Your guide to the heart of Litchfield County:
Discover local stories, hidden gems, and must-know events.

By Jamie Marshall
Photos by Joshua Simpson

Student historians share stories of the region’s rich BIPOC past

At a time when the history of our country is systematically being erased, denied, or buried, a group of local high school students are taking a different tact—they are shining a light on it. This past May, 200 middle and high school students from sixteen regional public and private schools gathered at the Troutbeck Resort in Amenia for the third annual Troutbeck Symposium. This student-led forum celebrates and commemorates people of color and other marginalized groups whose contributions to the community have long been forgotten—or simply ignored.

At first glance, the symposium might seem a departure for the resort—whose guests come for its beautifully designed rooms, farm-to-table cuisine, and wellness amenities. Yet, at its core it speaks to Troutbeck’s storied past when former owners Joel and Amy Spingarn were key players in the civil rights movement and the Harlem Renaissance.

It all started during the COVID-19 lockdown when Salisbury history teacher Rhonan Mokriski challenged his students to find little known stories about African-American history in the area. Mokriski enlisted the help of documentary filmmaker Ben Willis.  Among the highlights was a short film called “Coloring Our Past,” featuring Katherine Overton, a passionate historian whose mother was born in Lakeville and who traced the Cesar side of her family back five generations. Because Katherine was riding out the pandemic at her daughter’s home in Frisco, Texas, her two grandsons—Isaac and Kasai—were enlisted as producers The project was so successful that a year later the Troutbeck Symposium was launched.

“From the beginning the idea was to give it to the students and let them run with it,” said Mokriski.

And run with it, they have. This year’s films covered tough topics: modern day lynchings, the silent protest march of 1917, a private school for mentally challenged children, and destruction of the sacred lands of a local Indigenous tribe, to name just a few. For Salisbury School senior Kasai Moore (Overton’s grandson who came to the school as a junior), it was a chance bring his family legacy full circle.

His documentary “Roots” traced his family’s ties to the area back five generations including his great, great grandmother, Matilda Cesar Williams and her brother Arthur who worked at the Troutbeck estate. “It takes my breath away to imagine my uncle Arthur, the family chauffeur, ferrying Langston Hughes or Zoe Neale Hurston from Wassaic train station to the Troutbeck,” he said.

For Moore, the experience was deeply personal.  A gifted soccer player, he arrived at  Salisbury hoping to fulfill his dream of playing for a college team. An early season-ending injury forced him to pivot and he now plans to pursue a career in cybersecutiry. “It was a difficult transition to come here my junior year but at the same time it felt like a calling for me to do it,” he says. “And then I learned about my family’s connections to the area, and how they weave into the tapestry of the landscape. It made me feel like I was part of something and I can take that feeling with me wherever I go.” —troutbeck.com

Bison Farming in Litchfield County 

By Erik Ofgang 

Photos by Rana Faure

Seeing the mammoth bison at Mohawk Bison in Goshen, one gets the impression of having wandered onto the set of an old Western movie. The animals can weigh as much as 2,500 pounds and seem to belong to a different time and place. “They look like prehistoric animals,” says Peter Fay, who owns Mohawk Bison. But don’t be fooled by their idyllic appearance; bison are dangerous animals. They are not domesticated at all, and are therefore difficult to corral. It is foolhardy to get close to them. 

“They’re wild animals, you don’t walk in pastures with them,” Fay says. “A lot of people don’t raise them because, if they get loose, most of the time you’re not going to get them home.” 

Fay has been working with these beautiful but difficult animals since 2007. Mohawk Bison is one of two active bison farms in Connecticut; the other, Creamery Brook Bison, is in Brooklyn. Thanks to farms like these as well as other preservation efforts, the once-endangered American bison—often casually referred to as buffalo, a related animal found only in Africa—has returned. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there are some 20,500 plains bison in conservation herds, and an additional 420,000 in commercial herds. A program at Yellowstone National Park even works to rehome bison from the park to indigenous tribal lands.

Bison meat’s key selling point is its healthier nutrition stats. Bison is high in protein and iron, much lower in fat than beef and as much as 30 percent lower in fat than skinless chicken.

