Redding CT

Redding, CT at a Glance

Despite its generally low profile, Redding’s peerless historic sites and jealously guarded landscapes can make it seem conspicuously attractive. The signature New England beauty it keeps was once enjoyed by the likes of Mark Twain and has drawn more modern celebrity residents like Jessica Tandy and Leonard Bernstein. In 2010, Redding was ranked the fourth best small town in the state by Connecticut Magazine, one year after CNNMoney hailed it overall the fourth best town to live in the United States.

The town's commitment to preserving open spaces is no small part of what makes Redding special, with parks and preserves making up roughly one-third of the land area. The Collis P. Huntington State Park, which was donated to the state of Connecticut by the Huntington family, is one such preserve at nearly 900 square acres of forest and ponds. It is crowned with works by American sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington. Daughter of a paleontologist and zoologist, Huntington frequently took animals as her subjects and executed two charming examples in her bear and wolf groups at Huntington State Park.

Hyatt's equestrian sculpture of General Israel Putnam, a buoyant re-imagining of the general's flight from British forces down 100 stone steps atop a racing steed, is also on view at the entrance to Putnam Memorial Park. The oldest state park in Connecticut, it covers the site of one of the general's winter encampments and is composed of caves and other fascinating geologic features, as well as a museum with colonial artifacts from the encampment and donated exhibitions. Each year in October a reenactment is held, with weekend events in the summer.

Redding, CT at a Glance

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Spanning Weston and Redding, Devil's Den Preserve claims the spot as the largest preserve in Fairfield County. Named for a mark resembling the cloven print of a devil's hoof in one of its boulders, the terrain was used as a hunting ground for millennia and served as an important industrial site for lumber and coal burning in the 19th Century. Today it is the venue for various programs run through the New Canaan Nature Center and is a sanctuary for hundreds of species of wild flora and fauna.

??The Redding Parade Path, a recently established community garden turned botanical walk borders the historic Town Green, where military forces once congregated during the Revolutionary War. Run by volunteers, the project offers a historically annotated tour of local plant life, with the name and date of each species's introduction to New England demarcated. Redding schools take frequent advantage of the Parade Path for botanical and historical tours and the Summer Concert on the Green series takes place in the abutting lot.

??Redding's public library embodies the legacy of perhaps the town’s most celebrated resident. After commissioning his Italianate mansion and estate, American author Mark Twain arrived in Redding for the first time in 1908 to live at Stormfield. Of what was to be his final home, Twain told a New York Times reporter, "It is the most out of the world and peaceful and tranquil and in every way satisfactory home I have had experience of in my life."

Yet Mark Twain did not leave the young town as he found it. Discovering that his corpulent book collection would not fit his trim new library at Stormfield, and learning that Redding had no library of its own, he donated a starter collection from his personal library. According to his biographer, Twain took great pleasure in devising means to raise funds for the new library, from holding benefits to charging house-guests for the service of having their luggage brought in. A hefty check signed a day or two before his death at last made the facility's construction possible. Today the Mark Twain Library measures four times its original size and provides patrons with top-notch technological resources.

Other Redding treasures include the late 18th Century architecture to be found at the Daniel and Esther Bartlett House in the colonial Georgian style, and the Aaron Barlow House, a prized piece of Federal architecture. The village of Georgetown, designated on the National Register of Historic Places, lies at the junction of Wilton, Weston and Redding. The Annual Georgetown Day Festival grows more and more popular each year with live music, international food and drink vendors, arts and crafts booths, a 5K marathon and other activities to draw adults and children alike.