On a Saturday night when most restaurants in Westport are booked solid — believe me, I tried to get reservations at several — Bravo appears to be out of the running.
An alert “0688o” reader found the door locked, and this scene inside:
If the food was anything like I enjoyed when it first opened, that’s too bad.
If the service was anything like the last two times I was there, I’m not surprised.
Geeks are cool.
Up to 10,000 science, math, music, robotics, environment, agriculture, art, drone, woodworking, etc. geeks — of all ages, genders, and from more than 100 miles away — descended on Westport today.
The 5th annual Mini Maker Faire made our town the center of the creative universe — okay, the creative region.
Demonstrations, exhibits, games, food — it was all there, at the Westport Library and Jesup Green.
It continues all afternoon (Saturday, April 30), until 4 p.m. There may still be time to get your geek on!
Outside the main tent, a “human foosball” game was played. As in many real soccer games, the goalie is bored.
A Maker Faire luthier introduces a young boy to the wonders of music.
A father and son bond over physics.
A self-proclaimed Kool Nerd.
Indoors and out, the Maker Faire took over the Westport Library and Jesup Green.
Among the exhibitors. Norwalk Hospital volunteers offered free CPR training.
Some youngsters found a way to “make” their own fun.
Posted in Arts, Children, Downtown, Education, Environment, Library, technology
Tagged Jesup Green, Westport Library, Westport Mini Maker Faire
Normally, news that a Kings Highway Elementary School Girl Scout troop has created 24 “lily pad” seats for pediatric cancer patients would not be blog-worthy.
It’s nice, sure. You go, girls! But big enough news to share with thousands of “06880” readers?
It is. That’s because Richard Lytle — a celebrated artist whose work hangs in the Museum of Modern Art, and who once served as dean of Silvermine College of Art — collaborated on the project. He even painted one of the seats.
The girls of Troop 50889 worked hard. They designed, cut, sanded and painted 2 dozen cool, artistic seats carved out of wood. Each has its own unique design.
The Girl Scouts of Troop 50889, hard at work on their lily pads seats.
The seats go at the bottom of IV poles at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital. Kids too sick to walk can still leave their rooms, and scoot around the cancer ward floor.
The 5th grade Scouts are the youngest group nationwide to complete the project. They’re also the first to do so on the East Coast.
Claudia McRoberts — a Westporter who co-leads the 5th grade troop — organized the project. She recruited local artists to help paint the seats. Naturally, she asked her father: Richard Lytle. He was happy to help the girls — and pick up a brush himself.
His works sell for up to $25,000. Now one of his most important creations will serve as a seat, bringing a smile to a sick child’s face.
The lily pad seat painted by Richard Lytle.
(Congratulations to Girl Scouts Evelyn Anvari, Carly Chamlin, Sasha Chamlin, Hannah Cohen, Anna Diorio, Gianna Holt, Jane Leahy, Molly Lynch, Scarlett McRoberts and Lilly Weisz, and c0-leaders Claudia McRoberts and Lyn Hogan.)
Tomorrow, a record 10,000 folks will flood the Westport Library and Jesup Green. The 5th annual Mini Maker Faire (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) is a showcase for creativity, energy, and way cool geekitude. Every year it attracts tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, artists, hobbyists, engineers, scientists, students, teachers, food artisans and exhibitors.
It’s innovation at its best.
Founder and co-chair Mark Mathias has been a tireless advocate for the Mini Maker Faire. Now he wants everyone to know just how innovative the Library, Westport — and all of Connecticut — are.
He sold the Department of Motor Vehicles on the idea for a new license plate. It says “Connecticut: State of Innovation.” A cute little robot-type figure perches in the corner.
A minimum of 400 people must sign up for the plate to be manufactured.
Tomorrow, you can be one of them. Just stop by the Mini Maker Faire’s Remarkable STEAM booth, for more information.
Sure, license plates are pretty low-tech for the Mini Maker Faire. But odds are good you’ll see some very intriguing ideas for vehicles tomorrow, too.
You might even call them “innovative.”
Posted in Categories
Gabriele von Langendorff — the subject of a recent “06880” story — is not Westport’s only baroness.
Lrt’s not forget Hilla von Rebay.
According to the German website Spiegel, she was “an obsessed patron of art, and the long-time girlfriend of one of the United States’ richest men.”
She also inspired the Guggenheim Museum.
Hilla von Rebay, around 1915.
Von Rebay was born in Alsace in 1890. Her father was a Prussian general. She attended a private school in Paris, then “dove head first into the bohemian lifestyles of Munich, Berlin, and sometimes Paris, before spending time with the Dadaists in Zurich.” She had “numerous affairs,” including one with Hans Arp.
In 1926, she came to the US. She was soon known as “one of the most powerful but also most eccentric women in the art world.”
