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

Quintessential English Garden

By Pom Shillingford 

Meet Pom on Saturday, June 10 at Hollister House Gardens from  10 to 1130 am for a talk about creating English style gardens. Registration required.

11 years ago, my husband David and I made a leap of faith and uprooted ourselves and our three small children from our life in Manhattan and moved to Salisbury, in Northwest CT, a town we had never visited and knew no one. Our reasons for leaving the city were myriad. Our landing in Salisbury was simple. Although, in theory, it was due to finding the falling-down gem of an 1830s house, in reality it was to get my hands on what I really coveted—the three barren acres of ‘garden’ that came with it. 

I grew up on a farm in England surrounded by beautiful gardens. Having now lived in the U.S. for over 25 years, my experience is that Brits have a different relationship with their gardens in general than our American counterparts. Here, so many ‘yards’ are often treated as functional spaces, to be managed and controlled. In England, gardens are viewed as an opportunity for creativity, learning, and happiness. Gardening is considered a pleasure, not a chore—and the plants in your garden are almost as integral to your home as the furniture inside. So, by the time we landed here after 15 years of city living, it’s safe to say I was ready to let rip with the garden.

My dream, goal, and challenge was to create a modern-day version of my grandmother’s beautiful 60-years-in-the-making arts & craft garden. 11 years on, the structure is finished—or as much as anything in a garden is ever finished. We have divided the three acres with a series of yew hedge-defined rooms, creating herbaceous flower beds, lawns, and a large potager/vegetable garden. We planted two orchards, copious shrubbery, thousands of spring bulbs and enough boxwood topiary for my husband (aka my hedge cutter/topiarist) to threaten divorce. 

Aside from the installation of the larger trees and hedges, we have designed, planted, and continue to do all the maintenance ourselves. Initially this was due to financial constraints but once we really got going, I discovered I truly love the actual practice of gardening. Each year has been a new opportunity not just to learn and grow as a gardener but also, as it turns out, to just grow more…and more…and more. 

Growing up, it was possible not just to tell which month of the year it was, but which week of that month it was by the flowers my grandmother grew and cut from her garden to bring inside. I quickly became obsessed with being able to do the same here. Every year, the seed, bulb, and tuber orders kept escalating. 

Having fast run out of vases of my own and then friends with vases, with the encouragement of a dear farmer friend, I enrolled on the Floret six-week online flower farming course (perhaps the happiest six weeks of my life!) and in the spring of 2021 launched my seasonal flower business, English Garden Grown. Its mission is to spread that same love and appreciation of purely seasonal, garden-grown flowers. I focus mainly on tulips, dahlias, sweet peas, and forced winter bulbs but will also gladly share the joy of any flowers grown and gathered from the garden here.

A Washington Garden Gets its Fairytale Ending

By Tovah Martin

When an ultra-energetic novice gardener waves her magic wand, a Washington landscape gets its fairytale ending.

If Barbara Paul Robinson were the type to roll her eyes, that would be her response when asked how her Washington garden has evolved since she bought the original 20-acre property in 1971 with husband Charlie Raskob Robinson and two babies in tow. She was a New York-based lawyer, Charlie was a banker, and she summed up the property-upon-purchase that became Brush Hill in one succinct word. “It was a wreck.” 

Fortunately, Charlie had gardening in his roots. As for Barbara Paul Robinson, she didn’t know a radish seedling from a pea sprout, but she had enthusiasm to spare. So, they dug into the landscape at a time when gardening wasn’t on everybody’s radar. The “miserable woods” was made spick and span while the tangle of suckered lilacs got their nip and tuck. Eventually, the gravel pit became a pond and the canvas in general was prepped. But those steps were just setting the stage because, simultaneously, Barbara was determined to become a gardener far beyond just juggling the vestiges of old peonies, bearded iris, and spiderwort that remained from the original homestead that they purchased.

Rather than dismissing the property’s sorry past inventory of plants verbatim, Barbara Paul Robinson took some of her cues from the survivors. For example, a sprawling yellow single rose stubbornly remained, which ultimately inspired a rose garden. In fact, the nascent gardener became so deeply submerged that Barbara decided to take a sabbatical from her law firm (by that point, she was a partner in the firm) and follow a friend’s suggestion to briefly work in a great garden. Since the greatest gardens at the time (1991) were in Britain, she contacted two legendary icons—Rosemary Verey and Penelope Hobhouse. Both gratefully invited her to come and get her hands very dirty for a few laborious weeks. Not surprisingly, the experience changed her Litchfield County landscape.

