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New Canaan is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, 8 miles (13 km) northeast of Stamford. The population was 19,738 according to the 2010 census.[1]
The town is one of the wealthiest communities in the nation. In 2013, New Canaan was ranked the fifth wealthiest town in the nation on CNN Money's list of the top-earning places in the United States and in 2008 it had the highest median family income in the country.[2][3]
New Canaan has two Metro-North railroad stations: the New Canaan station and the Talmadge Hill station, both on the New Canaan Branch of the New Haven Line. Travel time to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan is approximately one hour.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 22.5 square miles (58 km2), of which 22.1 square miles (57 km2) is land and 0.3 square miles (0.78 km2), or 1.56%, is water. The town is served by the Merritt Parkway and by a spur line of the Metro-North Railroad. The downtown area consists of many restaurants, an old movie theater, and antique shops. There are also several churches in town, as well as the historic Roger Sherman Inn.
The town is bounded on the north by Lewisboro and Pound Ridge in Westchester County, New York, on the east by Wilton, on the southeast by Norwalk, on the south by Darien and on the southwest and west by Stamford.
The town includes the following sections: New Canaan center, Talmadge Hill, Ponus, Smith Ridge Road, Pinneys Corners, and part of Silvermine (which extends into Norwalk and Wilton).
In 1731, Connecticut's colonial legislature established Canaan Parish as a religious entity in northwestern Norwalk and northeastern Stamford. The right to form a Congregational church was granted to the few families scattered through the area. As inhabitants of Norwalk or Stamford, Canaan Parish settlers still had to vote, pay taxes, serve on juries, and file deeds in their home towns. Because Canaan Parish was not planned as a town, New Canaan, when incorporated in 1801, found itself without a central common, a main street or a town hall.[4]
Until the Revolutionary War, New Canaan was primarily an agricultural community. After the war, New Canaan's major industry was shoe making. As New Canaan's shoe business gathered momentum early in the nineteenth century, instead of a central village, regional settlements of clustered houses, mill, and school developed into distinct district centers. Some of the districts were centered on Ponus Ridge, West Road, Oenoke Ridge, Smith Ridge, Talmadge Hill and Silvermine, a pattern which the village gradually outgrew.[4]
With the 1868 advent of the railroad to New Canaan, many of New York City's wealthy residents discovered the quiet, peaceful area and built magnificent summer homes. Eventually, many of the summer visitors settled year-round, commuting to their jobs in New York City and creating the residential community that exists today.[4]
Lewis Lapham, a founder of Texaco and great-grandfather of long-time Harper's Magazine editor Lewis H. Lapham, spent summers with his family at their estate that is now 300-acre (1.2 km2) Waveny Park next to Talmadge Hill and the Merritt Parkway.
New Canaan was an important center of the modern design movement from the late 1940s through roughly the 1960s, when about 80 modern homes were built in town. About 20 have been torn down since then.[5]
"During the late 1940s and 50s, a group of students and teachers from the Harvard Graduate School of Design migrated to New Canaan ... and rocked the world of architectural design", according to an article in PureContemporary.com, an online architecture design magazine. "Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John M. Johansen and Eliot Noyes – known as the Harvard Five – began creating homes in a style that emerged as the complete antithesis of the traditional build. Using new materials and open floor plans, best captured by Johnson's Glass House, these treasures are being squandered as buyers are knocking down these architectural icons and replacing them with cookie-cutter new builds."[6]
"Other architects, well known (Frank Lloyd Wright, for example) and not so well known, also contributed significant modern houses that elicited strong reactions from nearly everyone who saw them and are still astonishing today ... New Canaan came to be the locus of the modern movement's experimentation in materials, construction methods, space, and form", according to an online description of The Harvard Five in New Canaan: Mid-Century Modern Houses, by William D. Earls.[7]
Some other New Canaan architects designing modern homes were Victor Christ-Janer, John Black Lee, Allan Gelbin, and Hugh Smallen.[5]
The film The Ice Storm (1997) shows many of New Canaan's modern houses, both inside and out. The film specifically takes place in a mostly glass house that resides on Laurel Road.
In 2005, the mill rate of New Canaan was 14.0440 and is reportedly 14.586 for the 2012 fiscal year.[8]
The New Canaan Volunteer Ambulance Corps (NCVAC) is a free, all volunteer ambulance corps with three ambulances plus two paramedic fly-cars. Founded in 1975, the unit is located at 182 South Avenue and offer regular EMT courses.[9] Most Emergency Medical Services come from Norwalk, where there is a Hospital.
