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CONTENTS M AY 2 0 2 2
8 10 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 42 46 48
Editor’s letter A golden region Caring for sea creatures great and small Borscht, blintzes and (beef) bacon in Cos Cob Anita Hill’s way Brian Stokes Mitchell’s possible dream A second home for Copland House Expanding its footprint – and outreach A natural alternative for relieving pain Pursuing her passions in Westport William M. Losapio, WAG adviser, a tribute A Greenwich waterfront oasis
52 53 54 62 66 68 72 74 76 78 80 82 83
Creating coastal chic The Connecticut shore as muse Cooking up a great kitchen A most ‘Social’ place Champagne Bollinger’s very good year ‘Packing’ a post-pandemic punch How to talk – and not to talk – about infertility Preventing oral cancer The skinny on The Skinny Center A different take on ‘mother and child reunion’ The evolving role of caregiving A father’s love for his daughter When & where
You Could Be Doing So Much More! By Ivonne Zucco
F
inding your ideal job might
circumstances that might not be under
orderly life, and for others, adventure
require overcoming many
your control. In a different mindset,
and detachment from societal norms.
self-limiting beliefs. For
“doing so much more” can mean finding
There is a wide range of options in be-
example, I recently experi-
reward and satisfaction in your work
tween because all of us possess different
enced a bit of insecurity when someone
just by doing it. The challenge appears
talents and aptitudes. To me, “doing so
well intentionally commented that with
when you doubt yourself because doing
much more” means finding that thing
my background and experience, I could
what you love comes easy to you. Even
you love so much that it inspires you
be doing so much more. Luckily, I have
if getting to where you are has required
and makes you feel good inside. Once
been through many years of explora-
some sacrifices, doing what you love
you find it, let go of the outer and inner
tion, and I know that there is nothing
feels natural because you have a unique
beliefs that hold you back, enjoy every
more gratifying for me than coaching
talent. Sometimes finding that might
moment, and celebrate your victories.
and helping individuals find the success
require opening your mind and heart to
they desire. Nevertheless, in my young-
possibilities you have not contemplated
er years, I often experienced a pesky
before.
recurring thought telling me I was not
Answering the following questions
To learn more details about how to find your true calling, visit my website and schedule a 15-minute compli-
reaching my goals fast enough. Even
could help you figure out if you are on
mentary exploratory session in the
when I attained what I had set out to do,
the right path:
services section: www.abetterstory-
I ignored and dismissed my accomplish-
•
coaching.com.
What is your real motivation to do
ments, which led to constant dissatis-
what you do? Check-in with your
faction. Does this sound familiar? I bet it
ego; is your head telling you to get
does. It is not unusual for many people
somewhere or is your heart leading
to feel like they are falling short in their
you towards what you love?
dreams. Plenty of professionals struggle
•
with external opinions and self-imposed
pectations, or are you trying to share
pressures that make it difficult to enjoy the journey or know when they have
Are you trying to meet others’ exyour talents with the world?
•
Are your expectations replicating
reached the destination they initially set
or rebelling against patterns you
out to achieve. It takes a lot of introspec-
learned throughout your life, or are
tion and overcoming self-doubt to feel
you consciously doing your own
a sense of accomplishment because we
thing just because it makes you
live in a culture that constantly pushes us to look for the next fix.
happy? •
“Doing so much more” for some people
to someone, or do you already know
means obtaining a fancy title, receiving a significant financial reward, getting accolades amongst their peers, or simply someone saying “I am proud of you.” None of these recognitions are intrinsi-
Are you trying to prove your worth your value?
•
When you think about why you go to work, what is it that drives you; is it an external or internal feeling? Growing up, most of us imagine what
cally wrong; we all need better salaries
our lives will look like in the future.
and titles that reflect our professional
Some of us want to have exactly the
growth. Nevertheless, it is a problem
types of lives we saw in our immediate
to purely rely on external reassurance
environments, and others the opposite.
because your sense of value depends on
For some, success means a predictable
IVONNE ZUCCO is a Transformational Career Coach. She works with individuals searching for fulfillment and balance in their careers and with companies working towards intentional culture change by using a pragmatic approach to help them advance from where they are to where they want to be with clarity and purpose.
12-years of experience
Dee DelBello
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All news, comments, opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations in WAG are those of the authors and do not constitute opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations of the publication, its publisher and its editorial staff. No portion of WAG may be reproduced without permission.WAG is distributed at select locations, mailed directly and is available at $24 a year for home or office delivery. To subscribe, call 914-694-3600, ext. 3020. All advertising inquiries should be directed to Anne Jordan at 914-694-3600, ext. 3032 or email anne@westfairinc.com. Advertisements are subject to review by the publisher and acceptance for WAG does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service. WAG (Issn: 1931-6364) is published monthly and is owned and published by Westfair Communications Inc. Dee DelBello, CEO, dee@westfairinc.com
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Edward Arriaza was born and raised in Stamford and attended the University of Connecticut. Before joining Westfair Communications Inc., where he writes for the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals and WAG, Edward wrote for automobile magazines and websites. When he’s not following geopolitical developments and writing, Edward likes to unwind by walking his dog, Cece, a Maltese; watching classic films by the “Movie Brats” (a term coined by Paul Schrader to describe himself and Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg); and playing survival horror video games.
EDITOR’S LETTER BY GEORGET TE GOUVEIA
On an air trip from Florida to New York several years back that turned into a 12-hour odyssey, the only things that helped me transcend the moment were memories of time shared with my family and the impromptu plane ride tracing Connecticut’s lush shoreline, from Greenwich to Stratford — the well-named “Gold Coast.” The Gold Coast can have that effect on you. It’s a region where business, particularly the financial industry, culture, history and philanthropy intersect, as you’ll see in our opening essay/cover story. And it is the subject of much of May WAG, along with intriguing people doing intriguing things in the municipalities that dot the coastline. Beginning in Greenwich, the Gold Coast’s cornerstone, we were privileged to cover Anita Hill’s inspirational talk at the April 22 fundraising luncheon at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich for Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, The Fund for Women & Girls. Hill may have been shaped by the controversial 1991 Senate hearings in which she testified that then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her, but that explosive moment has not defined her as she has become a Brandeis University law professor, an author and an advocate for ending gender violence. She was a natural for The Fund for Women & Girls, the largest of its kind in New England, which has spent almost a quarter-century helping the underserved in Fairfield County. It’s also an example of how the Gold Coast is supporting its increasing diversity. Staying with Greenwich, our house of the month on Cobb Island Drive offers a waterfront oasis. Then we move up the Gold Coast as Jeremy visits with Darienbased interior designer Prudence Bailey to consider a kitchen she created for a family in Hamil-
John Henry Twachtman’s “In the Garden” (1895-99), oil on canvas. Private collection. The work will be part of the Greenwich Historical Society’s “Life and Art: The Greenwich Paintings of John Henry Twachtman” (Oct. 19 through Jan. 22), an exploration of one of the finest American Impressionist painters and a member of the Cos Cob Art Colony that found a summer home at the society’s Bush-Holley House.