The current landscape is light-years from its original wreckage. Barbara Paul Robinson loves focal points, outdoor drama, and strong old-fashioned plant-filled gardens. She doesn’t do anything by halves and each space is thoughtfully wrought with a theme. For example, when she sent her initial order to Roses of Yesteryear to fill the rose garden, she purchased no fewer than 85 plants. From her British learning spree, she brought back ideas for underplanting with blossoms rather than bedding with boring brown mulch. So a double rose allée is draped in survivor/climbers such as ‘Dortmund,’ ‘New Dawn,’ ‘Henry Kelsey,’ and ‘William Baffin’ as well as rugosas like ‘Therese Bugnet’ and ‘Will Alderman’ is underplanted in forget-me-nots and Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ with self-seeding foxgloves contributing just the right dose of romance. She loves color themes—so the “moon garden” is thus named because it shines in yellow Chamaecyparis and cornus with deep burgundy cordylines and purple smokebush. A serpentine garden planted with tiers of colorful tropicals and annuals traces the curve up a hill. And streaming down the wooded hillside, Charlie installed “Water Works”—a series of 14 interconnecting pools with corresponding waterfalls. Meanwhile, a vintage greenhouse inherited from Charlie’s family furnishes the seedlings that populate the garden while overwintering the tropicals that fill the beds.

Barbara is the plantaholic, but Charlie is the engineer behind the scenes. He is responsible for the one-of-a-kind tuteur/sprinkler towers, mahogany braces for the roses, gates, pergolas, and all the various carpentry projects on the property—each with a vision. In a nutshell, it’s almost impossible to imagine that Brush Hill was once a wreck. Now, it’s everyone’s fondest floral fantasy.

Artist Tina Scepanovic Transformed a 1970s Rectangle into Her Creative Retreat

By Zachary Schwartz

Tina Scepanovic has led multiple lives. The multi-hyphenate studied psychobiology in university, music education in graduate school, and traditional painted finishes in art school. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the ex-strategy consultant and choir founder decided to pursue her art practice full-time. Her Falls Village home turned out to be the perfect art studio.

In 2018, Scepanovic’s family was growing out of their Manhattan apartment. She happened upon an unusual 20 x 60 foot rectangular building in Falls Village from the 1970s. “I came across this house that seemed so promising. It was a modern contemporary style, nothing like what we had seen before,” says Scepanovic. Recognizing a hidden gem, she purchased the home and performed an extensive renovation with Riga Construction and Woodbury Supply, then relocated her family in 2020.

The modern architecture of the two-story home revolves around the nature surrounding it. The forested outdoors can be admired from any vantage point in the home. “It’s a really unique house. It’s completely open. Any living space we have is connected to a view. Everything internal is bathrooms and kitchen. It’s quite an efficient use of space,” says the homeowner.

Scepanovic herself designed the interiors. She was inspired by the earthy golds in the home’s cedar wood walls, Litchfield County’s lichen-embossed trails, and her California upbringing. “I drew from the environment, the palate nearby, and nature to direct design decisions. This was the perfect introduction to interior design because the architecture and the original elements gave me so many clues,” says Scepanovic. Furniture selections include an Uni chandelier, dining room set of Cherner chairs, and sconces by Litchfield-based Dumais Made.

With only two bedrooms in the rectangular home, Scepanovic had to get creative with space. She annexed one of the bathrooms for her art studio where she conceived her premier series, Gobstoppers, on top of the bathtub. “My practice is based in historical finishes, which is an incredibly labor intensive process that is focused on transforming materials into what they are not,” says the artist. “My Gobstoppers collection is very much inspired by the rinse and repeat of lockdown life. They are spheres affixed to a panel in a regular pattern. It’s an abstraction of a calendar. In our time in lockdown, we had become completely unmoored from external references from time. It was a way of tracking time.”

Scepanovic’s move to Falls Village not only inspired her output, but also informed her creative process. “Since being in Litchfield, I’ve been on this mission to completely switch out my oil-based materials for water-based materials. It made me conscious of what I was washing down the drain,” says the artist. This eco-conscious approach extended to her next conceptual series using reclaimed glass and found materials. This abstract collection, titled You Always! You Never, is inspired by imperfect expectations in domestic relationships.

