New Canaan CT
06840
Welcome to
New Canaan CT
There is a moment that happens to almost everyone who spends real time in New Canaan, walking down elm-lined streets past independently owned shops and restaurants, when it hits you: this is what a town is supposed to feel like. New Canaan has managed to hold onto a genuine downtown that belongs to its residents, a small town character that has not been traded away for convenience or development.
An upscale town with historic architecture, a lively downtown, and a reputation for top-tier schools.
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We Don't Just sell Swag, We Sell Visibility.
Upcoming Events Near New Canaan CT
Magical Deserts
4/11
Bethel Summer Concert Series
Exotic Urbanism
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Misty Mountains
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The Arts & Culture
MOMENTS THAT MOVE US
We help promote the local theaters, museums, historical societies, music, non-profits and community organizations.
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More about
New Canaan CT
Arts & Architecture
The Philip Johnson Glass House, a National Historic Landmark built in 1949, remains one of the most significant works of modern architecture in the country, one of more than 80 homes built in New Canaan by the influential "Harvard Five" architects in the 1940s. Silvermine Arts Center and the New Canaan Historical Society, headquartered at the historic John Rogers Studio, round out a town with an outsized arts scene for its size.
Parks & Open Space
Waveny Park spans 300 acres of fields, ponds, and trails surrounding a 1912 mansion known locally as "the castle," with landscaping originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. The New Canaan Nature Center and more than a dozen other parks give the whole town room to breathe.
Downtown & Community
New Canaan's walkable downtown draws people in on a Tuesday afternoon just as much as a Saturday morning, anchored by local shops and restaurants with real staying power. The town's calendar stays full year round, from the decades-old Summer Village Fair and Sidewalk Sales to Fourth of July fireworks at Waveny, the Halloween Parade, and the Holiday Stroll. Every Christmas Eve since 1916, the town has gathered on God's Acre to sing carols together, a tradition that captures what New Canaan is all about.
New Canaan's story begins in 1731, when Connecticut's colonial legislature established Canaan Parish, a religious community carved from parts of neighboring Norwalk and Stamford. Because it began as a parish rather than a planned town, New Canaan grew for decades without a central common, main street, or town hall, even after its incorporation as its own town in 1801.
For much of the 19th century, New Canaan was a shoe manufacturing center, an industry that shaped the town's economy until the Civil War era. By the late 1800s, wealthy New Yorkers had discovered the town's charm, building summer homes that many families eventually kept year round, a pattern that would define New Canaan's character for generations to come.
The town's most distinctive chapter arrived in the 1940s, when a group of young architects who came to be known as the "Harvard Five" chose New Canaan as a canvas for modern design, ultimately building more than 80 homes here. Their best known work, Philip Johnson's Glass House, remains one of the most significant houses in American architectural history.
Quick Facts
Population
20,622
Year Founded
1801
County
Fairfield County
Town Government Website
Library
