Little Green Barn; Newtown Savings Bank branch offices in Newtown, Bethel, Danbury, Monroe, and Southbury; Union Savings Bank locations in Newtown and Bethel.

On Sunday, tickets will increase to $25 for adults and $20 for children and seniors. They will be sold at Edmond Town Hall and C.H. Booth Library.

Family Counseling Center, at 121 Mt Pleasant Road, can be reached at 426-8103 for advance tickets and additional information.

The House Tour

The locations of the homes on the walking tour and some aspects of their histories follow. (Details on the festival itself can be found in this week’s Enjoy section.) Expect lines outside each of the homes. The walking tour has consistently been one of the most popular events of every Holiday Festival. Please try to abide by the following guidelines.

People have been asked not to try to visit these private homes before or after the festival hours. The homeowners, who have been gracious enough to open their residences for six hours to the public, have asked that their privacy be respected once the tour is over.

Children must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian at all times while visiting the homes. To ease on overcrowding, strollers should be left outdoors.

Use doormats before entering each home, and do not smoke in any of the homes.

While visiting these homes guests are asked not to touch any of the items inside the dwellings. Treat the homes like museums: look but do not touch.

House captains at each of the homes on the tour will be able to answer some questions. They will also have additional information on the homes beyond what is offered here.

Local decorators and florists have been planning decorating schemes for each of the homes. Decorator and artist Diana Baxter (The Painted Bungalow) has worked with Peter’s Imports in Brookfield to come up with an old English country/trendy contemporary twist featuring teals, chocolate, silver and gold in one of the homes.

The grand foyer, inlaid furnishings and stunning kitchen of another stately home will be embellished for the holidays by Lynn Hermann of Decorating Den.

Country Mill Antiques will create a primitive New England Christmas in one home, and Newtown Florist will use greenery, fruits and nuts to also create a New England aura in another house.

Finally, Marilia Rodriguez (Complements Interiors and Window Treatments) will use a mix of antiques, custom pieces, and accessories from local merchants to produce “an understated elegance that is as appropriate today as it would have been in the 1800s when the house was built,” Stella Dance, chairperson of the Holiday Festival House Tour, said this week.

“This year’s house tour isn’t just a fundraising event. It’s a celebration of community,” said Ms Dance. “Homeowners, designers, and volunteers are working together to bring forth the nostalgia of holidays past [and] also inspiring trendy, crafty, and traditional ideas of the present. We’re sure that all attendees will be pleased.”

14 Main Street

Home of Alan and Liz Page

Little is known about the original house at 14 Main Street, except that it was owned by Levi Morris, the town’s first known undertaker and a former first selectman.

As Christmas dawned in 1900, the sight of the house was “a total ruin … a heap of ashes, with the gaunt form of the central chimney towering like a specter at the light of the dying fire,” The Newtown Bee reported that month. The family home of First Selectman Levi C. Morris, “one of Newtown’s most popular citizens,” had “burned to the ground in the short space of two hours.”

The current house was built on its foundation in the same year. The house features “balloon” construction, which was popular at the time (but no longer allowed under fire codes). The outside walls run from the foundation to the attic and each floor is “hung” from the walls. This leaves tall vertical chases behind the walls, and allows a fire on any lower floor to easily spread to the floors above.

Based on his standing in the community, Mr Morris employed the services of a New York City architect to design the house, and included substantial trim and molding, as well as quarter-sawn lumber for the floorboards in the downstairs entertaining rooms. Fearing a future fire, Mr Morris had the architect add a firebreak in the base of each wall, and all of the rooms on the first floor (except the current dining room) have four exits.

In less than ten months following the fire, however, Mr Morris had commissioned to build another house on the site: a “Classic Box” form of the Classical Revival style distinguished by its hipped roof, two hipped dormers and the classically detailed front porch.

The home was considered a technologically advanced design, with water supplied to the house by gravity feed from a holding tank in the attic.

Levi Morris taught William Honan Sr (of Honan Funeral Home) the  funeral trade. Funerals at the time were done at the home of the deceased, so 14 Main Street was not used as funeral home.

Mr Morris also operated the first general store in Newtown next to the 14 Main Street house. When it burned in 1904, he and a partner opened Newtown General Store further up Main Street, where it still resides between Newtown Savings Bank and Edmond Town Hall.

Visitors to the house experience a feeling of grandeur upon entering the large reception hall complete with a grand stairway.

