Editing New Canaan, Connecticut (section)

==History==

[[File:JWBarberEastViewNewCanaan.jpg|thumb|right|224x224px|''East view of Church Hill, the central part of New Canaan'' (1836) by [[John Warner Barber]]]]
{{multiple image
| align             = right
| perrow            = 2
| total_width       = 225
| image1            = NCTrainstation.jpg
| image2            = TalmadgeHillRRstationRoadside07222007.jpg
| footer            = [[New Canaan station]] (top) and [[Talmadge Hill station]] (bottom) are part of [[Metro-North Railroad]]'s [[New Canaan Branch]]
| direction         = vertical
| alt1              = 
| caption1          = 
| caption2          = 
}}
In 1731, Connecticut's colonial legislature established Canaan Parish as a religious entity in northwestern Norwalk and northeastern [[Stamford, Connecticut|Stamford]]. The right to form a [[Congregationalism in the United States|Congregational church]] was granted to the few families scattered through the area. As inhabitants of Norwalk or Stamford, Canaan Parish settlers still had to vote, pay some taxes—no [[income tax]], and many other modern taxes did not yet exist—serve on juries, and file deeds in their hometowns. Because Canaan Parish was not planned as a town when it was first settled in 1731, when New Canaan was incorporated in 1801, it found itself without a central common, a main street, or a town hall.<ref name="answer">[http://www.acorn-online.com/news/exec/view.cgi/18/6190 Article title] {{dead link|date=July 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Until the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]], New Canaan was primarily an agricultural community; after the war, its major industry was shoemaking. As New Canaan's shoe business gathered momentum early in the 19th century, instead of a central village, regional settlements of clustered houses, mill, and school developed into distinct district centers. Some of the districts were centered on Ponus Ridge, West Road, Oenoke Ridge, Smith Ridge, Talmadge Hill, and Silvermine, a pattern that the village gradually outgrew.<ref name="answer" />

With the opening of the [[New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad]] to New Canaan in 1868, many of [[New York City]]'s wealthy residents discovered the  pastoral beauty of the area and built summer homes. Eventually, many of the summer visitors settled year-round, commuting to their jobs in New York City.<ref name="answer" />

[[Lewis Henry Lapham|Lewis Lapham]], a founder of [[Texaco]] and great-grandfather of long-time ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'' [[Literary editor|editor]] [[Lewis H. Lapham]], spent summers with his family at their estate that is now {{convert|300|acre|km2|adj=on}} [[Waveny Park]] next to Talmadge Hill and the Merritt Parkway.

In the 1890s, editor Will Kirk of the ''Messenger'' wrote an editorial in response to area editors who chided him, saying New Canaan was the "next station to hell." An alleged remark by a parched Civil War veteran marching in the Decoration Day Parade on an unusually hot day prompted the exchange. The remark was found untrue and Kirk, after enduring the comments of others, wrote about a "dream" of approaching the Pearly Gates in the company of his fellow editors. All others were turned away, but he, Will Kirk, was welcomed, because he, in fact, was from the "Next Station to Heaven."<ref>{{Cite web|title = Where did the nickname — "Next Station to Heaven" — originate? {{!}} New Canaan Answerbook|url = http://newcanaananswerbook.com/where-did-the-nickname-next-station-to-heaven-originate/|website=Newcanaananswerbook.com|access-date = January 18, 2016}}</ref> Since then, the name has been controversial, with residents affectionately using the latter, and local critics of New Canaan still using the original nickname.

===The "Harvard Five" and modern homes===

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.<ref name="gurliacci">{{Cite web |url=http://www.fairfieldcountybusinessjournal.com/archive/010906/topstory1.html |title=Fairfield County Business Authority &#124; Westfair Communications |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130102122746/http://www.fairfieldcountybusinessjournal.com/archive/010906/topstory1.html |archive-date=January 2, 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

"During the late 1940s and 1950s, 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. "[[Philip Johnson]], [[Marcel Breuer]], [[Landis Gores]], [[John M. Johansen]] and [[Eliot Noyes]]{{spaced ndash}}known as the [[Harvard Five]]{{spaced ndash}}began creating homes in a style that emerged as the complete antithesis of the traditional build. Using new materials and open floor plans, best captured by Johnson's [[Glass House]], these treasures are being squandered as buyers are knocking down these architectural icons and replacing them with cookie-cutter new builds."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.purecontemporary.com/HomeMakeover/article/19 |title=Mid-Century Harvard Five modern home is updated with a Snaidero kitchen by Stephen & Kristen King &#124; Pure Contemporary |access-date=February 6, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081021081904/http://www.purecontemporary.com/HomeMakeover/article/19 |archive-date=October 21, 2008 }} PureContemporary.com accessed July 2, 2006</ref>

"Other architects, well-known ([[Frank Lloyd Wright]], for example) and not so well known, also contributed significant modern houses that elicited strong reactions from nearly everyone who saw them and are still astonishing today&nbsp;... New Canaan came to be the focus of the modern movement's experimentation in materials, construction methods, space, and form", according to an online description of ''The Harvard Five in New Canaan: Mid-Century Modern Houses,'' by William D. Earls.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393731839/102-8451043-6653762?v=glance&n=283155|title=The Harvard Five in New Canaan: Midcentury Modern Houses by Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John Johansen, Philip Johnson, Eliot Noyes, and Others|first=search|last=results|date=July 17, 2006|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=978-0-393-73183-5 |access-date=December 3, 2018|via=Amazon}}</ref>

Some other New Canaan architects designing modern homes were Victor Christ-Janer, John Black Lee, Allan Gelbin, and [[Hugh Smallen]].<ref name="gurliacci" />

The film ''[[The Ice Storm (film)|The Ice Storm]]'' (1997) shows many of New Canaan's modern houses, both inside and out. The film (and [[Rick Moody]]'s novel of the same name, upon which it is based) takes place in New Canaan; a mostly glass house situated on Laurel Road is prominently featured.