ton, New York; Justin talks with Weston resident Cristina Villegas, who has relocated her children’s clothing/home goods boutique, Yoya, and interior design studio, Casa Yoya, to Westport; and Cami tells us how our homes can acquire some coastal chic of their own. Staying with the Connecticut shoreline, Katie explores the Lyme Art Colony, centered in what is now the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. It’s one of two 19th-century art colonies that helped put Connecticut on the map culturally, the other being the Cos Cob Art Colony. And Phil weighs in with stories on Mystic Aquarium’s on-site Milne Ocean Science and Conservation Center, which provides 24/7 medical care for sea creatures great and small, and The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk’s “Flutter Zone,” a butterfly exhibit in which visitors can flit Memorial Day through Labor Day (May 28 through Sept. 5). We haven’t neglected Westchester County. This Gold Coast neighbor gets its due with three arts business stories. The return of Caramoor’s summer music festival to Katonah will mark the Caramoor debut of Brian Stokes Mitchell, a rare performer who
combines powerhouse talent, social consciousness and business acumen as we discovered when we learned about his work as a founder of Black Theatre United and chairman of the board of The Actors Fund. Copland House — a center for American music in the former Cortlandt Manor home of composer Aaron Copland — returns to performance in Westchester for the first time in two years with its Music From Copland House ensemble at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck, its new home away from home. (And if you haven’t seen it, check out the evocative PBS “Now Hear This” episode on Copland, whose use of rangy, folk-flavored melodies and sprightly rhythms helped define American music in the 20th century and made him “the dean of American music.”) Meanwhile, the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers expands its footprint with a twoyear, $12.3 million West Wing capital improvement project — and its outreach to the community and beyond. Elsewhere, Jeremy has us screaming for a trip to the new Ice Cream Social in White Plains — can’t wait to try the lavender flavor — and then, because we have to be balanced, visits The Skinny Center in Harrison, where he learns about healthy weight loss. (OK, so maybe an occasional scoop of the lavender ice cream?) We welcome Ed — Edward Arriaza — who bows in these pages with two fine stories. The first is about CBD Live Natural in Bedford Hills, which offers CBD products designed to improve the health of its clientele. While the jury is still out on the efficacy of these products for many critics, store owner Marcie Manfredonia-Siciliano found they alleviated her fibromyalgia and its resulting anxiety. His second piece is a heartwarmer about Hour Children, which enables incarcerated
women, like those at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and the Taconic Correctional Facility, to reconnect with their offspring in a seven-day summer program that may include a camp this year. It's a reminder that one of our greatest joys at WAG is to bring you stories of people aiding others. Someone who always lent a helping hand was William M. “Billy” Losapio, the restaurateur of Sergio’s and Gregory’s fame on Central Avenue in Hartsdale and White Plains respectively who served as WAG’s adviser. As you’ll read in our tribute, Billy, who died April 18 of leukemia at age 80, was a class act — kind, gracious, at once serious and humorous — and as interested in helping you pursue your dreams as he was in his own. We remember all the elaborate, heartfelt toasts he made in the WAG lunches he hosted at Sapori, which occupies Gregory’s former home, and all the WAG events he supported. I see him sneaking into the reading I did at Bloomingdale’s White Plains when I published my first novel, “Water Music.” He came late, but he was there. Now he’s no doubt playing golf in the Great Beyond — and suggesting how God could build a better fairway. A 2020 YWCA White Plains & Central Westchester Visionary Award winner and a 2018 Folio Women in Media Award Winner, Georgette Gouveia is the author of “Burying the Dead,” “Daimon: A Novel of Alexander the Great” and "Seamless Sky" (JMS Books), as well as “The Penalty for Holding,” a 2018 Lambda Literary Award finalist (JMS Books), and “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group). They’re part of her series of novels, “The Games Men Play,” also the name of the sports/culture blog she writes. Last year, her short story “The Glass Door” was published by JMS and exhibited in “Together apART: Creating During COVID” at ArtsWestchester in White Plains. Her latest story, “After Hopper,” is also available from JMS Books. For more, visit thegamesmenplay.com.
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A GOLDEN
Tod’s Point – often spelled without the apostrophe – in Old Greenwich (also Page 14) offers Greenwich residents and visitors a bit of heaven on earth. Photographs by Alexandra Cali. 10 MAY 2022
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REGION BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Several years ago, I took a summer flight from Tallahassee, Florida, to Westchester County Airport that, through a series of misadventures, required 12 hours instead of the usual two. With traffic backed up over the airport, our pilot headed north, noting a quilt of greenery that offset the light-dappled water and cerulean sky. The brown swampiness of Tallahassee fresh in my mind, along with the half-day ordeal, I was grateful to be almost home, seeing its environs as if for the first time.
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“I never realized how beautiful this place is,” I said to my seatmate. “This place” is “Connecticut’s Gold Coast,” as the southern or lower portion of Fairfield County is known. From Greenwich through Stamford, Darien, Norwalk, Westport, Fairfield and parts of Bridgeport to Stratford; and inland from New Canaan through Wilton, Weston and Easton to Trumbull and onto Redding and Ridgefield, the Gold Coast lies some 50 miles northeast of New York City on the Long Island Sound in the Nutmeg State’s “panhandle.” That geography would prove to be the Gold Coast’s destiny. “Its proximity to New York City offered an escape from city life, especially for affluent New Yorkers at the onset of the railroads in 1848,” says Debra L. Mecky, executive director and CEO of the Greenwich Historical Society. “The easy access the trains afforded transformed the towns along the coastline. Many wealthy business executives and industrialists built mansions in the Gold Coast region. The picturesque rolling hills, stone walls and lush landscapes, along with the expansive shoreline, offered recreational opportunities and relief from hot summers.” This expansion of wealth would set a precedent and transform the area, for what makes the Gold Coast truly golden is the relationship among business, culture and history that plays out in each of its communities in different ways. So that Westport — which some experts believe was the actual inspiration for “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who honeymooned with wife Zelda near the town’s Compo Beach — is well-known as home to companies like Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio’s investment firm, and cultural institutions like the Westport Country Playhouse. “Many of the businesses attracted to the Gold Coast have executives and employees who
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are interested in the arts and culture,” Mecky adds. “Fortunately for residents of the Gold Coast, they are generous supporters.”
A MULTIFACETED PLACE
Perhaps nowhere is this symbiotic relationship more apparent than in Greenwich, the southwestern-most town in Connecticut, the largest on the Gold Coast and the one closest to New York City. It’s considered the most affluent town in one of the richest states in the country, with an average income of more than $700,000 and neighborhoods — Belle Haven, Backcountry, Old Greenwich, Riverside, to name a few — that are wistful, whispered bywords for wealth. Greenwich Avenue — known simply as “the Avenue” — is often compared to Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive. Equally well-known are the town’s glamorous attractions. Besides the Greenwich Historical Society, whose National Historic Landmark Bush-Holley House was the summer home of the Cos Cob Art Colony of American Impressionist painters; they include the Bruce Museum, open while undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation; the Greenwich International Film Festival, whose May 25 Changemaker Gala will be emceed by the “Today” show’s Jenna Bush Hager; and Greenwich Polo Club, whose Sunday matches are open to the public June 5 through Sept. 11. Perhaps less well-known are the hedge funds underpinning such tourist treasures, including North Street Capital, Silver Point Capital and Viking Global Investors. Greenwich gets its share of ink, as does Stamford — the second largest financial district in the metro region, after the Big Apple; the second largest city in Connecticut, after Bridgeport; and the subject of WAG’s March issue. As we described it there, Stamford is in one sense a Manhattan mini me, with numerous Fortune 500 companies and corporate divisions, thriving residential and commercial real estate develop-
The dam at the Grist Mill in the Aspetuck Historic District in the village of Aspetuck, which lies mostly in Easton but extends into Weston.
Westport seen from the Saugatuck River, which flows through Westport Harbor and empties into the Long Island Sound.
ment led by such enterprises as Building and Land Technology and WellBuilt Co., a bustling “Restaurant Row” and a blooming media and entertainment scene. (Indeed, the city was a focal point of the nation’s if not the world’s attention in February as NBC Sports broadcast the Beijing Olympics from its headquarters there.) But though Greenwich and Stamford loom large in the Gold Coast landscape, they share pride of place with their equally intriguing sister municipalities. Looking for a college town with cultural activities? Fairfield is home to Fairfield and Sacred Heart universities — which have their own museums, radio stations and arts and science centers; Fairfield Museum and History Center; and Bigelow tea company. Another place with a youthful vibe is Darien, which has the youngest residents of
any noncollege Gold Coast town. With a population of 21, 499 in a little less than 13 square miles, it’s the smallest Gold Coast municipality but scores big in family friendliness with a high marriage rate and a high number of children per household. For architecture fans, New Canaan is a must. Known for its financial firms and parks, it’s also steeped in mid-century Modern architecture created by residents Philip Johnson, Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John M. Johansen and Eliot Noyes — known as “the Harvard Five” for their association with the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Johnson’s Glass House is a standout but so is a place that offers a different aesthetic — Waveny Park, or Waveny House, and its 1912 mansion. Built by William Tubby for Lewis Henry Lapham, a Texaco founder, the 300-acre park was originally landscaped by Freder-
ick Law Olmstead and was home to Lapham’s grandson, actor Christopher Lloyd. The house served as the exterior for Cortlandt Manor, a fictional estate on the ABC soap opera “All My Children” and an exterior for “The Stepford Wives” (2004). Arts lovers might want to brush up on their two Rs — Redding and Ridgefield. The last home of author-humorist Mark Twain (“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”), for whom its library is named, Redding is also the place to see works by sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington in Collis P. Huntington State Park and Putnam Memorial State Park. Neighboring Ridgefield boasts the Ridgefield Playhouse, a performing arts venue; The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art; and the Weir Farm National Historical Park. The farm, the onetime home and studio of the American Impressionist
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painter J. Alden Weir, also lies in Wilton, home to such global corporations as ASML, producer of photolithography systems for computer chips; Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the accounting firm; watch manufacturer Breitling SA; Cycling Sports Group LLC; toy manufacturer Melissa & Doug; and insurer AIG, whose collapse precipitated the Great Recession of 2008-09. Aviation buffs will want to visit Nichols, a village in Trumbull, then fly over to neighboring Stratford. Nichols was the home, three times over, of Ukrainianborn aviation pioneer Igor Sikovsky from 1928 to ’51 when he designed, manufactured and piloted fixed-wing aircraft and mass-produced helicopters for the first time. Sikorsky Aircraft, a Lockheed Martin subsidiary, is headquartered in Stratford, where it has built every Marine One, the presidential helicopter, since 1957. (From 1955 to the mid‘80s, Stratford was also home to the American Shakespeare Theatre and its American Shakespeare Festival, whose memorable productions featured Katharine Hepburn in “Antony and Cleopatra,” James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer in “Othello,” Christopher Walken in “Hamlet” and Jane Alexander and Sada Thompson in Eugene O’Neill’s “Mourning Becomes Electra.”) For sheer historical flair, it’s hard to beat Aspetuck, a village on the banks of the Aspetuck River in Easton that flows into Weston. Its 80-acre historic district contains 22 houses dating from 1750 to 1850, including the home of the blind and deaf author-activist Helen Keller, who navigated the village via a fence that ran down to the river. Those who seek one-stop shopping and living might want to head to Norwalk. Where else can you find an oyster festival; the burial place of Thomas Fitch V, who inspired the song “Yankee Doodle”; The Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, a classic example of the Second Empire style that flourished
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in the decades that bracketed the Civil War; The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk (Page18); Sheffield Island Lighthouse; the Stepping Stones Museum for Children; and The SoNo Collection, a 700,000-square-foot mall that contains the only Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom in southern Connecticut?