34 Main Street

Owned by Charles and Clare Didier

Often called “The Balcony House” because of a bracketed balcony off the second floor, this home has been used over the years as a place for bishops and governors to greet and be greeted by Newtowners. The building was also home to one of Newtown’s earliest stores.

This circa 1820 Greek Revival house, located next to Trinity Episcopal Church, is similar to the old Yankee Drover Inn that stood across the street before it burned in 1981. Both were built with a clapboarded mansard roof and rounded windows.

The house’s other distinctive features include quoins at the sides of the house and a second floor, with two narrow additions on either side, which is wider than the first or third floors.

The second floor room leading to the balcony was once called “The Ballroom.” During the 19th Century many Newtown residents attended Saturday evening dances in the room, complete with fiddlers playing on a bandstand.

The ground floor of the house once was used for offices. For a period during the 1800s it may have been used as a post office.

The house also is believed to have been part of the shelter network for runaway slaves heading north through the Underground Railroad. Underneath the first floor rug is a secret stairway leading to the basement. A former owner reportedly found a Confederate dollar bill there.

In the September-October 2006 issue of The Rooster’s Crow, Town Historian Dan Cruson wrote about this dwelling (and others) in the first of a two-part essay called “The Earliest Merchant Buildings in Newtown.”

“The early history of The Balcony House,” Mr Cruson wrote, “begins with the Baldwin family. The most notable members of this family were the three Caleb Baldwins — grandfather, father and son — the last two of whom served as Town Clerks in Newtown for a combined term of almost 80 years.

“The progenitor of that family, Caleb Baldwin the eldest, established his family in Newtown in February of 1731 when he bought five acres of land on Main Street.”

Some time between April 1785 and April 1801, Caleb’s son David Baldwin was deeded 16 rods of land, onto which he built “a small building to be used as a store,” according to Mr Cruson. That building is what has evolved into the current residence at 34 Main Street.

Further research by Mr Cruson uncovered an April 1801 deed in which David Baldwin sold the land to Amos B. Fairman, who received, wrote Mr Cruson, “the dwelling house, the store, barn and outbuildings thereon standing.” All that for the price of $2,667.

Mr Cruson believes that when the store was operated by Mr Fairman, for just eight years, the building was only one story tall.

“The brick first story of the house appears to be the original structure,” he wrote in his essay. “When it was later converted into a dwelling, the second and third stories had to be added in order to give the tenants adequate living space.”

The building’s history continues with a list of notable owners: Marcus Botsford purchased the property in 1809 (for $2,000) and continued to run the store with his brother, William, for about ten years, until the brothers lost the business to creditors and it was purchased by Asa Chapman.

In 1822 Chapman sold the property to Abiel Booth Glover. The property and its holdings then passed it to his Abiel’s son, Henry Beers Glover, upon Abiel’s death in 1825 at the age of 28.

The property and store was owned, but never run, by Glover until his death in 1870. Glover had also become a principal founder of Newtown Savings Bank, as well as its treasurer.

Sometime between Glover’s death and the following year, when Hannah and Charles Henry Peck purchased the property, the store had been remodeled by builder Marshall Otis. Otis and his business partner, John R. Gilbert, were the men who built The Glover House (now The Budd House, opposite Edmond Town Hall and owned by Shane and George Miller).

The Pecks were the first full-time residents of the building. Mr Peck loved collecting information and items from early Newtown, and he eventually amassed such a collection that the entire first floor was turned into a display area. That collection eventually found a home at C.H. Booth Library, becoming the core of the library’s collection of Newtown antiquities.

“According to surviving photos of this room,” Mr Cruson wrote, “it had display cases everywhere and was a rabbit warren of bric-a-brac.”

The next owner of The Balcony House was Arthur Treat Nettleton, the adopted son of the Pecks, a treasurer and president of Newtown Savings Bank and, says Mr Cruson, “one of the most important men in forming present Newtown.” He inherited the home and property in 1906, after the passing of Hannah.

 

15 Main Street

Home of William and Lisa Hintzen

This home was built in 1999, making it the last structure on Main Street completed in the 20th Century. At the time of its groundbreaking, there had been no other new construction on Main Street for 50 years.

The style is Southern Colonial with Greek Revival details such as the columns and the front porches on the first and second floor. The present occupants, the third family to own this home, enjoy the farmhouse-style kitchen as the heart of the home.  New terra cotta bordeaux granite and slate backsplashes contribute to its warmth.