Some bison proponents also claim that because bison are indigenous to North America and tend to produce fewer greenhouse gasses than cows, they are a more environmentally friendly option. In a 2016 article, Modern Farmer says that bison meat can be more sustainable than beef, and that a random sampling of bison meat would probably be more sustainable than a random sampling of beef. 

Eating bison meat also, perhaps counterintuitively, aids the conservation of bison. 

“If you don’t eat it, we won’t raise it, and there won’t be any bison,” Fay says. 

Fay’s interest in farming bison began after a friend (who was the owner of Aj’s Steak & Pizza in Goshen) started featuring it on the menu. At the same time, Fay was looking for new opportunities for working his family’s multi-generational dairy farm. 

Today, Fay’s 60-acre farm is home to somewhere between 100 and 150 bison depending on the season. He sells the meat on Saturdays at the farm, and to wholesalers who distribute it to restaurants. It is also featured in the bison burger at Aj’s.

Though Fay has grown used to working with bison, about a year and a half ago he was reminded not to let his guard down. Early one morning, he was corralling the bison and says he got careless. 

“I got between a gate, and one of the animals tried to get at me. She wasn’t liking me much,” Fay says. The animal pinned his hand and arm against a gate hard enough to dislocate several fingers. He only escaped when the bison “just kind of lost interest in me, and I crawled out.”

The incident resulted in a trip to the hospital, and a reminder for Fay that bison are still, even when found on a farm, creatures of the wild. 

Restoring the Soul through Nature and Ballet

By Linda Tuccio-Koonz

Photos by Ryan Lavine

Scott Thyberg grew up in the wilderness of Warren, on a wondrous property where his parents ran a children’s summer camp. “It was a place where you could spend time with yourself and explore your heart,” says the accomplished choreographer and founder of the dance company Dansereye. “I had 400 acres to play in. It was unbelievable to me.”

The nonprofit camp was his father’s dream—started with a 100-acre purchase made upon his return from World War II; he grew it from there. Generations of children affectionately referred to Thyberg’s parents as Uncle Al and Aunt Elaine; the camp thrived for 60-plus years.

Many kids came from inner cities, where they hadn’t experienced nature’s grandeur. “When anyone would come up, they were just blown away by how stunningly beautiful it was,” Thyberg says of the land where he and four siblings chased butterflies and hunted for frogs in babbling brooks that disappeared into the woods. 

“There were so many incredible natural features. People would say to my father, ‘What a beautiful place you have here,’ and he would immediately correct them and say, ‘This isn’t ours, we’re just the stewards; we’re the caretakers.’”

It’s a sentiment Thyberg holds dear, especially since losing his father to dementia, the illness that left him unable to keep his beloved camp going. Thyberg, 66, a Juilliard-trained musician whose ballets have been performed throughout the United States and in Europe, returned home to care for him in 2013; he died in 2019, at age 95.

With his siblings scattered around the world, Thyberg knew he needed a new dream for the property—one that preserved its beauty while combining his passions for dance and nature. 

He decided it was time to create a home for Dansereye, and that it should include an intimate amphitheater with natural features. (Think tiered seating areas amid lush gardens and stone outcrops, nestled into a gentle hillside).

After protracted negotiations, much of the original property is now in the hands of the Warren Land Trust, which will see to its preservation. The remaining 5 acres serve as Dansereye’s home, a place to “retreat, revitalize, and perhaps even restore the soul,” says Thyberg, 66.

There are no permanent structures for the amphitheater, which will serve a maximum audience of 150 to 180. Lighting and sound equipment will be set up each year.

“Even if ballet is boring to you, you can listen to owls, look at the fireflies dancing around, or just listen to the beautiful music,” says Thyberg, who served on the faculties of the Nutmeg Conservatory in Torrington and Ballet Academy East in Manhattan, among others.

“I spent many years in other places, but the yearning to come back to where I grew up was always there,” he says. “I feel so inspired by this area.”

