Newtown Woman’s Club is ready to begin sales of its newest pewter Christmas ornament. The 2015 ornament — which has once again been produced by Woodbury Pewterers, Inc — depicts Newtown Hall at Fairfield Hills.

The building was one of three that stood at the entrance to the state psychiatric hospital when it opened in June 1933. The cornerstone of the first complex of buildings was laid in June 1931, 18 months after Dr Waldo Desmond, an authority on mental health, managed to convince Newtown’s residents that a third hospital was needed in the state for the treatment of the mentally ill.

Dr Desmond told a large audience during a December 1928 town meeting that such a hospital would be built in western Connecticut, and that “it was in their best interest since many of them would, at one time in their life, need its services,” according to a brief history of the building written by Newtown Historian Daniel Cruson. Each ornament is sold in a clear plastic bag, and accompanied by a copy of the town historian’s write-up.

Fairfield Hills, Mr Cruson said, was “on the cutting edge of psychiatry for the time. Rather than a grouping of buildings with a restrictive institutional atmosphere, Fairfield Hills was to be open and campuslike, with no bars on the windows nor attendants who appeared to be guards.”

The entrance to the campus was a configuration of three building around “a wide verdant green,” Mr Cruson wrote. “At the south end facing the entering visitor was Shelton Hall, which served as a large treatment building. To the left [east] was Woodbury Hall, which served as a residence for the female nursing staff, and standing on the west side, across from Woodbury Hall, was Newtown Hall, which was the main administrative building.”

At its peak in the 1960s, Fairfield Hills had a population of 2,800 people, “all of whom were administered at Newtown Hall,” Mr Cruson pointed out.

The Newtown Hall ornament will be available for purchase for the first time this year during the Labor Day Parade. On Monday, September 7, Project Chair Mary Antey will have a table set up in front of C.H. Booth Library, at 25 Main Street. She will be selling ornaments to paradegoers that morning and early afternoon.

Launched in 1988 featuring the town’s rooster weathervane as designed by Lorraine VanderWende, the Woman’s Club Christmas Ornament Project is an ongoing fundraiser for the club. Proceeds from the sale of the ornament are donated by the club to local civic organizations.

Mrs VanderWende and Mrs Antey co-chaired the ornament project until the death of Mrs VanderWende in October 2014. Mrs Antey continues to chair the project.

Ornaments are $10 each.

Following Labor Day, they will be available at the library; the town clerk’s office at Newtown Municipal Center, 3 Primrose Street; Queen Street Gifts & Treats, 3 Queen Street; and the office of The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road.

In addition, Walgreens, at 49 South Main Street, will begin selling the ornament after Thanksgiving.

Earlier ornaments have included Edmond Town Hall, The Budd House, C.H. Booth Library, the former Hawleyville Post Office building, The Little Theatre, Middle Gate District School 1850, Newtown Meeting House, Newtown Middle School, Newtown General Store, The Yankee Drover, and even the logo of The Newtown Bee, among others. Last year’s ornament memorialized the Dayton Street bridge in Sandy Hook.

Previous ornaments are available at C.H. Booth Library, and are also $10 each.