FROM EXCLUSIVE TO INCLUSIVE
For all the wealth, beauty and talent of the Gold Coast, its image has been occasionally tarnished by the sense that while it has something for every taste, it has not necessarily been for everyone. Films like “The Ice Storm,” “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” “Revolutionary Road,”
“The Stepford Wives” and “The Swimmer” — all set and/or shot in Gold Coast communities — have explored the shadow side of attaining the suburban American dream, with its potential for sterility, manipulation, materialism and destructiveness, while the 1947 film “Gentlemen’s Agreement” plumbed anti-Semitism in the area. Over the years, the high cost of housing has generally prevented many people of color from moving in. That picture is beginning to change as Gold Coast municipalities increase their support for the underserved — see our story on The Fund for Women and Girls at Fairfield County’s Community Foundation on Page 24 — while considering the debt they owe
to Native Americans, African Americans and immigrants to their shores. What the Greenwich Historical Society’s Debra Mecky observes could apply throughout the Gold Coast: “…long before it was known for its affluence, Greenwich was the home of native people and European settlers who were able to prosper due to the richness of its natural resources and the knowledge and hard work of its inhabitants. It has long been the home of many immigrant groups without whose contributions it would not have developed into the community it is today. The importance and impact of this diversity is an ongoing story that continues as our history is made every day.”
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CARING FOR SEA CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL BY PHIL HALL
An employee feeds penguins in Mystic Aquarium. MAY 2022
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Joshua C. Davis, assistant supervisor for penguins and manager of Ambassador Animal Programs, and Molly Martony, D.V.M., senior veterinarian at Mystic Aquarium, examine an African Penguin. Courtesy Mystic Aquarium.
Connecticut’s Mystic Aquarium is home to 800 different species, ranging from the tiny, seemingly fragile seahorse to the not-tiny and anything-but-fragile beluga whale. And for the 800,000 visitors who travel through the aquarium every year, the animals appear to be the picture of good health. But when the aquarium’s residents are not in the best of health, the on-site Milne Ocean Science and Conservation Center provides a 24/7 medical suite that could easily be mistaken for a hospital setting, albeit with a few distinctive differences. “You'll notice we have this big hydraulic lift table,” says Molly Martony, D.V.M., a senior veterinarian at the aquarium. “We're able to utilize it for our large mammals, like a sea lion or a Steller sea lion. And then, we have two different types of ventilators which, when the animals are under anesthesia, support their lungs and help me to prove that they're stable. “We can't transport animals off-site to other places,” she adds. “We're really grateful for a won-
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derful setup. And we have a lot of equipment that is so great, such as the portable X-ray unit that we can take poolside and take images of our beluga whales. And we have all of the equipment that you'd need going to a gastroenterologist. We're certainly wellequipped to rise to the need of any occasion.” Martony says that the wide variety of exotic animals at the aquarium requires the veterinary staff to have special training that goes far beyond the domestic animal medical care that is taught in veterinary schools. “We go through additional training after veterinary school for many years to become experts,” she says. “And there are additional examinations and a lot of different hoops to jump
through, so to speak, to be able to know how to treat each one of those species.” And the depth and scope of ailments and illnesses treated by the aquarium’s staff is astonishing, from healing a sea lion’s injured flipper to ensuring the dental quality of the beluga whale’s teeth. But unlike many dogs and cats who become skittish when taken to a vet’s clinic, the aquarium’s sea mammals go out of their way to help Martony and her staff. “The mammals are trained and participate in their own health care, which is really amazing,” she says. “Through those relationships the trainers have with the animals, they're able to voluntarily do some of the behaviors that actually help us take better care of them and assess their health. Some of those things include letting the veterinarians do ultrasound and full body examinations, in addition to blood sampling and respiratory sampling collection, amongst other things.” While the aquarium does not
provide a specific figure on its annual operating costs for the veterinary services, roughly 30% of its $25 million operating budget is devoted to the animals’ medical care. And though the veterinary staff tries to keep a handle on costs by purchasing medications in bulk, Martony says the “aquarium is really supportive in providing the resources that we need. There isn't typically a medication that is too expensive for animals, and one of the benefits here is that, in some ways, we don't really focus on the cost and whether or not we want to give the drug — which sometimes can differ in a small-animal practice when you're working with dogs and cats and clients that have a fixed budget, and you're trying to make the medicine fit in that box. But here, money is no object. That’s not a great concern for our day to day.” She adds that the labor shortage and so-called “Great Resignation” that are reshaping the wider economy do not affect her sections within the aquarium.
BUTTERFLIES FLIT AT THE MARITIME AQUARIUM AT NORWALK Butterflies are perhaps the prettiest representatives of the insect world, yet there is far more to their role within the wider ecosystem than a decorative presence. The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is calling attention to the importance of butterflies in “Flutter Zone,” a special walk-through exhibit to be held Memorial Day through Labor Day (May 28 through Sept. 5). “In summer, The Maritime Aquarium tries to have a special exhibit for guests,” says Dave Sigworth, associate director of communications. “Summer is our busiest time. It's when recreational visitors are out and about looking for something fun to do, and they may have come to The Maritime Aquarium recently, but they haven't seen what we offer them in the summer. So, it's a great chance for us to have something special that relates to nature, not necessarily directly connected to Long Island Sound or the oceans.” The aquarium hosted “Flutter Zone” exhibitions in 2015 and 2016 that were extremely popular with the public. In heading beyond the confines of the Covid pandemic, the aquarium was eager to have an outdoors presentation that celebrated life, color and movement. Sigworth describes the “Flutter Zone” as resembling an “aviary structure that's on our riverfront courtyard. It's basically a walk-through. You walk in one door, there's a boardwalk path that goes down and loops around and comes back and brings you out the other door.” (This is similar to The Butterfly Conservatory at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan through May 30.) Within the structure in Norwalk will be hundreds of butterflies at different stages of their development. Visitors will be able to look into a temperature-controlled space where the chrysalises are waiting to open while strolling amid what Sigworth calls “a good full supply of butterflies” in colorful flight and serene recreation. However, the butterflies on display are not local residents. According to Barrett Christie, the aquarium’s director of animal husbandry, they are being brought in from specialty suppliers in Central and South America and from Africa. “They are unpacked and inspected carefully in a bio-secure facility under strict controls to make sure they are not carrying any unwanted pests or parasitoids and allowed to complete their metamorphosis and emerge as butterflies under controlled conditions,” says Christie. “The butterflies are then transferred to the main exhibit, where most species will live about two to four weeks on average.”
Scene from the 2016 "Flutter Zone" at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk. Courtesy The Maritime Aquarium.