The amphitheater won’t open until 2025, but Thyberg chose 10 professional dancers from around the country to participate in this year’s residency. Their work this summer will culminate in two performances at the Visual and Performing Arts Center at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, August 9 and 10, at 7:30 pm 

If you go: “Dansereye: The Fifth Temperament” opens with the return of the 2023 genre-bending ballet, “The Seven Deadly Songs.” That’s followed by “Second Salt,” a new ballet featuring music by Emmy-nominated composer Craig Safan (“The Last Starfighter,” TV’s “Cheers”). Thyberg describes “Second Salt” as a “dramatization of what really happened at Sodom and Gomorrah,” adding “Spoiler: It wasn’t about the sex.” The final offering is another world premiere from Thyberg, a charming comedy set to beloved Italian classics.—@dansereye

Wendy Sutter Adds Fire to WFM
By Charles Dubow
Photos by Carl Weese

In what arguably might be one of the most agreeable ways to usher in the New Year, ever since 2013 the Washington Friends of Music (WFM) has presented a live concert featuring the gorgeous and soothing strains of such composers as Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi. But in recent years, longtime patrons cannot help but notice subtle yet distinct changes to these concerts: The program has now expanded beyond the Baroque, the January 1 concerts are now held in the Gunn School’s dazzling new performing arts center, and the artistic director is a statuesque brunette in a long dress playing the cello. 

Called by The Wall Street Journal “one of the great leading cellists of the classical stage,” Wendy Sutter has brought a fresh new perspective to WFM. “My goal was to open up the repertoire, and introduce composers from the Classical and Romantic eras, such as Dvorak and Schubert, as well as Modernist American composers such as  Copland. The challenge was reassuring two Germans that the music of Beethoven was worthy of their concerts,” she says with a laugh.

The two Germans in question are WFM’s founders and guiding lights, Hermann and Waltraud Tammen. The two former bankers started coming up to Washington on weekends more than 20 years ago. “We were looking for local musical events that featured classical music,” says Hermann, “but couldn’t find any. So we decided to start our own.” 

Today WFM hosts five concerts per year: the New Year’s concert and, during the summer, four additional performances at Washington’s historic Congregational Church. “Our concerts have become a destination to an ever-growing audience of music lovers from all over Connecticut,” says founding board member Charles Raskob Robinson, “and we couldn’t be more excited to have Wendy bring it to new heights.”

“In 2022 we felt it was time to take a more professional approach and attract a new audience,” says Waltraud. “That’s why we approached Wendy. She is a renowned cellist and connected with many musicians. We asked her to organize a few concerts and were so impressed that we invited her to come on full time.” 

Sutter continues to have a rich career playing with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic and the Shanghai Symphony. (To list all the orchestras she has soloed with would take up more space than this article is allotted. Rest assured, it’s impressive.) “The chance to curate performances and work with musicians of my own choosing is what really attracted me to WFM,” says the Juilliard grad. “It’s like being in a candy store for me—but it’s also a lot of work. We are professional musicians who only get a few weeks off per year. So we have to coordinate schedules, and arrange rehearsals and transportation. One of the nicest things about playing in Washington, though, is that we don’t simply slip out the back door, like we do after most performances. It’s been lovely getting to know the people here. I feel really blessed that Hermann and Waltraud reached out to me.” —washingtonct4music.blogspot.com

My name is Paul Pearson, and I’m the chef at the White Hart Inn on the Green in Salisbury. I’m originally from York, England, where I trained in various hotels and restaurants before setting sail for Bermuda, and from there to the U.S. I landed a job at Blantyre in Lenox, where I met my wife. Eventually we moved to Chicago, where I led the kitchen at North Pond. Wanting to get back East, we moved to Rhode Island, where I headed up Seasons at the Ocean House, and then on to the White Hart, with a two-year stint in the middle at Community Table in Washington.

1.What is your favorite produce source? 
My go-to spot is the Sharon Farm Market. They always have a great selection of fresh, seasonal produce, much of it from local farms. Their fish counter is always stocked with the freshest, best-looking fish. And there’s a great selection of prepared foods. They also have a sushi station, and that’s a quick, easy fix for my daughter’s dinner. 

2. What’s your favorite bread source?
Every Friday and Saturday we get a delivery to Provisions at the White Hart from Travis Brecher from Creature Bread. My favorite is the caramelized onion with turmeric; it’s pretty special!

3. What’s your favorite tomato source?
The best tomatoes, I believe, are grown by Parker Boal, right here in Lakeville at Green Hollow Farm. I met Parker in 2014; we’ve used her tomatoes ever since. She’s so passionate about them, and it really shows in the flavor and quality. She picks them in the morning, and they’ll be on the plate a few hours later for dinner service. 

