At 197 Huntingtown Road, right on the Newtown-Monroe line, lies Sticks and Stones Farm. The property is unlike any other in town: 60 acres of open space filled with quiet cabins, a mile and a half of winding roads, and trees that tower over fields of moss.

All of those roads were paved by Tim Currier, who purchased the property in 1975. Now, after over five decades with Sticks and Stones, Currier is looking to pass the torch to preserve the property and ensure it remains undisturbed open space.

Currier grew up in Fairfield County, but he did not expect to stay. Ever the free spirit, he joined the Peace Corps in 1968 as a teacher in Malaysia. He went on to spend time in Southeast Asia and Europe, doing stonework here and there along the way.

"It's remarkably the same no matter where you are," Currier explained.

This concept was the real start to Sticks and Stones Farm.

Currier returned to New England and started homesteading in the early 1970s, a practice in which people would work on their own property and turn it into a self-sustaining operation.

While many in this line of work traveled to places such as Arkansas and Vermont, Currier got busy doing stonework and had family in the Connecticut area, so he stayed.

This led him to buy Sticks and Stones from local resident Dave Steinfeld in 1975. Currier originally bought 19 acres of land, but added to it periodically. The property now includes 60 acres of sprawling woods, 20 acres of landlocked land, 20 acres of sheer rock cliff, and 20 acres of comprised meadows not suitable for development.

It started as a mostly "worthless" area with a bunch of glacial rocks dumped across it. However, Currier diligently took care of it over the years.

He added a mile and a half of sprawling roads to get from one area to another. He also built several sited cabins on the property out of sustainable and reclaimed materials such as giant tulip tree logs and old doors and windows. Among these other additions are a stone garden and several rustic kitchens.

Sticks and Stones is not only spacious, it is incredibly tall. The very top of its sprawling hillside is 450 feet up from the road, or 700 feet above sea level. All of Currier's additions — the cabins, small campsites, charcoal pits, composting toilets, and more — are dotted throughout the space.

Moss Man

With plentiful rocks and shade, Currier started growing and selling moss on the property in 1992. A 2007 New York Times article, "Rooted in a Moss-Covered Domain," called Sticks and Stones the "oldest moss farm in the country."

He sowed his moss by scaling a hillside and painting rocks with batches of "mudshakes" — a slurry of moss spores and fragments blended with soil.

Currier calls the area of the property dedicated to growing moss Moss Mountain. Over the years, Currier has used this moss to do instillations in private homes and miniature Zen gardens in stone troughs.

He grows 21 species of moss at Sticks and Stones. All of them are shade moss, which means they grow in the forest.

The forest at Sticks and Stones, which is 100 years old, has a lot of shade that is perfect for growing moss. The moss grows on leaf mulch, which is leaves that decompose in the forest. Currier said the mulch is six inches thick and very acidic because it is oak.

"And moss loves it," Currier said. "But you have to keep it maintained. There's a lot of forest that would grow moss if someone went out and blew the leaves off. Most people blow leaves only because they don't want it because it'll kill their lawns, I blow the new leaf off so that moss will grow."

Currier continued by saying a person needs moss to grow moss. Moss has no root and, in turn, grows entirely through spores. This means he has to keep the moss free of logs, twigs, and other material to grow it.

As a moss farmer, Currier said stone is just hard soil to him, "so hard that you call it a rock."

He continued, "The only reason people buy stones from me is because of what is growing on it. We don't dump our stones. We don't scratch our stones. We treat them the same way a nursery would treat any plant."

Currier said he sells one stone at a time, noting that the property is not a quarry.

Open Land, Open Heart

Sticks and Stones is more than just a moss and stone farm.

From the get-go, Currier wanted to develop the property so that it was working open space. There are already places with open space such as town parks.

"But it's not like playing in your own backyard, making forts, playing in the river, and having little cookout fires," Currier explained. "All those things can happen [at Sticks and Stones], whereas with public lands, it's usually more regulated."

In this sense, Currier felt the property would be more valuable as open space than residential space. He intentionally kept Sticks and Stones private over the years for this very reason, allowing it to be "a little more of a free spirit."

He added, "For most developers, when we say that word, it means, 'Oh, you build houses.' Well, I'm a developer that develops land to be open space."

To that end, Currier has worked with local nonprofits to make Sticks and Stones a quaint but lively open space.

"I don't have the time to do all these things, so I try to find nonprofits, or whomever to fulfill those goals that I've always had," Currier said.

One of these nonprofits is Real Food CT, Inc, which grows its own food and sources level A produce from other local farms and distributes it to local food pantries. Another is Love Has a Home Here, which offers diverse events and programs designed to foster deeper connections with oneself, nature, and others.

The last is Two Coyotes Wilderness School, a nature mentoring organization that provides long-term, nature-based mentoring to hundreds of children every year.

"You know, the kids come by, and you know when they're out playing because you can hear their voices ... Even when we're working down here on the road, that's what you hear up there," Currier said.

He wants people to see Sticks and Stones not as a campground so much as a rustic retreat, farm, and open space for the community.

Roots

Currier considers Sticks and Stones his life's work, and has spoken about it to numerous publications over the years, including The Fairfield County Times, Connecticut Cottages & Gardens, and The New York Times, among others.

In these many articles, Currier has been described as the "Moss Man of Newtown," "the most eccentric niche farmer in the state," and a "rolling stone who gathers moss."

Currier simply sees himself as a man who wants Sticks and Stones to thrive.

"I know the property so well because I have been working with it for so long," Currier said. "It is a historical monument to nature ... It’s undisturbed and remains undisturbed."

That said, Currier's current mission is to secure Sticks and Stones so that it will go on when he is no longer around; his three children have decided they do not want the property.

Currier would like to try and get two or three more nonprofits to start using the space, as he believes they could have more projects going on there.

"But that will happen if it happens," Currier said. "Right now, I'm trying to get the property so that it will be in a trust and go on."

Currier said he is also in the process of making Sticks and Stones more zoning compliant. However, he called this a very big undertaking.

"It's very important that I get it to go through ... If it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be, but I'd hate to see the property just sold right for whatever type of development," Currier explained.

He hoped to be in front of the Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission by the end of this spring. Currier has been told that, if they go about it with the right legal approach, the commission would be happy to put aside a space like Sticks and Stones.

The issue, he said, is that Sticks and Stones is residentially zoned territory. Theoretically, Currier said, Two Coyotes is not allowed to do what they do on the property. He added that P&Z only wishes Sticks and Stones was more compliant and had permission "to have a camp there."

Currier continued, "What we want to do we've been doing forever. There's no work that has to really be done here. It's all done. We just want it to be able to continue."

He hopes that the greater Newtown community will continue to be supportive of the property the way they have in the past. Currier still remembers after the historic storm in August of 2024, when local residents banded together and helped clean up Sticks and Stones.

The property was hit hard; a dam near a stream that runs through the property burst and sent a wall of water towards the front of the property, and the gravel was pushed from one level of the parking area to the other. One of the rental cabins at the property also got destroyed.

Currier saw everyone work hard with rakes and other equipment, trying to put everything back where it once was. It is this community that Currier wants to make sure Sticks and Stones remains in place for.

Even so, for Currier, who will turn 80 later this year, he does still worry about its future.

"When you get to be 80 years old, you never really know how much longer you have," Currier said.

Sticks and Stones Farm is always open for hiking; all visitors should use the 201 Huntingtown Road driveway. For any questions, text Tim Currier at 808-640-5540.

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.