Sigworth added that the foreign butterflies will be contained in the exhibit and have zero chance of becoming an invasive species. “One of the important aspects of the exhibit is that when you go into it, you're actually going to go through two doors,” he says. “And as you exit, there'll be mirrors and door staff to make sure that there isn't a butterfly on your back or anything that will allow them to leave this enclosure.” The exhibit will emphasize the role that butterflies play as pollinators within agricultural and horticultural environments, and it will call on visitors to recognize the role they can play in supporting local species, including the monarch butterfly. And, of course, the exhibition will offer a chance for people to interact with butterflies. “A lot of times, the butterflies will land on you and kids enjoy that,” Sigworth says. “They try to get them to land on a hand or finger.” While this is the third time “Flutter Zone” is being staged at the aquarium, Sigworth wasn’t certain if this would become a regular summer presentation. “We always look for different things,” he says, noting that the aquarium’s lineup for summer will include a family-friendly, octopusfocused event on June 14 — “Science Friday's Cephalopod Week,” emceed by NPR “Science Friday” radio host Ira Flatow — as well as the annual summer public cruises and camp. Still, he acknowledges the butterflies will probably steal the show for the summer. “Their colors can be quite gorgeous,” he says, “some really bright blues or different patterns and blends of colors. They're really gorgeous animals.” The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is at 10 N. Water St. For more, call 203-852-0700 or visit maritimeaquarium.org. — Phil Hall
“I’ve been here for a year and a half,” she says. “We're specialty trained with additional internships and residency programs to be board-certified specialists in this area of medicine. The jobs are a little bit fewer and farther to come by, so certainly when you're able to get one of those dream jobs people try to hold on to them.” With all that additional schooling, the aquarium’s trainers and husbandry staff that work with the animals on a daily basis offer invaluable insight on whether a medical problem is occurring, she says: “They're able to pick up on subtle changes early on. We pride ourselves on picking up on things before they become an issue for that animal and before they become truly sick.” The aquarium does not highlight its veterinary services to the public, and Martony acknowledges that few people are aware of the work that is done behind the scenes to ensure the animals’ wellness. The aquarium’s veterinary care was recently in the spotlight over the passing of two beluga whales that were among five animals brought last year from an overcrowded marine habitat in Canada. One died from a preexisting gastrointestinal condition last August shortly after its arrival, while the cause of the second whale’s passing in February has yet to be determined. “As with any living animal, there is illness and death,” Martony says. “We have geriatric populations of animals here, and some of our penguins live incredibly long lifespans into their 30s and even 40s. It depends on the species and not the population, and we’ve strived to provide world class health care for them. But unfortunately, (death) is part of the job.” Mystic Aquarium is at 55 Coogan Blvd. For more, call 860-572-5955 or visit mysticaquarium.org.
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BORSCHT, BLINTZES AND (BEEF) BACON IN COS COB BY JEREMY WAYNE
The requirements of kashrut (Jewish religious law pertaining to food) have always made running a fully kosher restaurant especially demanding. But a handsome, new kosher restaurant in Cos Cob makes light of the constraints. Its owners, the kosher restaurateur and caterer David Teyf, of the Madison & Park Hospitality Group, and his sons, Elan and Tollan Teyf, have also reimagined Ashkenazi (Central and Eastern European) Jewish cooking to make the restaurant, Greenwich & Delancey, appealing not only to traditionalists but to diners across a wide cultural spectrum. Some background. Teyf senior is the proprietor of the Lox café at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in lower Manhattan. He is also the executive chef of the famed Second Avenue Deli and created the menu for the deli’s Second Floor bar and event space. “I consider my dad a pioneer in changing the perspective on kosher food,” says Elan, a trained chef himself who now wears the whites as head chef at Greenwich & Delancey. “He really made it good — delicious and nutritious.” Originally from Minsk, Belarus, which was then part of the Russian Empire, the Teyf family had once owned a matzah factory. Elan and Tollan’s great-grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and, in his honor, his recipe for
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Minsk Matzah Babka — comprised of matzah, eggs and caramelized onions — is featured on the Greenwich & Delancey menu. The restaurant serves it as an amuse-bouche. Elan was four years into his course at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris, from which he earned a bachelor’s degree in cuisine and business hospitality, when the pandemic hit. Back in the States, meanwhile, his parents decided that “being stuck in an apartment” in New York City was not such a great thing during Covid. They moved to Greenwich, where “there was more open space,” elaborates Elan, who returned from France soon after. But once settled in Greenwich, David realized there was no kosher restaurant nearby. “So, my dad said, ‘Why not just do
Elan Teyf, chef of Greenwich & Delancy.
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it ourselves?,’” Elan recalls. “He’s always had a dairy restaurant in the city and thought, this time, why not do meat?” (Jewish dietary laws require the separation of the two, an either/or scenario.) “Kosher food is stigmatized,” puts in Tollan — also a trained chef and an executive director of the restaurant. “We went to Jewish school and I remember the food tasting like rubber. But now we’re trying to show everyone, not just Jews, that kosher food can be delicious.” Elan also sees it as a kind of mission to preserve the cuisine of old. “People are no longer familiar with it, or if they are, it’s a faint memory. So many people remember going somewhere as a child with their parents and having the matzah ball soup or pastrami. It’s like this Proustian idea. But for some reason, no one can replicate it, that feeling.” The ultimate goal, he says, is to revive old recipes and give them new appeal, using refined French techniques. “If you think of gefilte fish,” Elan goes on, referring to the preparation of minced carp or white fish, over which Jewish opinion has always been sharply divided (basically, you either love it or hate it), “you might think of gray matter. But we want you to think of it as more of a French croquette.” While he may be inspired by his classic French training, the laws of kashrut are always waiting to remind him of the limits of what he can achieve in a kosher milieu. Aware of Elan’s occasional frustration, Tollan’s advice to his brother is to “spin it around” and regard the limitations — including the injunctions on many foods such as pork and shellfish, as well as laws prohibiting the mixing of meat and dairy — as a challenge. “He wants me to see what can actually be achieved, rather than fighting it,” says Elan. “And it forces my father and me to be more creative.” Its own merits notwithstanding, because there are only a handful of restaurants with full kosher certification in West-
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Greenwich & Delancy in CosCob. Photographs by Peter Katz.
chester and Fairfield counties, Greenwich & Delancey is already attracting regular kosher diners from Stamford, Scarsdale, White Plains, New Rochelle and even New Jersey. This is in addition to a growing following of local customers, who are not bound by the laws of kashrut but who simply enjoy the restaurant for the high-quality food it serves. The menu, meanwhile, is part paean, or love letter, to a forgotten world and part modern iteration of contemporary Eastern European dishes. Odessa borscht, for instance, gets a French twist with garlic; duck blintzes — themselves a riff on cheese blintzes of yore — are comprised of confit of duck with Vidalia onions; and Chicken Kiev (so poignant to see on a menu right now), in a spin on the classic dish with hot garlic butter, features chicken breasts with a wild mushroom stuffing and tofu cream sauce. There are reworkings, too, like branzino pirozhki and Chilean sea bass knish, both delicious. And while pelmeni and veriniki
may sound like crazed Carpathian twins but are actually varieties of Polish dumpling, they are both so light that you can do away with any thoughts of that old standby, bicarb of soda, as a “chaser.” Tollan contributes to the menu with his own version of a BLT, here made with “beef bacon.” Methods like “pan-seared” and “rosemary-grilled,” along with ingredients like sumac, baby arugula, avocado, shitake mushrooms and extra virgin olive oil may not exactly chime with the cabbage and potato staples of the shtetl, but the updates are all welcome. Similarly, “your choice of healthy side” is not something you would necessarily expect to find on a kosher deli menu, “healthy” being the opposite of the carb-heavy, artery-blocking fare that was once a prerequisite of this type of cooking. It’s all thoroughly modern and in a good way. Heaven alone knows what the Jews of the old country would have made of the asterisked menu footnote, informing
diners that “all sandwiches are available on romaine hearts instead of bread.” As well as dining-in, the entire Greenwich & Delancey menu is available for takeout. There is also a small bar offering beer, a few kosher wines and premium brand liquors and cocktails. Given the myriad dietary restrictions, as well as the necessity of remaining closed on a Friday night and Saturday (the Jewish Sabbath, but of course the busiest service days and times for restaurants generally), Elan has one last point to make. “My father wants to get across that we’re not just in it for the money. I mean, obviously making some money is important, but we want to make people happy, give them a feeling of escape. Because that’s what a restaurant is, an escape. For a couple of hours, you enter a different world.” At Greenwich & Delancey, you certainly do. For more, visit greenwichanddelancey.com.