As Tina Scepanovic’s artistic practice evolves, she is an artist to keep an eye on. And with an inspiring residence, her oeuvre is certain to flourish. —tinascepanovic.com

A Brief History of Litchfield Apples

By Gavi Klein

There was a time in Litchfield when it was considered a poor decision to buy a home that did not come with its very own orchard. A lofty goal, in today’s economy, but back in colonial times, Litchfielders and beyond—most of New England, in fact—depended on the production of fruit trees to live. Curiously, the culprit driving the widespread production of fruit and apples was the lack of safe water in New England at the time; water sources were often contaminated and unsafe to drink, so a reliable solution became to forgo those questionable fluids altogether, and turn to cider, instead. “They would plant large enough orchards so that there would be 50 gallons per person in storage for their use throughout the year,” says Peter Montgomery, a Litchfield orchard-expert and orchard tender himself. “When you look at Litchfield County, everyone that had a colonial property had fruit trees.” With the coming of safe water systems and filtration, many of these Litchfield trees have since died off. Apple picking, of course, remains a beloved New England fall tradition, but it is clearly nothing like it was back in the day. Montgomery aims to bring about a renaissance of orchards in Litchfield. He strives to empower people to revive their orchards, and maybe even take up cider-making, just like our colonial ancestors before us.

Montgomery Gardens, LLC

Supporting Education and Outreach

By Gavi Klein

Photo credit: Courtesy of the Eric Sloane Museum

Perched along the banks of the Housatonic River in Kent is the stunning site of the Eric Sloane Museum. The eponymous Sloane (1905-1985), long-time Connecticut author, artist and Colonial expert, is perhaps best known for his landscape paintings, capturing the serene beauty of New England. The museum grounds include a full size model of an authentic 19th-century home, the Noah Blake Cabin, which is a reference from Diary of an Early American Boy, one of Sloane’s 38 books. Much of his oeuvre centers on his extensive knowledge of Colonial times, from tools, to agricultural techniques, to folklore and beyond; the museum also houses Sloane’s impressive collection of early American tools. The museum’s education and outreach efforts are supported by the group the Friends of the Eric Sloane Museum, who aim to help preserve and interpret Sloane’s work for generations to come. “For over 50 years, the Eric Sloane Museum has been a Litchfield County landmark for history and the arts,” says Andrew Roland, Museum Curator & Administrator. “The museum honors the legacy of artist and author Eric Sloane through interactive programs and exhibits designed to encourage every visitor to be thinkers, makers, artists, and agents of positive action.” The museum’s importance is such that it is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and marked as a State Archaeological Preserve.

By Clementina Verge

Cathy Fields, executive director of Litchfield Historical Society, is retiring this June, reflecting with gratitude on a rewarding 35-year career.

Under her leadership, the museum experienced major renovations and a growing collection including up to 30,000 objects highlighting the social and cultural history of the town since its inception in 1719. 

Fields directed the reinterpretation of Tapping Reeve House and Litchfield Law School, which offers an interactive journey through the 19th century life of a student at Litchfield Law School—the Nation’s first law school—or Litchfield Female Academy. She also oversaw construction of the 5-acre Tapping Reeve Meadow, a historically-inspired community garden.

“I have loved every minute of being here and I am proud that the Historical Society has become a true community resource over my tenure,” she contemplates. “Litchfield has a great history and with the Law School we have the opportunity to tell a unique national story. In our exhibitions, programs, and research—all the work we do—we use documents, buildings, landscapes, stories, and literature to engage visitors and give them a greater understanding and appreciation of their history along with a sense of place—whether that place is Litchfield, New England, or the United States. We are in a strong position now and I can’t wait to see the ways in which my successor moves the organization forward.”

Finding Freedom with Just Hands

By Cynthia Hochswender

When Torsten Gross moved to Sharon in 2019, he found a local culture that beautifully suits his own personality: An individualist who goes his own way and always likes to win, he is also a community builder. In Litchfield County, he has found a place where everyone kind of goes their own way — but will also always stop to offer a helping hand.

“Life is a team sport,” Gross says.”I strive to be number one because of the people around me. It’s important to me that we do it together.”

To some degree, it was his career in creating marketing strategies at firms such as J. Walter Thompson and Deloitte Consulting that taught him to gently build consensus. (Gross is now Global Head of Advertising and Media for TCS, the largest company in India.)  

Or maybe it was his innate understanding that life can be hard, and the road is easier when we drive together. Gross has, perhaps, more insight into this than the average person. As a quadriplegic since the age of 15, it has been a goal of his life to be independent. Part of the complexity of Torsten Gross is that going alone has made him even more appreciative of the benefits of working with others.

This is one of the reasons he has come to love Litchfield County.