She met Solomon Guggenheim — who was 30 years older — and one of America’s wealthiest men. She inspired his interest in art, and advised him on what became his noted and extensive collection,
The pair — with Guggenheim’s “querulous looking wife” — traveled throughout Europe. They met “young and wild” people like Marc Chagall, Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian, and bought hundreds of pieces of art.
Guggenheim and von Rebay rented an apartment at New York’s Plaza Hotel, and put on art exhibits there. They formed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939, and planned a new building on Central Park.
The baroness was influential in selecting Frank Lloyd Wright (who called her a “superwoman”) to design what became the Guggenheim Museum. It took nearly 2 decades to complete, due to problems with finding a proper site, revisions of plans, and material and labor shortages during and after World War II.
Hilla von Rebay with a model of the proposed Guggenheim Museum, 1946.
During the process, von Rebay had a falling-out with the Guggenheim family. “My aunt was a difficult person who liked writing nasty letters,” said her nephew Roland von Rebay. Three years after Guggenheim died in 1949, the family ousted her from the museum’s board of directors.
She was not invited to the opening of the new Upper East Side building in 1959. In fact, she never set foot in it.
That chill thawed in the 2000s. A Guggenheim exhibit showcased “this extremely independent woman.” A book and documentary honored her life and work.
So what’s the Westport connection?
Baroness von Rebay owned an estate at 83 Morningside Drive South, called Franton Court. She bought it in 1937 and retreated there after battling the Guggenheim family, finding solace in her lawns and gardens. Every year, tulips were shipped from the Netherlands.
Hilla von Rebay in Westport in the 1940s, with Rudolf Bauer, Fernand Legerand and others.
Former Westporter Vivianne Pommier remembers her well. The house was filled with “millions and millions of dollars of art.”
“We would be invited over for lunch or dinner,” Pommier recalls. “She would pull Klees and Kandinskys from behind the toilets. Amazing paintings were crammed into every place possible — on walls, and behind things.”
Hilla von Rebay: a self-portrait.
The Westport Historical Society featured her in a 2005 exhibit. It included her paintings and pochoirs, and works of artists she promoted like Vasily Kandinsky, Rudolph Bauer and Alexander Calder.
Von Rebay died in 1967. She left much of her personal collection to the Guggenheim.
Two acres of her estate — including her home and outbuildings — were sold. Four other acres became building lots.
But 8 1/2 acres of Franton Court are now part of the Aspetuck Land Trust. Those gardens, specimen trees, wooded wetlands and trails are preserved as a nature and wildlife sanctuary — and are open to the public.
You won’t see any art there. But you will feel connected to one more rich — if long-forgotten — piece of royal Westport history.
Part of the Hilla von Rebay Arboretum.
Posted in Arts, Environment, Looking back, Organizations, People
Tagged Aspetuck Land Trust, Guggenheim Museum, Hilla von Rebay, Solomon Guggenheim
Click on or hover over photo to enlarge (Photos/Fred Cantor)
Greg Wall — the “jazz rabbi” — just celebrated his 1st year at 323. Most Thursdays, he and an ever-changing virtuoso cast entertains diners, drinkers and music fans at the North Main Street restaurant.
There’s only one problem: Their piano is not up to the job.
It’s a fine instrument for a casual home player. But it can’t sustain the constant playing of 323’s featured artists.
Fortunately, a fine 1937 Steinway “M” piano — from New York’s legendary Village Gate — is available. For several decades beginning in 1958, it was played by many jazz greats: Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, McCoy Tyner, Erroll Garner, Sun Ra and more.
A plaque on the Village Gate piano describes its vaunted history.
The piano was featured on recordings by Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Nina Simone, and used for the original perfomances of “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.”
The 323 crew hopes to raise $10,000 to buy the instrument. They’re starting a non-profit — The Jazz Society of Fairfield County — to ensure the piano will support jazz performances throughout the area.
They’ve got a week to pull off the deal. So they offer these premiums:
If the Jazz Society can’t purchase the piano, all donations will be returned. If they surpass their goal, excess funds will be used for regular maintenance, tuning and regulation, and the purchase of a humidity control device.
Let the music play!
(To contribute via PayPal, click here. To make other arrangements, email JazzRabbi@gmail.com)
Among the 323 regulars are saxophonist Greg Wall and pianist Chris Coogan.
Posted in Arts, Entertainment, People, Restaurants
Tagged "Jazz Rabbi", 323 restaurant, Chris Coogan, Greg Wall, Steinway "M" piano, Village Gate
It’s not exactly Christmas, or the 4th of July.
But Arbor Day is tomorrow. And Westport won’t let the holiday pass unnoticed.
From 2-5 p.m. (Friday, April 29), the Westport Tree Board will (wo)man a table at the new (and very beautiful) Lillian Wadsworth Arboretum (corner of Stonybrook Road and Woodside Avenue). Tree warden Bruce Lindsay will hand out seedlings: 200 flowering dogwood, 100 Norway spruce and 100 river birch. Planting instructions are included.