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ANITA HILL’S BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Long before #MeToo, Christine Blasey Ford and newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, there was Anita Hill. In 1991, she riveted and divided a nation — enduring everything from character assassination to death threats — as she testified before the United States Senate that then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her during the years she worked for him at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Thomas would be confirmed, women would be galvanized to run for and attain Congressional seats as never before and Hill would go on to become a professor of law, public policy and women’s studies at Brandeis University, a PEN Courage Award-winning author and a human rights advocate whose new book is “Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence.” (Her autobiography, “Speaking Truth to Power,” shares her crucible of testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired at the time by then Sen.now President, Joe Biden.) But it is a measure of how far we’ve come — and of Hill’s character — that she did not lead with what she called “the 800-pound elephant in the room” when she delivered the keynote address at the April 22 luncheon for Fairfield County’s Community
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Foundation, The Fund for Women & Girls at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich. Now in its 24th year, The Fund for Women & Girls is the largest of its kind in New England, helping tens of thousands of underserved women and girls in the region. The Thomas hearings may have shaped Hill, but they have not defined her. No surprise then that she received two standing ovations — one at the end of her talk and one before she even spoke a word — along with a proclamation from Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, citing her courage. “Through trial and error, I found my way and I continue to find my way,” she told a packed audience of 438 in the room — with 150 attending online. “I survived and you can, too.”
‘BOILING THE OCEAN’
Hill’s way has led her to become an educator and in particu-
lar to educate people about gender violence. “What do I mean by gender-based violence?” she asked. “It’s a range of behaviors as described by people who have been victimized” that can include anything from sexual harassment in the workplace to rape. Hill said she “ostentatiously called” her new book “Believing,” “because I believe the research. I believe the data.” The statistics are alarming. One in four women will be the victims of intimate-partner violence, 10 million women a year — the populations of Arkansas, Missouri and her native Oklahoma combined. Half of all working women will be sexually harassed in their lives, which may include physical and sexual violence. Seven out of 10 who report the behavior will face retaliation. The rates are higher for women of color and members of the LGBTQ community.
WAY
Anita Hill — a professor of law, public policy and women’s studies at Brandeis University, a PEN Courage Award-winning author and a human rights advocate whose new book is “Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence.” Photographs by Olivier J-P Kpognon, O & Co. Media. MAY 2022 WAGMAG.COM 25
Nor is gender violence limited to men harassing women. One in six men will be victims of sexual violence, she said, while 48% of children will be sexually harassed and bullied. Elder abuse is another form of gender violence, she added. And while the term Hill used throughout her talk is “gender violence,” she noted that those who are nonbinary — who do not see themselves as exclusively male or female — can be abused as well. If it seemed as if she were defining the issue broadly, “boiling the ocean” as she put it, it’s because the problem is both nuanced and systemic with repercussions for the health of victims and of the workplace and economy. The United Nations acknowledged the issue 30 years ago, she said. “It’s time to stop admiring the problem and find solutions,” she added. Those solutions can range from the behavior of students to initiatives by the federal government. It should not be acceptable, for example, for boys to pull down girls’ pants as a way to attract their attention, she said. Nor should it be acceptable for the Senate Judiciary Committee to treat a Supreme Court nominee with less than respect, which is what many who tuned into the Jackson hearings saw. “Racism and sexism still exist,” Hill said. “But it doesn’t reflect all of America,” although she added, “we must stop denigrating civil rights protections.” Though she did not address it in her prepared remarks or in her subsequent onstage conversation with retiring Community Foundation President and CEO Juanita James — who was also honored at the event — Hill received an apology from Biden when he was running for president for the way he handled the Thomas hearings, which ended in what was reportedly a brokered, bipartisan deal to get Thomas confirmed. (Four women who would’ve backed Hill’s story were never called to testify.) She has said elsewhere that she
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Juanita James, retiring president and CEO of Fairfield County’s Community Foundation.
would be willing to work with the federal government on gender violence, just as she chairs Hollywood’s Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, noting that “Hollywood has glamorized bad behavior.”
ACTING LOCALLY
In their onstage conversation, James noted that Hill has been able to endure and achieve in part because of her support system. The youngest of 13 children, Anita Faye Hill was born into a farming family in Lone Tree, Oklahoma — the granddaughter and great-granddaughter of slaves. Class valedictorian at Morris High School, she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology with honors from Oklahoma State University. Steered away from a career in the sciences by an adviser because it would be too hard, presumably for a woman, Hill took the “easy” way out and went to Yale Law School,
earning her Juris Doctor with honors. After the Thomas debacle, she served as an assistant professor at the O.W. Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University from 1983 to 1986, before the law school migrated to Regent University, and then taught at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where she became the first tenured African American professor in 1989. But calls for her resignation as a result of her testimony against Thomas persisted, and she left in 1996. Two years later, she became a visiting scholar at Brandeis and a professor in 2015. Those who do not have Hill’s wide support system have to be family to themselves, she said. But she also spoke with passion about the work of The Fund for Women & Girls, which has awarded $8.8 million in 444 grants to women and girls in need across Fairfield County’s 23 municipalities. One of the
greatest needs — family economic security. The MIT Living Wage Calculator for Fairfield County estimates that a woman with a child requires an annual income of nearly $76,000 for basic needs. But the median income for women in Fairfield County is only $63,000. Hence The Fund for Women & Girls and its new emme coalition. Standing for “empowerment, mindfulness, motivation and education,” the program is designed to help women and girls obtain quality health care, as described at the luncheon by Chilean immigrant Jaqueline Carrizo, a beneficiary of the coalition’s services. As with aiding the underserved, fighting gender violence is not a sprint or a marathon, Hill said, but a relay. “It takes a lot of people to move the needle.” For more, visit FCCFoundation.org or call 203-750-3200.
CATCH UP OR GET AHEAD WITH SUMMER SESSIONS
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Having conquered Broadway, TV and film, Brian Stokes Mitchell sets his sights on Caramoor. Photographs by James Edward Alexander. 28 MAY 2022
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BRIAN STOKES MITCHELL’S POSSIBLE DREAM BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
There’s a terrific moment in the musical “South Pacific” — “This Nearly Was Mine” — when kindly French plantation owner Emile de Becque realizes that the love and happiness he longs for and deserves is slipping away. And all because of the blind, stupid, infuriating prejudice of others. “For me, that’s my favorite song in the show,” says Brian Stokes Mitchell, who played de Becque in “ ‘South Pacific’ in Concert From Carnegie Hall,” which aired on PBS’ “Great Performances” in 2006. “That is the center of the show — that and ‘You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught’” — which is also about the emotional cost of prejudice. Though he listened to recordings of Italian opera star Ezio Pinza — who originated the role of de Becque in the acclaimed 1949 Broadway production — Stokes, as he prefers to be called, says he wanted to reinvent the character and in particular de Becques’ big number. In rehearsal with music director/conductor Paul Gemignani and then on the concert stage, Stokes sang the
song through but then in the reprise, slowed the tempo and sang more softly, offering “a close-up of what’s in (de Becque’s) head” until words, music and emotions accelerated and crescendoed at the end. De Becque may be resigned to love lost, Stokes says, but he is resilient. And in Stokes’ portrayal of that resilience, a hushed audience knew it was in the presence not only of theatrical greatness but of a transcendent experience. “A song takes you on a journey, the way a poem does,” says Stokes, who’ll bring his artistry to Caramoor in Katonah as part of its summer festival (June 18 through Aug. 19).
FORTUNATE SON
Although Stokes is as wellknown on the concert circuit
as he is on stage and screen and has visited Caramoor, his July 9 appearance will mark his debut at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, which financier Walter T. Rosen and his wife, the former Lucie Bigelow Dodge, began with musical performances in their Mediterranean-style home in 1946. (Quick to make connections to Caramoor and Westchester, Mitchell notes that his older brother John designed and built examples of the theremin, an electronic instrument in which Lucie Rosen excelled. And Mitchell himself is a big fan of the late Cortlandt Manor composer Aaron Copland (Page 32), whose “Lincoln Portrait” he narrated for a U.S. Marine Band performance that aired on NPR.
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“He was a huge influence on my life,” Stokes says, adding that he learned orchestration in part by transcribing such Copland scores as “Billy the Kid” by hand — a skill that would come in handy when he scored and conducted the music for some episodes of the 1980s CBS series “Trapper John, M.D.,” on which he co-starred for its seven seasons. It was a role he landed right at the beginning of his career. “Man, I’ve been so lucky,” he says, not only in a 40-year career that has taken him from Broadway (“Man of La Mancha”) to Netflix (a new film on the late Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress) but in a family that was able to offer him so much. He was born on Halloween in Seattle to Lillian Mitchell, an educator, and George Mitchell, a civilian electronics engineer who worked for the U.S. Navy and later served as chief radio officer for the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and Exxon, now ExxonMobil. (Mitchell was also one of the original “Tuskegee Airmen,” an African American unit of the U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) during World War II, having taught radio and blinker code at Moton Field, Alabama.) Young Stokes grew up in Seattle, San Diego, Guam and the Philippines, beginning piano and vocal studies at age 6. Eight years later, he would return to the U.S. to study singing, acting and dancing at the San Diego Junior Theatre. And two years after that, he’d be on San Diego stages before a transfer with a repertory company to Los Angeles — and destiny.
