Holiday Festival, Including Historic Homes Tour, Returns This Weekend
When the Newtown Holiday Festival returns to Main Street on Sunday, people of all ages looking for some holiday-themed fun should be able to find something that appeals to them.
The festival runs from 11 am until 4 pm, rain, shine, or light snow. It is one of the final events in a weekend that has come to open the holiday season in Newtown. Friday night will see the lighting of the tree at Ram Pasture. Saturday will be filled with events across town, from greens sales and a pancake breakfast to the lighting of a tree in Sandy Hook Center that evening. In addition to the Holiday Festival on Sunday, the weekend will close with the lighting of a third tree, this time in Hawleyville.
The Holiday Festival, anchored at Edmond Town Hall, 45 Main Street, offers a little bit of everything under one roof.
Newtown Savings Bank is again the major sponsor of the five-hour festival, which benefits Newtown Youth & Family Services (NYFS). The town’s oldest bank is also sponsoring one of the festival’s events, the Holiday Tea. Formerly called the Victorian Tea, organizers have renamed the refreshments break in Edmond Town Hall’s Alexandria Room but will continue to offer mulled apple cider, tea, and plenty of homemade treats for the enjoyment of all ticket-holders. Live music will again be performed on the room’s stage.
The Holiday Festival will also feature additional returning favorites: a Gingerbread House Contest, The Festival of Trees, and performances from The Nutcracker Suite.
Entries for this year’s Gingerbread House Contest will be displayed in the town hall’s gymnasium. Judging will take place by 3:30, with winners to be announced once completed.
Students from Newtown Centre of Classical Ballet will offer performances of The Nutcracker Suite in the town hall’s theater at noon and 2 pm.
Historic Trolley Rides, which debuted last year, are also back. Town Historian Dan Cruson has agreed to again offer narration of the trolley tours.
Kaitlyn Johnson, the community coordinator for NYFS, said Holiday Festival guests last year “really, really loved that new offering.
“Dan really goes into a lot of detail, and people enjoy that as well,” she added. “It’s really nice to be able to see the houses and hear about them. We love giving people options. They can walk, ride, or both.”
There are no reservations for the trolley tours; seats will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. The 30-minute tours will depart from and return to the town hall at 11:15 am, and 12:15, 2 and 3 pm.
After a one-year hiatus, the very popular Historic House Tour is back. Four homes on Main Street and one on East Street, all decorated by a local designer and their team, will be open for ticket-holders.
“Absent from last year’s event,” Ms Johnson said, “the community spoke and we listened.”
New additions for Sunday include a Yankee Candle sale, a Scholastic Books sale, and The Frozen Frenzy.
The Yankee Candle sale and the Scholastic Books sale will be presented in the town hall’s gymnasium, along with the Festival of Trees. The latter is moving, said Ms Johnson, from its longstanding location at C.H. Booth Library into larger quarters because of its popularity. The gymnasium, she said, will allow more space for the presentation of decorated trees, wreaths, and other items donated by local businesses, organizations, families, and individuals.
Trees are of various shapes and sizes, both live and artificial, including ceramic, wood, and even stuffed. Most decorated trees have themes. All are won through raffle. Tickets will be available during the festival, and winners will be announced at 4:15. Money raised through the sale of raffle tickets will also benefit NYFS.
At The Frozen Frenzy, which will begin at noon, children will have the chance to make a craft based on the popular Disney movie, enjoy a Frozen-inspired snack, play games, sing karaoke, and even meet some of the characters. There are no age restrictions, and costumes are certainly welcome.
In addition, The Jingle Bell Jam — another new Holiday Festival event — will be performed Saturday, December 6, at 7 pm, in the Alexandria Room of Edmond Town Hall. The concert will feature favorite holiday tunes performed by Goldrush.
Admission to The Jingle Bell Jam will be a separate $10 ticket purchase, which can be done in advance or at the door. Those who attend Jingle Bell Jam can then take their ticket stub to the festival on Sunday and receive reduced admission of $5 off an adult ticket.
Holiday Festival tickets are $10 for individuals and $25 for families (two adults, two children). Each additional child is $5.
Tickets are available at Everything Newtown, 61 Church Hill Road; and Newtown Savings Bank locations at 39 Main Street and 228 South Main Street (Sand Hill Plaza) in Newtown, 68 Stony Hill Road in Bethel, and 99 Federal Road in Brookfield.
Jingle Bell Jam tickets are available at the Newtown Savings Bank locations mentioned above, as well as NYFS headquarters, 15 Berkshire Road.
Holiday Festival tickets will also be on sale on December 7 at Edmond Town Hall.
Newtown Youth & Family Services is dedicated to helping children and families achieve their highest potential. The nonprofit agency combines clinical services and positive youth development programs to provide a continuum of care to residents of the greater Newtown area.
NYFS is the designated mental health clinic for Newtown/Sandy Hook. It is licensed by the Department of Children & Families as an outpatient psychiatric clinic for children and by the Department of Public Health as a psychiatric outpatient clinic for adults and as a facility for the care or treatment of substance abusive or dependent persons.
NYFS is accredited by the Council on Accreditation.
House Tour Details
Following are descriptions of the locations included in this year’s Historic House Tour. Entry is included with Holiday Festival tickets.