4. Your favorite dairy source?
We exclusively use Five Acre Farms, which was founded by Daniel and Patrick Horan. The taste of their milk is rich and sweet; we use it in all our coffee drinks at Provisions. It makes a great cappuccino. 

5. Favorite meat source?
I buy any meat for a special occasion at Whippoorwill Farm, where we also get all our ground beef and top rounds for the inn. Robin and Allen Cockerline have raised grass-fed beef for more than 40 years. Their farm is on Salmon Kill Road in Salisbury, and it’s the most idyllic setting, definitely worth the drive on a Friday or Saturday to pick up a quality cut for the weekend. 

7. What’s new at the White Hart Inn? 
I’ve been putting a lot of work into the pizza program that we run on Wednesday nights. We purchased a wood-fired pizza trailer, which we set up on the Green on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. That way, people can gather, order a pie, get a drink at the outdoor bar, and relax outside. 

8. What’s your favorite hike? 
A great trail right in Salisbury called Lion’s Head. It’s around 2.5 miles out and back, with the last part a scramble up some rocks. But once you get to the top, the views are amazing. 

Curds of Love

By Michelle Madden

Photos by Ryan Lavine

 Look for the old factory, around the back, keep going, up the fire escape, second floor, and you’ll find it. To the Gills (the fish shop) and New Curds on the Block (the cheese shop) share a bright, lofty space, so tucked away that you’re sure you’re the first to discover it. (You’re not).

Fish and cheese are not known to “go together” but when the fishmonger falls in love with the cheesemonger, what do you expect. Zachary Redin and Kate Truini worked at neighboring shops in Greenwich and soon discovered many shared loves­­. As Redin admits, “I found myself going in and buying a lot of cheese I didn’t want.”

What distinguishes Redin and Truini is their devotion to transparency. “Would you like to see what the salmon eat?” Redin walks over with a bottle of brown pellets (from ground-up plants and fish) and pours them into my hand––like a sommelier pouring wine into your glass to smell. “The question should not be––is wild better than farmed? Farmed salmon can be equally nutritious if it’s farmed sustainably.” Redin’s are farmed on the Faroe Islands, halfway between Iceland and Norway, and kept on ice (never frozen) for the voyage to America. He taught me about pen density (lower is better), corn-free feed (good), and red dyes in feed (bad). Turns out devotion to quality, though, is at odds with a good night’s sleep. “I apologize if I seem tired,” Redin said, lifting a 12-pound salmon by the tail. “I’ve been up since 1 am to get to the fish market.” He does this weekly.

 Two feet from Redin’s counter is Truini’s. She is a self-proclaimed “taste diagnostician.” If you tell her you love Parmesan, you may walk out with Moosalamoo from Blue Ledge Farm. All her cheeses are from the Northeast, and her goal is to open your mind to new ones. “In Europe, cheese is part of daily life,” Truini explains. “It’s not just for special occasions. If a hard cheese blooms [“gets moldy” in non-cheese speak] just scrape it off. Cheese is mold!” Truini declares.

Connoisseurship is a cornerstone of Truini’s mission. “You want to eat cheese at ‘peak deliciousness,’” she says, squeezing rounds of High Lawn Queen, a semi-soft cheese from High Lawn Farm, to see whether they’re soft enough or need time to ripen. “My personal favorite,” Truini muses, after being pressed to choose a favorite child: “I’d have to go with Ewe’s Blue, a young sheep’s-milk cheese from Old Chatham Creamery. It really should be a controlled substance.”

When you spend time with Redin and Truini you can’t imagine their businesses––not to mention their lives––not coexisting. They’re the kind of people you’d hope would drive by if your car ran out of gas. They also share a keen sense of humor: A sign on an emergency exit shows a mouse holding a flag with a diamond ring on it, which Truini drew on the one-year anniversary of their shop, and the day they got engaged.

They got married this summer.

 —tothegillsseafood.com

(203) 940-3528

—newcurdsontheblock.com

(203) 318-4520

900 Main St., Watertown, and the Farmers Market in Washington Depot (Saturdays)

Through Oceana, Sam Waterston Makes Waves

By Elizabeth Maker

As District Attorney Jack McCoy in “Law & Order,” the actor Sam Waterston is aggressively persuasive in proving his cases. As Sol Bergstein in “Grace and Frankie,” he’s the gentle, comforting gay husband of actor Martin Sheen, sometimes giddy, sometimes nearing tears when discussing an important issue.