ART AND MONEY
Stokes understands only too well, however, that not everyone has been so fortunate. Perhaps that’s why while he speaks passionately about the arts and culture — the words rushing forward, punctuated every now and then by three in particular,
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“joy,” “joyous” and “joyousness” — there’s a pragmatism to him as well that’s evinced in his roles as a founder of Black Theatre United and chairman of the board of The Actors Fund. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, Stokes joined with a group of actors, directors, musicians, writers, technicians, producers and stage managers that included Vanessa Williams, Audra McDonald, Billy Porter and Anna Deavere Smith to form Black Theatre United and stand for social justice. The group also met with “producers, directors, union heads, artists,” Stokes says, to discuss not only the portrayals of Blacks in the theater but also the opportunities for them, particularly in the arena of leadership. “We got into a room and said, ‘We have a problem, and how are we going to solve it? It’s about the business of theater and the message of theater but mostly it’s about the business of theater, because we live in a capitalistic society.'” We also live in a heterogenous one that is becoming increasingly multicultural, he adds. “What happens to organizations that don’t embrace heterogeneity?” To Stokes, it’s about everyone getting off his high horse to understand the viewpoints of others and perfect a flawed system of government that’s better than most. That understanding needs to be extended to a theatrical community that for the most part doesn’t consist of stars like himself but gig workers going from job to job, he adds. The Actors Fund offers social services to those in need in the performing artists, be they on camera or stage or behind the scenes — a need that has become greater with Covid. But as the need for help has increased, so has the theater’s initiatives. Stokes points to efforts like “Stars in the House,” a livestream series hosted by Sirius XM’s Seth Rudetsky and his
A ‘DYNAMIC’ SEASON Caramoor’s summer season opens with cellist Yo-Yo Ma & The Knights on June 18 and continues through Aug. 19. Headliners include opera sopranos Stephanie Blythe and Dawn Upshaw; country-blues-old time singer and instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens with the Silkroad Ensemble; the Trinity Baroque Orchestra in Handel’s “Theodora”; and Michael Gordon presenting his new, experimental, site-specific “Field of Vision” for 40 percussionists. “This summer is one of the most dynamic in our history,” says Caramoor President and CEO Edward J. Lewis III. “Our incredible lineup of artists and repertoire include voices from an array of backgrounds, eras and lived experiences, reflecting a broad diversity of audiences…. We’re thrilled to present a season of such powerful world-class music experiences in our picturesque outdoor venues.” Adds Kathy Schuman, Caramoor’s artistic director: “Over the years, Caramoor’s programming has expanded beyond classical music to include jazz, American roots, world music and more, so we’ve already been presenting a diverse slate of musicians. This summer I’m particularly excited to be highlighting many underrepresented artists in the classical realm, who so deserve greater recognition. I hope that their amplified voices and music will be as great a discovery to audiences as they have been to me.” In addition to Gordon’s “Field of Visions,” other free events include “Soundscapes,” a pre-season program that officially opens the grounds on June 5 with performances by percussive dancers, a beatboxer, and vocal percussionist and a breath artist, as well as a theremin performance, workshops and the opportunity to meet the sound artists and participate in guided tours of the Sonic Innovations exhibit. Caramoor will also celebrate the emancipation of enslaved African Americans with a Juneteenth event marked by its collaboration with the town of Bedford. For tickets and more, visit Caramoor.org.
husband, producer James Wesley, that raises money for The Actors Fund with a talk-performance format. The fund will also host its fundraising gala on May 9 at 7:30 p.m. in New York and Los Angeles.
MAN OF MANHATTAN — AND LA MANCHA
Stokes knows all about Covid. In March 2020, he came down with it. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever had except shingles — a 105-degree fever, chills. I lost my senses of taste and smell. I could feel it moving around my body.” Jason Kindt, DO, The Actors Fund’s medical director, advised him not to go to a hospital, since no one knew what he was dealing with at that time. So Stokes quarantined away from his wife and son in his Manhattan apartment. When he was strong enough, he began going out on his balcony and singing “The Impossible Dream” from “Man of La Mancha,” in whose 2002 Broadway revival he starred. Inspired by Italians in lockdown, Stokes did this for 2 ½ months to honor essential workers, all the while wondering if he were making it about himself and should quit. But like the cynical prisoners in "La Mancha," who are ultimately won over by the troubled Miguel de Cervantes’ tale of Don Quixote’s impossible dream, Stokes’ neighbors urged him on, gathering beneath his balcony to listen. And he realized he wasn’t just singing for an ideal or himself. He was singing for them. It’s what he’s always done. “Here’s my main thing,” he says, “trying to…let the music come through and bring joy.” Brian Stokes Mitchell performs songs from the American Songbook at 8 p.m. July 9 at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts’ Venetian Theater. Tickets begin at $40. For more, visit caramoor.org. And for more on The Actors Fund’s May 9 gala, visit actorsfund.org.
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A SECOND HOME
Michael Boriskin performing at New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in 2018. Photograph by Larry Sandez. Inset: Michael Boriskin. Photograph by Alison Bert. 32 MAY 2022
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FOR COPLAND HOUSE BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
One of the “advantages,” if you will, of the Covid crisis is that it has spurred people and institutions to reconsider their identities and goals. That includes Copland House — a center for American music in the former Cortlandt Manor home of composer Aaron Copland, now a National Historic Landmark. “We had to reexamine ourselves in the short term and on a long-term basis,” says Michael Boriskin, the organization’s artistic and executive director. “(Covid) gave us the opportunity to think about what we were doing and how we interact with the world around us.”
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It also reinforced the nonprofit’s need for an additional home for its expanding programs. For a time, Boriskin thought that would be Merestead, a 130-acre estate in Mount Kisco bequeathed to Westchester County in 1982 by Margaret Sloane Patterson — daughter of William Sloane of W. & J. Sloane furniture fame — and her husband, Robert L. Patterson Jr., M.D., with the proviso that the county would develop the place as an historic site after their deaths, buttressed by the interest on a $4 million endowment. In 2009, Copland House partnered with the county to create a retreat for composers there, similar to Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York. It was at Merestead that Copland House — having presented concerts in North America for 10 years — started its mainstage series in Westchester, featuring the Music From Copland House ensemble, which can range from two to 13 instrumentalists and vocalists, including pianist Boriskin himself. After 10 years at Merestead, however, he says the county’s and Copland House’s interests diverged. The county is restoring the 28-room mansion, built in 1907, while Copland House keeps house-hunting. That’s because Copland House itself, where Copland lived from 1960 until his death in 1990, is a relatively modest 2,500-squarefoot dwelling that includes the administrative offices of three full-time employees and three part-time and a composer-in-residence who has the run of the house for three to eight weeks. (Copland House hosts 10 to 12 composers a year singly in this all-expenses-paid program and is open to visitors by appointment.) “We need a larger structural footprint,” Boriskin says. Earlier this year, Copland House and the Emelin Theatre, a performing arts venue in Mamaroneck, announced a new partnership showcasing Music From Copland House in a three-con-
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Members of the Music From Copland House ensemble, with Copland House Artistic and Executive Director Michael Boriskin. Photograph by Alison Bert.
cert residency. The series continued May 1 with “Lives Entwined,” plumbing inner and outer lives with “Piano Trio,” a work by the teenage Leonard Bernstein; “Piano Quintet,” Emmy Award winner John Musto’s chamber adaptation of his orchestral “Sinfonietta,” about life and loss; and Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Four Folk Songs for Piano Trio,” in which she once again engages with the traditions of her Peruvian-Chinese-Lithuanian-Jewish ancestry. The series finale on June 19 is a Juneteenth celebration of Emancipation that borrows its title from a Maya Angelou lyric — “I’ve got a magic charm / That I keep up my sleeve” — for composer Richard Danielpour’s song “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me.” Beginning with Harry Burleigh, a late-19th-century pioneer of Black spirituals, the concert explores the multidisciplinary world of the Harlem Renaissance and hails 20th- and 21st-century composers William Grant Still, Tania Leon and Shawn Okpebholo. With acclaimed performances at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and the Art Institute of Chicago, among other venues, Music From Copland House “redefines what it is to listen to fine music in the 21st-century,” observed the District Fray. Part of that redefinition is a diversification that has brought contemporary composers — particularly women and people of color — into a conversation with the titans of music history. “One of my long-standing problems with the concert world is the use of the word ‘classical’ to represent the whole field,” Boriskin says. “If you’re just reflecting the past, then you’re not diverse by definition….We’ve always defined American music as broadly as possible.” The programs at the Emelin represent a return to live concertizing in Westchester after a morethan-two-year Covid hiatus that has seen a rolling comeback for Copland House’s offerings since
its March 8, 2020 concert at the John Jay Homestead in Katonah. The composer-in-residence program, which has only one composer at a time, was the first to return in the fall of 2020. A year later, the ensemble resumed out-of-town concerts. Copland House’s educational outreach resumes this fall. “We took a very big hit,” Boriskin says. “We lost essentially all of our earned income.” The organization — which he says makes the most of its $600,000 operating budget — balanced those losses with virtual programming, individual and foundation help but especially government support, “local, state and federal. Hats off to ArtsWestchester and (the federal government’s) CARES Act and (New York state’s) Restart and Recovery.” Navigating all this is a man who has been serious about music since he was a 6-year-old piano student, growing up on Long Island and attending public schools there. He graduated from Juilliard and the City University of New York. But along with an international career as a concert pianist, Boriskin was also interested in arts administration, working with National Public Radio (NPR) as creator and cohost of its “CenturyView” series and serving as music director for Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project. When a group sought to save Copland’s home in the ’90s, Boriskin thought he’d offer some advice and move on. Almost a quarter-century later, he says, “I’m still here.” The Music From Copland House’ ensemble performs at 4 p.m. June 19 at the Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck. The concert is one hour without intermission and includes a post-concert talk with the artists. Tickets are $45 and $35 and are available at emelin.org or 914-698-0098. For more, visit coplandhouse.org.
