Welcome to New Canaan, CT

County: Fairfield
Population: 19,600
Square Miles: 22.5
Government: Selectman
Distance to Major Cities:
Boston: 153 miles
Hartford: 62 miles
New York City: 38 miles

New Canaan, CT is a unique town, replete with natural beauty and quaint charm. Conveniently located 8 miles northeast of downtown Stamford— a major financial center—New Canaan retains its small-town sensibility. It’s affectionately known as “The Next Station to Heaven.” One of the most affluent communities in the United States, CNN Money ranked New Canaan first in the nation with the highest median family income in 2008. The downtown area offers a robust shopping experience from one-of-a-kind boutiques to award-winning restaurants. Another hallmark of the town is its first-rate school system. The New Canaan public schools are considered to be one of the best in Connecticut. New Canaan recorded the highest SAT’s scores in the state. A recent edition of Forbes magazine rated New Canaan as the third-ranked district in the United States “for home value” for communities with a median home price of $800,000. New Canaan is served by the Merritt Parkway, and has two Metro-North commuter railroad stations– downtown and Talmadge Hill. Both stations are a branch of the New Haven Line. Travel time to Grand Central Terminal in New York City is approximately one hour.

New Canaan’s historic past can be seen in the hundreds of antique homes which have been preserved throughout the town. Nothing conveys the sense of history better than a visit to the Roger Sherman Inn, known for its scenic atmosphere and fine gourmet dining. New Canaan was an important center of the modern design movement starting in the late 1940s through the 1960s. Prominent architects known as the “Harvard Five” built 80 renowned modern homes in New Canaan. These internation-ally acclaimed architects chose New Canaan as their place of residence as well as the drawing board for their creations.. Most notable is the” Glass House” by Philip Johnson, which is now part of the National Trust of Historic Preservation, and draws tourists from all across America and around the world. Several homes by Frank Lloyd Wright and Elliot Noyes also dot the New Canaan landscape.

Pastoral Waveny Park, 300 acres developed in 1912 by Lewis Lapham, is the site of the annual Fourth of July celebration, which draws thousands of New Canaanites, as well as housing the Lapham Community Center, the Carriage Barn Art Gallery, the Powerhouse Theater, and hiking and cross-country ski trails, soccer fields, paddle-tennis courts, and the Olympic-sized New Canaan Town Pool. Recreational facilities are also found at the newly-renovated New Canaan YMCA, the beach at Kiwanis Park, baseball fields and tennis courts at Mead Park, and hiking and cross-country ski trails at the New Canaan Nature Center and Irwin Park.

New Canaan has many unique real estate opportunities from new construction to luxury condos in areas such as New Canaan center, The four Ridges—Ponus, Oenoke, Smith , and Brushy Ridge—as well as Talmadge Hill and Silvermine.

New Canaan, CT History

In 1731, Connecticut’s colonial legislature established Canaan Parish as a religious entity in northwestern Norwalk and north-eastern Stamford. The right to form a Congregational church was granted to the few families scattered through the area. As in-habitants 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. 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. 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 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. “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.