The New Canaan Fire Department employs the professional firefighters of the New Canaan Fire Department (Local 3224), as well as the volunteers of the New Canaan Fire Company, No. 1. Founded in 1881, the New Canaan Fire Department is a combination professional/volunteer fire department that operates out of a fire station located near the center of town, with a fire apparatus fleet of engines and other vehicles. The New Canaan Fire Department responded to 886 calls for service in 2009.[10]
The New Canaan Police (NCPD) are headquartered at 174 South Avenue.[11]
As of the census[12] of 2000, there were 19,395 people, 6,822 households, and 5,280 families residing in the town. The population density was 876.5 people per square mile (338.4/km²). There were 7,141 housing units at an average density of 322.7 per square mile (124.6/km²). The racial makeup of the town was 95.27% White, 1.74% Hispanic or Latino, 1.04% African American, 0.04% Native American, 2.29% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.38% from other races, and 0.98% from two or more races.
There were 6,822 households out of which 41.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 69.2% were married couples living together, 6.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 22.6% were non-families. 19.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.83 and the average family size was 3.26.
In the town the population was spread out with 31.2% under the age of 18, 3.3% from 18 to 24, 25.4% from 25 to 44, 26.6% from 45 to 64, and 13.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 91.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.7 males.
Per the 2000 Census, the median income for a household in the town was $141,788, and the median income for a family was $175,331. Males had a median income of $100,000 versus $53,924 for females. The per capita income for the town was $82,049. About 1.4% of families and 2.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.2% of those under age 18 and 2.2% of those age 65 or over.
The New Canaan Public Schools system is considered to be one of the best in Connecticut. It has also gained national recognition for its high performance; for example, a recent edition of Forbes magazine rated New Canaan as the third-ranked school district in the United States "for home value" for communities with a median home price of $800,000.[13]
In 2009, the district was the highest performing school district in the state based on the frequency of top-tier performances on the Connecticut Mastery Tests (CMT), which are administered to all 3rd through 8th graders, and the Connecticut Academic Performance Tests (CAPT), which are given to 10th graders.[14] In 2008, the median SAT score (verbal, math and writing) for district students was 1804, the highest in Connecticut.[15]
In its November 2009 edition, Connecticut magazine rated New Canaan's school system first among 29 towns with a population of 15,000–25,000.[16] That category included Darien, Wilton, Ridgefield, Avon, Simsbury, Farmington, Southbury, Guilford and other high-performing districts. The ranking was based on 2007–2009 CMT scores; results from the 2007–2009 CAPTs; local SAT scores for 2006–2008; and the percentage of 2007 high school graduates who enrolled in college.[17]
Twenty-two students in the New Canaan High School Class of 2009 were National Merit Commended Scholars. In addition, four students were National Merit Scholars, four were National Merit Semifinalists, and one was an Hispanic National Recognition Scholar.[18]
Of the New Canaan High School graduates who enrolled in college in the fall of 2009, 30% did so at a college designated "Most Competitive" by Barron's magazine, 24% enrolled at an institution considered "Highly Competitive", and 26% entered a college deemed to be "Very Competitive."[19]
The New Canaan High School Library was the recipient of the 2010 National School Library Program of the Year Award, given by the American Library Association. In addition to the Award, the High School also received a $10,000 prize donated by Follet Library Resources.[20]
The New Canaan school system is also notable for its achievements in extra-curricular activities. In 2010, the New Canaan High School won the FCIAC Cup, given to the most successful athletic program among the 19 high schools competing in the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference. The New Canaan High School drama program won seven awards at the 2010 Connecticut High School Musical Theatre Awards.[20]
Starting in the 2010–2011 academic year New Canaan will be one of the few school systems in Connecticut to offer foreign language instruction to students pre middle school.[21]
In June 2012, 24/7 Wall St. ranked New Canaan as the 8th wealthiest school district in the United States.[22]
New Canaan has five public schools:
New Canaan also has three private schools:
Postcard of The Country Club, ca. 1906
Grace House in the Fields, ca. 1915
Waveny mansion in Waveny Park
Center School, ca. 1912 (now demolished)
Hampton Inn, ca. 1909
There are two local town papers delivered every week
Two daily newspapers serve the surrounding area:
For more information, see List of people from New Canaan, Connecticut
Movies at least partially filmed in New Canaan:[34]
New Canaan, Connecticut, Wilton, Connecticut, Norwalk, Connecticut, Stamford, Connecticut, Fairfield County, Connecticut
Hartford County, Connecticut, Fairfield County, Connecticut, New London County, Connecticut, New Haven County, Connecticut, Middlesex County, Connecticut
National Register of Historic Places, New Canaan, Connecticut, National Trust for Historic Preservation, United States, National Historic Landmark