30 Main Street
‘The Scudder Building’
Constructed in 1852, this brick, two-story building was the original Town Clerk’s Office and Probate Court for the Town of Newtown. Residents held meetings on the second floor.
The stout, compact red-brick structure also served as Newtown’s library until shortly after 1900, the year Rebecca Beach donated money for a library to be built further north along Main Street.
The building is currently owned by Newtown Bee Publisher R. Scudder Smith. Mr Smith used the first floor of the building as a library, open to the public one day a week, for his collection of antique reference books. The Antiques Reference Library was established in the brick building by The Bee Publishing Company in 1990, three years after Mr Smith purchased it.
The collection of approximately 3,000 volumes was eventually moved across the street to C.H. Booth Library in December 2002, after the town library’s expansion.
Shortly after that, the building housed was leased by the New England Naturopathic Medical Center. Since 2012, the building has housed the offices of the Walter Pachniuk, CFP and The Advisers Trust, LLC.
54 Main Street
The house at 54 Main Street was built circa 1890. It is significant as a finely detailed example of the Queen Anne style of relatively modest, residential architecture. It is important as an example of the architectural evolution of construction periods for Main Street.
It is asymmetric in form with a one-bay, gable-roofed projection facing the street. The house rests on a high mortared, random-block, stone foundation. It has a two-bay façade with a one-story porch with pedimented entry supported by four, turned columns lying across its full width.
The house has had just four owners in its history. Current owner Diane Thompson and her husband Chip Leonard have been giving the house and property — just shy of half an acre — a much needed renovation for much of this year.
The two-story home, according to town records, has 2,080-square feet of living area, including four bedrooms and three bathrooms. A spacious foyer is joined by a dining room, sitting room and kitchen; the latter now features a new porch off the back of the house and bump-out space the accommodate modern appliances, added within the past few months.
Ms Thompson has tried to keep the house as traditional as possible, she told The Newtown Bee in September, but did decide to not splurge on details that a buyer might want to change. The attic, however, now has a heating and cooling unit, closets, a bathroom (a new addition to the house), storage and a widened staircase.
74 Main Street
‘Hillbrow’
A colonial Georgian house built about 1720, the home at 74 Main Street is a fine example of pre-Revolutionary architecture that has been restored and well preserved by its current owners. The landmark blue house is one of the oldest surviving Georgians in the state.
The land the house sits on was acquired by John Blackman in 1715. The house itself was built by Ebenezer Blackman, and was passed down through the Blackman family. In the mid-1700s the house was acquired by Ziba Blakeslee, the Newtown clockmaker silversmith and bell founder.
The house’s deed calls it “Head of Main Street” due to its location at the top of Main Street, where many original Newtown settlers lived. Early owners called the house “Hillbrow” because of its location on the brow of the hill. They had a granite marker engraved with “Hillbrow” included in the front steps by the rock wall.
The house has two very unusual features: rare side-by-side beehive ovens at the rear of the huge fireplace which helps date the house, and a curved entry staircase that splits in two directions on the second level, leading to the front and back halls and continuing to the third floor.
The legend of Hillbrow is one of the town’s favorite ghost stories. The ghost of a dead Tory reportedly haunts the home. Longtime owners Dorethy and Richard Mulligan have told The Bee over the years that it has been a friendly ghost.
Apparently while French soldiers under Rochambeau’s command were in town during the Revolutionary War, they fell under the spell of the odor of fresh-baked bread emanating from the home and demanded a share of the food.
When the elderly homeowner refused to share, the French — already enraged at encountering a Tory — chased and harassed the sickly man around Main Street. The man, who was only dressed in nightclothes, collapsed upon returning home and died soon after. It is his ghost that continues to live at Hillbrow.
In addition to its longstanding history, Hillbrow has a recent claim to fame.
For eight years, from 2001 until 2008, huge spiders created of Styrofoam, glue, packing foam, wires and paint were used to scare children of all ages who scampered across the front lawn and up the historic steps of the house on Halloween. Screeches followed by laughter could be heard from yards away, as Charlotte (and then Elton) zoomed from the front roofline of the house, over a web created of clothesline, and came to a fast stop, only to repeat the run a few minutes later.
4 East Street
This house, according to Newtown records, was built in 1840. It was originally a carriage house, housing horse carriages and tack. The horses may have also been housed here as well as hay.
Town records seem to indicate that it was originally a carriage house to the Budd House at 50 Main Street. The records further indicate that the parcel of land with the building was deeded from Florence Budd to Rhea and Dorothy Irvin for the sum of $1. This was recorded in the town hall on October 24, 1947. It appears to have been converted to living quarters soon after that time.
The Irvins resided in this home until 1968. George and Millicent Dobson purchased the home in 1968 and resided in it until 1987. That year it was purchased by James, Robert, and Timothy Currier, who operated a book bindery and a tile-making business in the basement.
The present owners bought the house in 1996. The house was damaged in November 2011, when the barn in the adjacent lot at 46 Main Street burned down. Flames from that fire spread to part of the East Street home. It has since been repaired.
The house is a cape with a gambrel roof. There is a courtyard in the rear between the two sides of the house.