It’s first-come, first-serve. But don’t worry about waiting in line. There’s plenty of shade.
(Thanks to Eversource Energy, for making Friday’s seedling giveaway possible.)
Staples High School students recently helped maintain the trails — and trees at the Lillian Wadsworth Arboretum.
Comments Off on Happy Arbor Day!
Posted in Environment, Places, Staples HS
Tagged Arbor Day, Lillian Wadsworth Arboretum, Westport Tree Board, Westport tree warden
Two years ago, when Bedford Square developer David Waldman proposed a deal to save Kemper-Gunn — moving the 1889 Queen Anne Victorian house from Church Lane to the Baldwin parking lot — the town imposed several conditions.
One was that he could not rent to a retail tenant operating more than 5 stores.
Serena & Lily — a California-based lifestyle and home decor brand with branches in the Hamptons, San Francisco and Los Angeles — was interested.
Aaron Mutscheller flew east from Sausalito headquarters. His first impression of Westport — driving over the Saugatuck River bridge — was great.
Then he saw the building.
“It was dark and smelly,” he recalls. “There was a dropped ceiling, falling plaster and rotten shag rugs. It hadn’t been touched in years.”
But Mutscheller is not the chief creative officer for nothing. He poked around the old house. He traveled around Westport. Gradually, he realized that Serena & Lily could make the property as unique — and different — as its other 3.
Serena herself — Dugan, co-founder and chief design officer — was not so sure. She thought it was haunted.
But she trusted Mutscheller. The deal was done.
Now — 23 months later — the public is about to see what Mutscheller and Dugan have done.
It’s pretty impressive.
Serena & Lily, ready to open on Elm Street.
The duo (and their team) have turned a 19th-century house into a 21st century design destination.
Mutscheller calls the building “our way of saying ‘we get Westport. Here’s our version of it.'”
Which means what, exactly?
“Westport doesn’t feel like the West Coast perspective of Connecticut,” he explains. “It’s not a hedge fund town. It’s really an eclectic mix of lively, creative people.”
Mutscheller hopes that Westporters see the repurposed old house — now a bright, fun retail store — and realize they can update their own living space.
“Change happens. But it doesn’t have to involve demolition,” Mutscheller says. “You can do a 2.0 version, without tearing everything down to the ground.”
Dugan adds, “We’ve paid a lot of respect to the original architecture. But we’ve made it applicable to today’s living. We’ve tried to show we can blur the lines and evolve, in an honest way.”
A fireplace and mantel in the Kemper-Gunn House has been beautifully preserved.
The Serena & Lily renovation was complete, and careful. Stained glass windows and casework were preserved, beams uncovered. Crown molding shows off the hand-carved center staircase. Rooms were opened up, creating a fresh, clean look — without sacrificing the building’s great old bones.
The store’s products — bedding, bath, furniture, fabric, rugs, lighting, nursery and art — are shown in actual settings like a dining room, living room and bedroom.
The 1st floor features a kitchen and nook. A swatch-filled design shop on the 2nd floor is where designers work with customers. The 3rd floor — formerly an unused attic — was transformed into a dramatic “kids’ space,” filled with funky delights.
The original windows enhance the new Serena & Lily.
Serena & Lily enjoys a unique position in town. They occupy prime downtown real estate. They’re the 1st tenants of Bedford Square (sort of). They bridge old Westport, and new.
They take that role seriously. They’re sponsoring an artist for next month’s Art About Town. They’ll contribute to organizations like Near & Far Aid (15% of all sales this weekend), Project Return and Pink Aid.
Before that though, they’ll welcome Westporters. The official opening is tomorrow (Friday, April 29). There’s a ribbon-cutting (9:30 a.m.), and a weekend filled with balloons and face painting, coffee and treats from SoNo Baking, a gelato cart and more.
Westport watched warily as the Kemper-Gunn House was saved. We watched with wonder as it was moved into the parking lot. We worried what would come next.
Now we know.
But don’t take my word for it. Check out the old/new building for yourself. See what a bit of vision and creativity can do to a place that — just a couple of years ago — seemed not only doomed, but haunted.
Posted in Downtown, Local business, People
Tagged Aaron Mutscheller, Bedford Square, David Waldman, Kemper-Gunn House, Serena & Lily, Serena Dugan
Spotted on the Longshore course:
Click here to help support “06880” via credit card or PayPal. Any amount is welcome, appreciated — and tax-deductible! Reader contributions keep this blog going. (Alternate methods: Please send a check to “06880”: PO Box 744, Westport, CT 06881. Or use Venmo: @blog06880. Or Zelle: dwoog@optonline.net. Thanks!)