“Whether you’re disabled or not, this is a community where people want to reach out to each other,” he says. “Mine happens to be a more visible ‘help,’ but…we all need help in different ways.”

Gross and his wife, Maggie, built a weekend escape from city living just before COVID, purchasing a multi-acre parcel on which they built a custom home with the help of Salisbury master builder Rick McCue. Once COVID hit, they made the move permanently—and love it.

Two years later, as quarantine lifted, it was Maggie who realized that race car driving was a perfect hobby for her high-adrenaline husband (who was already into skydiving and SCUBA diving). She purchased a track day experience for him at Lime Rock Park, and he immediately fell in love with performance driving.

While speed is part of the attraction, Gross explains what sets this sport apart from others: “It’s the only sport that allows me to be completely equal with able-bodied people,” he says. “When I’m in a car, no one knows I use a wheelchair.”

To help other drivers who use hand controls to experience the freedom of track driving, he created the Just Hands Foundation, which provides track cars and guidance to novice drivers with disabilities.

“We had our first Just Hands Foundation driver in May 2022,” he says. “Since then we’ve had a wait list of two years, solely built through word of mouth.”

Soon, an even larger audience will learn about the foundation, thanks to media opportunities that have come Gross’ way. He’s promoting just-hands driving in commercials (one for Pennzoil aired this spring) and is shooting a television series about his racing for Amazon Prime. Just Hands already has cars in Belgium and Germany, with one coming soon in Austria. Gross also continues to race, and drove the Foundation car at Lime Rock Park’s season opener in May.

For help with his own racing, Gross credits Autosport in Sharon, and Hairy Dog Garage in Southington.

“I’m honored to have the help of others who are passionate about the mission, from large companies like Pennzoil to tracks like Lime Rock Park to my board of volunteers. I’ve got an amazing team.” —justhandsfoundation.org

Cerulean Warblers Migrate

By Brandee Coleman Gilmore

This time of year, way up in the treetops of our Litchfield Hills, small, strikingly-blue birds called Cerulean Warblers are breeding and nursing their young. Like some of our readers, these winged miracles spend their summers here before jetting off to warmer climates—in the Cerulean Warbler’s case, all the way to the eastern slopes of the Andes in South America. Their migrations are treacherous, especially during a stint across the Gulf of Mexico’s vast waters. For a host of reasons, the Cerulean Warblers’ numbers have been in a decades-long decline, but a new tool at the Sharon Audubon is part of an effort to ensure their survival. A 34-foot ‘Motus’ tower, installed last August, is part of a global network of towers receiving signals from tagged birds up to 10 miles away. Each new tower closes a gap in the migratory matrix scientists are studying about the Cerulean Warbler and other threatened species.

Another bird conservation project underway April 1 through May 31 is one anyone can join. The ‘Lights Out CT’ effort is simple—residents and businesses are asked to turn off unnecessary exterior building lights between 11 pm and 6 am. Billions of migratory birds travel through Connecticut along what’s known as the ‘Atlantic Flyway.’ They tend to do so at night, when it’s calmer and safer in the sky. However, light pollution can interfere causing the birds to crash and, all too often, die. The effort resumes during the fall peak migration from September to November.

Protecting Natural Resources

By Clementina Verge

With a long-standing history of safeguarding the region’s natural resources, Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy protects 21 nature preserves, more than 160 wildlife sanctuaries, and 41 working farms. Now, Connecticut’s largest land trust has a new board president to oversee its future endeavors.

Margery Feldberg’s appointment follows the tenure of Hiram P. Williams under whose “tireless advocacy” some 28,000 acres were preserved, she relates. Of 633,000 acres in Litchfield County, 143,000 are protected.The work, however, is far from over; NCLC aspires to meet the “30 x 30” global conservation initiative to protect 30 percent of the earth’s lands and waters by 2030. The goal requires another 47,000 acres, a task Feldberg recognizes as both “daunting and doable.”

“It will require a collective effort,” explains Feldberg, who previously served 10 years as director of a Colorado land trust. “Specific groups are passionate about different things: wildlife, vistas, recreation, hiking, climate change, or food security. Land conservation is a tactic that covers all these concerns, and my commitment is to continue and advance our efforts to preserve land.”

Feldberg’s passion for conservancy and farming began long before her appointment to the NCLC board. In 1983, while searching for a weekend retreat, a non-working dairy farm in New Milford “spoke to her soul.” In 1987, the cows literally came home and De Hoek Farm, a breeder and purveyor of Angus beef, was established. Feldberg and her husband, Jeremy Levin, expanded their property to more than 100 acres, and in 2007, they partnered with their neighbor and NCLC to protect 400 acres adjacent to their farm.