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EXPANDING ITS FOOTPRINT AND OUTREACH BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Renderings of the Hudson River Museum’s West Wing capital improvement project, which opens this fall. Courtesy Archimuse. 36 MAY 2022 WAGMAG.COM
The largest cultural institution in Westchester County, the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers is about to get bigger — in more ways than one. The museum — known for its exhibits on the art, history and science of the Hudson Valley and beyond; its planetarium; and Glenview, a landmarked Victorian mansion featured on HBO’s “The Gilded Age” — is near the end of a two-year, $12.3 million West Wing capital improvement project that will expand the museum’s footprint from approximately 40,000 square feet to 52,000 square feet. (For the project, the museum received $6.2 million from Westchester County, $5.5 million from Yonkers and $630,000 from the state.) A sculpture court, a 100 tieredseat auditorium, a 3,000-squarefoot art storage space and a climate control system — under the aegis of Archimuse, a Manhattan architectural firm, and GTL Construction, based in White Plains — will blend with a campus that includes a central courtyard and splendid views of the Hudson and Palisades beyond. But what may be of particular interest for the 80,000 visitors a year from 42 states (pre-Covid) are the new galleries, opening this fall, that will also transform the existing exhibit space, says Masha Turchinsky, the museum’s director and CEO. “We’re very excited about the dedicated Special Exhibition Galleries,” she says. “What this means is that the spaces traditionally used for special exhibits will be able to feature more of the permanent collection.” Those holdings include nearly 18,000 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs, decorative art objects, costumes, textiles and historical items from the 19th century to the
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Hudson River Museum West Wing • River Terrace
er Museum West Wing • Community Gallery
present. Recently, the museum announced two additions — Fitz Henry Lane’s serene, panoramic “Gloucester, Stage Fort Beach” (1849), much in the style of the Hudson River School of 19th-century landscape painting; and Severin Roesen’s Old Masters-inspired still life “Fruit With Water Glass” (circa 1850-70). The two oils on canvas, the gifts of Shelley and Felice Bergman, are part of “Cycles of Nature: Highlights From the Collections of the Hudson River Museum and Art Bridges” (through Feb. 12, 2023) — Art Bridges Collection Partnership Program being the brainchild of arts patron and Walmart heiress
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Alice Walton to supplement exhibits of American art at museums around the country. The permanent collection will also play a key role in “New Order: Experiments in Collections” (June 17 through Sept. 3), which will include 11 19th- and 20th-century paintings from Omaha, Nebraska’s Joslyn Art Museum, now undergoing renovation. (These works appear as part of the Art Bridges program.) Besides Special Exhibition Galleries — which will be inaugurated Oct. 22 with the exhibits “Kengo Kito: Unity on the Hudson” and “Rivers Flow / Artists Connect,” both through May 14,
2023 — there will be a new Community and Partnership Gallery that will “break down the silos” among various groups in the county, Turchinsky says, as they work together on exhibits based on certain themes. So schools might find themselves partnering with scientists to look at climate change or with emerging artists for an exhibit on works in different media. Why is the construction of these new galleries and their interplay with existing exhibit spaces important not only to arts lovers but the business community? Because they demonstrate, Turchinsky says, that the museum transcends the river that runs through it metaphorically and the Hudson River School that defined the Americas as the new Eden in the decades that bracketed the Civil War. “Museums are at their best when they reflect the places in which they’re located.” The Hudson River Museum’s diverse hometown of Yonkers, the subject of WAG’s December issue, occupies a strategic location between an equally diverse New York City and a changing Hudson Valley. “So we can take a Hudson River School painting and bring in slam poets, DJs and spoken-word artists…and bring that historical work into conversation with the present day.” With an operating budget of $2.9 million and 25 full-time and 13 part-time employees, the museum also has “a vibrant group of adult docents” and 75 junior docents from Yonkers Middle High School, Lincoln High School and Riverside High School who’ve met such leaders as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield. But perhaps nothing better crystallizes the idea of bridging different cultures than the museum’s exhibits “The World of Frida Kahlo” and “Frida Kahlo in Context” (both through May 22), which explore the life and work
Masha Turchinsky, director and CEO of the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers. Courtesy the Hudson River Museum.
of a painter who embraced her indigenous-Mexican and German heritages. Turchinsky, too, is a bridge — fluent in Spanish as well as English with a working knowledge of Italian and Ukrainian. (Born and raised in Yonkers, Turchinsky is of Irish-Ukrainian descent. She says she has family in the eastern and western parts of Ukraine, with whom she is in frequent contact via social media. It is, she adds, not easy to leave the country. She describes the situation as “heavy.”) She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Georgetown University, an M.A. in education from New York University and an Ed.M. in international educational development from Teachers College, Columbia University. “My interests have always been in informal learning environments, such as museums.” `For some 20 years, she rose through the ranks of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s education and digital departments with a focus on media. There she also served as a delegate to The Met’s board of trustees, which would prove invaluable at the helm of the Hudson River Museum, a position she assumed on Jan. 1, 2017. In a subsequent conversation, she thinks back to a time when, fresh out of Georgetown with two suitcases, no job, no apartment and no contacts, she took herself off to Madrid to immerse herself in Spanish life and culture. What she discovered wandering the Museo del Prado and other iconic Spanish institutions, she says, is that while she might’ve been alone in a museum, she was never lonely. Turchinsky — who lives in Yonkers with her husband and two children — wants Hudson River Museum visitors to feel that kinship. “For someone to come into the museum, commune with a painting and have a relaxing time — that means we’re doing our job.” For more, visit hrm.org.
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A NATURAL ALTERNATIVE FOR RELIEVING PAIN BY EDWARD ARRIAZA
CBD Live Natural has been in operation since 2015 and, as its name suggests, offers CBD products, its overall goal being to improve the health of its clientele. Owned by Marcie Manfredonia-Siciliano and located at 720 N. Bedford Road in Bedford Hills, where she is also the proprietor of the Custom Candle Co., the store offers consumers a range of products, including hemp oil extract tinctures, freeze gels and aromatherapy candles. According to Manfredonia-Siciliano, the CBD found in the company’s products is derived from hemp and has less than 3% THC, the primary psychoactive component that would produce a high. “There’s people that look for that THC that’s in there — that little high — and there’s some people that just want the health benefit of it,” Manfredonia-Siciliano says. “We find more people are looking for the health benefit than the high.” Assuaging misunderstandings many may have about CBD and related products is a major part of her job. CBD oil is generally used for medicinal purposes and has shown great promise in treat-
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ing inflammation, pain, sleep disorders and even certain types of epileptic seizures. But the sale of CBD products is not without controversy, as some in health care argue that while early results and testing may be promising, more research is still needed. The products sold on CBD Live Natural’s website are not approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA). CBD Live Natural encourages customers to seek approval from their doctors prior to using its products. Perhaps the biggest hurdle in maintaining the business came in the early months of the pandemic. Demand still persisted for CBD Live Natural products despite or because of the lockdown and subsequent challenges to the general population’s mental health. In response to continued demand and cautious of the still-raging pandemic, Manfredonia-Siciliano reopened the store in a contained way, with little to no staff on hand besides herself. “We were able to pivot by doing the deliveries and curbside,” she adds. “I actually went door to door delivering CBD oil to people when Covid came out, because they wanted their oil.” The business survived those troubled times, though CBD Live Natural continues to battle economic hardships. Due to inflation, customers are somewhat reticent when shopping at CBD Live Natural. “Now it’s only a need, if they
only have to, and they watch their pennies,” Manfredonia-Siciliano says. She continues her work unabated, however, due to her strongly held belief in the effectiveness of her products. “CBD Live Natural offers health benefits and a way to live healthy without taking prescription drugs,” she says. “I was on a mission to make sure I found something that’s purely natural and that we can help people live pain-free, because you can’t enjoy yourself, you can’t enjoy your life, if you’re living (in pain).” The Bedford Hills resident speaks from experience. The catalyst for starting the business came when she began suffering from fibromyalgia, developed
Marcie Manfredonia-Siciliano showcasing some of the products sold at CBD Live Natural. Courtesy CBD Live Natural.