Both personas were displayed on stage at the Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village last summer, only this time Waterston wasn’t acting. This was his real-life role as board chairman of Oceana, the largest global organization working to restore and protect the world’s oceans.

“It’s really the most important thing that I or any of us can do to change the course of climate history and preserve life on Earth,” Waterston says, urging everyone to join the nonprofit Oceana that was started in 1991 in large part by his close friend Ted Danson, the actor from “Cheers.” Danson, who graduated from Kent School in 1966, was “called to help the oceans,” Waterston says, when he was at a beach and his children emerged from the water with their feet covered in tar from the offshore oil wells. “That’s what led him to start Oceana, which he sees as his greatest achievement.”

Waterston has lived with his wife, Lynn, in Litchfield County since 1978, and they own a 250-acre Galloway cattle and Icelandic sheep farm in West Cornwall called Birdseye & Tanner Brooks Farm. While preserving land and raising organic livestock is important, nothing is more crucial for human survival than saving our oceans, Waterston stresses.

At his presentation, which was sponsored by the nonprofit Salisbury Forum, Waterston said his concern for oceans began when he learned that codfish were becoming extinct off the shores of Massachusetts, his native state. “The collapse of the cod fishery was the beginning of my own awakening,” he says, explaining that overfishing and oil drilling contributed to their decline. He spoke of New York’s Hudson River, which “held more oysters than all of the rest of the world put together,” until it was used as a dumping ground for garbage, sewage, and subway cars. He shared videos of the devastation humans have caused through careless disrespect of our greatest natural resource. “Each year, 33 billion pounds of plastic wash into the ocean. Sea turtles, birds, fish, and other marine life confuse it for food, or are entangled by it, and die.”

But Waterston went on to share the group’s success stories. With 275 policy victories around the world, including regulating commercial boats to stop overfishing, Oceana has protected 4 million square miles of ocean.

Many countries and American states have enacted bold plastic reduction policies, he says, reminding listeners to curb their use of single-use plastics. Even the Atlantic codfish is making a comeback, thanks to Oceana-influencing laws. “For the first time in 20 years, we have seen a successful year of cod, and they seem to be growing at a very good rate,” says Kevin Stokesbury, dean of marine science & technology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “Thanks, in a big way, to Oceana.”

Waterston asks that climate activists switch their focus to the oceans and become a “Wave Maker” at Oceana.org. “The oceans deserve our attention. They are 70 percent of the earth’s surface. They produce 50 percent of the earth’s oxygen. When well managed, they can produce enough wild-caught fish to feed a billion people a healthy protein meal every day of the week for the rest of time! You can tell I’m super-psyched about this! Oceana is a moving train, please come aboard.” —oceana.org 

Warren’s Award-winning Hopkins Vineyard

By Charles Dubow

On a beautiful summer day there are few more pleasant ways to spend an afternoon than sitting outside at a table at Hopkins Vineyard in Warren overlooking Lake Waramaug, listening to live music, and sipping a glass of their estate-bottled Chardonnay. 

“We welcome visitors every day,” says owner Hilary Hopkins Criollo, whose ancestor Revolutionary War veteran Elijah Hopkins first purchased this historic farm back in 1787. “We also host weddings, anniversaries, reunions. It’s such a beautiful place, and we are so lucky to be able to share it.”

Originally a dairy farm, Hilary’s father, Bill, converted the land to a winery in 1979, when the Connecticut Legislature passed the Farm Winery Act. which permitted the growth and sale of wine. 

“My dad was a real pioneer,” says Hilary, who today runs the vineyard with her husband, George, and winemaker Jim Baker. “We are now the oldest family-owned and operated winery in the state.” 

Today they produce up to 17 different wines, depending on the season. In addition to their Chardonnay, other popular wines include their semi-sweet red Sachem’s Picnic, a semi-sweet white Westwind, a peach wine, a Riesling, a sparkling, a rosé, and a Cabernet Franc. Visitors can also purchase local craft beers from Kent Falls, as well as cheese platters and other snacks. All their products are available for sale in their shop or online.—hopkinsvineyard.com