Impressed by NCLC’s commitment, Feldberg joined its board. With nearly 60 years of proven advocacy, NCLC is the 13th largest conservancy in the United States. Feldberg acknowledges Litchfield County’s 22 “town conservancies as vital” because of local knowledge, but notes that “a regional approach means the sharing of more resources.”

This is crucial in a region centrally located in a multi-state wildlife corridor connecting the Hudson Highlands to Vermont’s Green Mountains, providing 3,000 acres of land and water habitats for some 320 rare, endangered, and threatened species. 

Litchfield County’s outdoor spaces have long been inviting, but especially since the Covid pandemic, increased growth and developer interest is contributing to the urgency of conservation, Feldberg emphasizes, and individual groups must become allies in preserving land that is increasingly in demand. Sprawling farms are especially vulnerable.

“Farms were already having a difficult time operating profitably pre-Covid and now they are targeted by increased developer interest as more people have learned of the area’s appeal,” Feldberg notes.

She admonishes others to join the effort of safeguarding the region’s beauty and heritage. 

“We need ambassadors, advocates, people in a position to grant easement or donate land,” she declares. “Open space is vital for clean water, recreation, vistas, and everything we hold dear, and we must quicken the pace of protecting it. This is critical, because once the land is lost, it’s forever gone.” —ctland.org

Historian Unearths Surprising ‘Level of Dissent’ in Litchfield County

By Linda Tuccio-Koonz

Peter Vermilyea was burning some energy on a run when a time-worn tombstone caught his eye as he passed the old cemetery on his route. It set him on a new path—a journey toward the days of the Civil War. 

“It’s in West Cemetery, the cemetery in Litchfield that I run by almost every day,” he says. “There’s one stone that marks the grave of three brothers; Wadhams is their last name.” 

Vermilyea, a historian and author, wanted to learn more about the sibling soldiers. That old tombstone led to new research, now part of an eye-opening book project on how northern communities responded to the war over slavery.

“Those three brothers, all three were killed in a ten-day span, culminating in the battle of Cold Harbor (Virginia),” says Vermilyea, who wanted to know how a community dealt with such tragedy.

“At Cold Harbor there were 141 men from Litchfield County killed in about an hour. That’s the question I started researching: How do you deal with that?”

“I started down that road but got wrapped up in the story of sending them off in the first place.”

Vermilyea, who teaches history at Housatonic Valley Regional High School in Falls Village, and for the University of Connecticut, scoured everything from diaries to newspapers, including the recently digitized Litchfield Enquirer. What he uncovered was surprising, even to him.

“There’s a popular narrative that the northern communities rallied around the flag when the war began, and I was very surprised at the level of dissent that existed in Litchfield County.”

Mobs on the streets made threats against those who opposed the war. There were even armed standoffs.

“There was a farmer in Goshen, whose last name was Palmer, who flew a pro-Confederate flag at his house. People formed a posse, marched to his farm and demanded that the flag be taken down. Some accounts talk about shots being fired.”

Much like today, it was “an incredibly complicated time,” he says, of the war years, 1861-1865. 

Vermilyea’s manuscript (he’s in talks with publishers) is unique in its focus—a three-month period from July to September 1862, with equal emphasis on recruits and civilians.

Yes, there were people who wanted to serve and rushed off to enlist, people who opposed the war, and people who enlisted because of the draft, or the money. 

But it was more nuanced than that, he says, especially regarding those who enlisted for pay. They weren’t all mercenaries. “Some had fallen on hard times, were providing for families, and could not afford to leave. When the money offered to them to join the army reached a certain point, it became economically viable to act on their patriotism.” 

Looking at the big picture, Vermilyea says communities were faced with an unprecedented challenge.

“They had to raise 2,000 men at a time when the war wasn’t going well for the Union and when the realities of war, in terms of death and disease, were on the front page of the paper every week. And they did it. They raised about 2,000 men in a period of about two and a half months, an extraordinary effort.”

About Peter Vermilyea: 
His earlier books, Hidden History of Litchfield County and Wicked Litchfield County, were born from his blog, Hidden in Plain Sight. The idea, he says, “is that we can learn so much about our area’s history if we’re willing to become explorers, to kick some leaves aside to see an old foundation, to walk an old road bed, to consider the names of roads, etc… And to a certain extent that is the root of my current project as well, going back to that grave in the cemetery.