The two-acre property where this home sits was originally the location of the garden of The Smith-Scudder house directly to the north. That home, at 17 Main, was built as a two-family in 1905 as accommodations for two sisters. It was recently converted to a single-family home.

78 Main Street

Home of Andrew & Colleen Bryant

78 Main Street, owned by Andrew and Colleen Bryant is a circa 1760 saltbox.

Information obtained by the Bryants indicates that the home was originally built by Eustis Brush.

Brush had been an indentured servant who obtained his freedom and came to Newtown and built the home. Throughout its 254 years, the home has held many families and subsequently has undergone many changes. Since the home’s purchase more than two years ago, the Bryants have paid much attention to historical detail and period interior design.

48 Mount Pleasant Road

Home of Alan & Michelle Hankin

This quintessential New England antique, circa 1780, has been fully restored with great attention to detail and authenticity.

This classic center chimney colonial was built by Squire Blackman for his three maiden daughters.  The home is impressive in scale, with bright and spacious rooms and estatelike grounds. It retains an abundance of original features: three working fireplaces (including one with beehive oven), beautifully preserved chestnut and oak wideboard floors, built-ins, carved mantel, original doors and hardware, and three staircases.

This venerable home also boasts a 26-by-19-foot living room (keeping room).  An addition, built in 1880, exudes Victorian charm.

The house, once named “Old Acres,” stayed in the original family for nearly 200 years. It was restored by its fourth and current owners, Alan and Michele Hankin. Much of the home’s history has been documented with photos, letters, and personal accounts from descendants of the original family.

Those who have lived in this home include Civil War veteran Beach Nichols and James Nichols, one of the first postmen in Newtown, who delivered mail with horse-drawn wagon about 1900.

As was the case in 2001 when this house was last on the Holiday Festival Walking Tour, direct descendants of the Blackman family will be waiting to greet visitors and offer information about the house and their recollections of it.

The Dana-Holcombe House, 29 Main Street

Home and Business of John & Jane Vouros

Newtown’s newest landmark opened in July 2005. While construction of the dwelling took nine months, the building had been a dream of John and Jane Vouros for nearly 30 years.

The Dana-Holcombe House was the first newly constructed bed and breakfast (as opposed to a house being turned into a B&B) in the state in a number of years and the only such location in the immediate area. There are antique homes that have been turned into B&Bs across the state, and even a handful of fairly new establishments, but The Dana-Holcombe House is a brand-new construction built for the purpose of hosting overnight guests.

Another important point: There is no person named Dana Holcombe. The B&B’s name pays homage to two people, which is why the house’s name contains the hyphen. Dana is the birth name of Jane Vouros and also happens to be the name of the architect, Richard Dana, who designed the house in Litchfield upon which The Dana-Holcombe House is based. The building’s historic architecture is intended to reflect the visual character of Main Street.

Using the name Holcombe is the Vouroses’ way of paying honor to the late Josephine Holcombe, who became a dear friend when the couple first moved into Newtown in the early 1970s.

While their new home is not a replica of the historic Yankee Drover Inn, the Vouroses nevertheless tipped their hat at the previous use of their property while planning its phoenixlike rebirth. Jane Vouros points out that The Dana-Holcombe House does have the same roofline the Drover did. Second, the business is, according its logo, “A Yankee Drover’s Manor.”

The building is three stories tall and has six bedrooms with private baths for guests. A seventh suite on the second floor serves as the residence for Jane and John Vouros.

There are overnight accommodations with breakfast for guests. The facility is also available for intimate catered affairs such as small wedding receptions. The B&B’s backyard features a tiered patio and garden area, perfect for hosting small events.

The Borough Zoning Commission approved the couple’s plans to construct the inn at 29 Main Street in February 2004. The site had been vacant since 1981, when a fire destroyed the historic Yankee Drover Inn there. John and Jane Vouros have owned the property, off and on, since 1983.

The Vouroses and a local contractor purchased the property with the intention of rebuilding the former Yankee Drover Inn. Eventually Mr and Mrs Vouros became the sole owners of the property, which is at the corner of Main Street and the southerly fork of West Street, adjacent to Newtown Meeting House and on a diagonal from the Main Street flagpole.

Construction on The Dana-Holcombe House began in September 2004 when builder Michael Stavrakis of Samos LLC directed an excavator to begin digging the basement for the new establishment smack in the middle of Newtown’s historic district.

“It was fated that we do something here,” Mr Vouros told The Bee then. “I sold the property five times and every time it came back to me.”