anxiety and was soon heavily medicated on prescription drugs to reduce her pain, with limited success. “My turning point came when I just was in such a depression, I didn’t want to do anything anymore,” Manfredonia-Siciliano says. “The pain just got so bad.” She turned to CBD oil at her son’s insistence. Ironically, up until that point, Manfredonia-Siciliano had been against the use of cannabis. But with seemingly no other options available to limit the pain she experienced, she conceded. “Once I started trying it — I gave it a few days — I noticed a subtle change. After a couple of weeks, it changed my life,” she recalls. “I’m able to play with my grandchildren. I’m able to do things that I was not able to do before. I’m not on prescription drugs. I have no anxiety.” Manfredonia-Siciliano continues to advocate for the health benefits of CBD in general, not just items sold at her store, and implores people to give CBD products a chance if they seek to improve their health. “Honestly, I don’t care if you don’t buy it from me,” she says. In the near future, she is looking to restart her efforts to increase CBD awareness, as she had done prior to Covid, which would involve educational classes, live podcasts and discussion groups. She is also planning to open a bar that sells wine, beer and coffee infused with CBD oil, where patrons can relax and enjoy the atmosphere. Despite past and current difficulties, Manfredonia-Siciliano remains both optimistic and ambitious. “In ’23, I am going to be a household name. And I will be in Whole Foods Market. I will be in many, many grocery stores, many, many drugstores,” Manfredonia-Siciliano says, only somewhat playfully. For more, visit cbdlivenatural.com.
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PURSUING HER PASSIONS IN WESTPORT STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY JUSTIN MCGOWN
Tucked into an attic room in Westport’s Sconset Square is the reinvention of the former Manhattan boutique Yoya.
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For 20 years, owner Cristina Villegas curated a collection of kid’s clothes and homewares in the West Village. But a move to Connecticut, coupled with the arrival of the pandemic, changed all that. “I’m only 12 minutes from here,” she says with a gesture toward the retail space, which also serves as the headquarters of her interior design studio, Casa Yoya. “I bought an old barn in Weston. I renovated the barn on my own basically. “I hired a really good carpenter, I got a good plumber, I had a good electrician, but I didn’t have a contractor. I didn’t have an architect. I did it on my own,” she adds, her lightly accented voice bright. Born and raised in Colombia, Villegas has always done interior design. But when she was living in New York City, she did not have nearly as many opportunities to engage in that aspect of her work. She lacked both the physical space and room in her schedule, owing to the demands of running the Yoya boutique full-time. The pace of things in the middle of Fairfield County is a little slower, but Villegas says that she was excited by the move. She did not expect to have as much time
to dedicate to the renovations as she did, but then the pandemic and a subsequent rent hike, despite her landlord’s help, forced her to close her Manhattan store for good. “When I closed the shop in the city, that door closed but then another door opened,” Villegas says, echoing a quote from telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell. “People were reaching out, saying, ‘I love your style. Can you help me with my house?’ “That was super-cool, because I was really sad,” she adds. “I took like a year off from retail, even though I had the online store. I didn’t have that much inventory left, so it wasn’t very hard, but I was heartbroken. Like heart broken. I didn’t think I was going to go back into retail.” Villegas decided for a while that 20 years in business with an internationally known store was a great run. But she had cultivated a following she lightheartedly describes as “kind of cult-y” and was missing out on the relationships with regulars who had sustained her across two decades. And she discovered that focusing on interior design wasn’t enough. “I wasn’t thinking I was going to reopen the store, but I really
Cristina Villegas, founder of the children’s/home goods boutique Yoya — and interior design business Casa Yoya — in Westport.
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wanted somewhere I could work out of. I wanted to get out of the house. I wanted a space. So I found this space,” Villegas says with another gesture toward the low ceiling and cozy interior. “It’s tiny. Look at it: It’s not really built for retail. But while I was here doing the interiors, a lot of people kept reaching out, reaching out. So I’m like, ‘You know, maybe I’ll use it a little, maybe open up for retail in like two years when I’m not busy.’ But then I start adding things.” A wallpaper pattern was followed by more shelving. That led to a couch and more shelving. Eventually Villegas found herself not just storing her remaining inventory of children’s tops but displaying them. “So then here I am,” Villegas says, “I reopened Yoya. Now I have Yoya and Casa Yoya…which is cool. Because it’s not such a big store, it allows me to do both.” The venue is not the only thing that has changed as a result of the move, though. “In the city I bought super-high fashion. I did a lot of the everyday cool style, but I also did risky, more expensive, more fashion-forward pieces. Whereas here you still have the sense of fashion, but it’s more like fun play clothes.” Still, Villegas brought her own style to bear. She was happy to speak about importing children’s clothes from European brands while providing a brief tour of the space. She likes the bold patterns of Bobo Choses out of Barcelona, the sophisticated simplicity of Hello Simone, or the funky, surprising use of imagery in Molo. Villegas pointed out the $100 Molo Candy Graphic Print dress that features screen-printed photographs of a horse and blooming flowers, delightful for clothes horses and horse girls alike, as a particularly fun item in the collection. Meanwhile her boy’s collec-
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tion features a slightly more “surfer-inspired” vibe, exemplified by the Australian brand Munsterkids. “I try to be really careful with the prices for the boys,” Villegas says with a conspiratorial hush, “because, well, you know, boys don’t really take care of their clothes.” After a moment’s reflection, she adds, “I always tell the parents, ‘You gotta pick your battles.’ It’s not always worth it. If you have a kid that loves clothes and wants to dress up, great and if you don’t, you don’t. And the kid will grow and change.
Things won’t stay the same.” Among the things that have changed for Villegas is her motivation for the shop. She opened the original location shortly after the birth of her older daughter, who is currently studying at The American University of Paris, still deciding if she wants to accept an internship working with Villegas at Yoya. Her younger daughter attends Weston High School and is active in sports. Villegas says that both of them are a bit more streetwise for having grown up in the city,
but the change of setting has for her felt like coming full circle. “I grew up in a small town in Colombia,” she adds, “probably much like Westport — lots of horses, big houses, but urban — a slower-paced community." Yet despite a different venue, Villegas doesn’t feel disconnected from New York City. It’s only an hour away after all. And she’s glad to be pursuing a passion regardless of the venue. “This is your life, right? So you gotta do something that you love.” For more, visit yoyanyc.com.
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Courtesy the Losapio family.
A tribute: William M. Losapio, WAG adviser BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
William M. Losapio — co-owner of the former Sergio’s and Gregory’s restaurants in Hartsdale and White Plains respectively and an adviser for Westfair Communications’ WAG magazine, died at his Valhalla home on the evening of April 18 at age 80. The cause, son William Jr. said, was acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare and particularly aggressive form of the disease. “Billy (as he was known to friends, family and acquaintances in the hospitality industry) was a supportive, sensitive and loving adviser,” said Dee DelBello, publisher and CEO of Westfair Communications Inc., parent company of the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals and WAG magazine. “I shall miss his insights and suggestions. A perfect host, he was a kindly, gracious man who would listen intently and make you feel like the most important person in the room. His passing has created a vacuum among my friendships.”
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Often that wisdom and sympathy would be dispensed at Sapori of White Plains, the Italian restaurant that ultimately succeeded Gregory’s. Though Losapio had long since sold Gregory’s, he retained ownership of the property and served as a kind of godfather to Sapori owners Sammy and Kenny Balidemaj. Many were the delightful luncheons that he hosted there for members of the WAG staff. By then, Losapio was a hospitality legend in Westchester County. At age 22, he went into the restaurant business with brothers Sergio and Gregory —
who were 12 and 10 years older respectively and who would give their names to the establishments, a few miles apart from each other on Central Avenue, that their kid brother would manage. The restaurants were never just about Italian cuisine. The entrepreneurial Losapio was interested in the entertainment business. Sergio’s, which had been a diner, became a cabaret-restaurant that the brothers would own from 1964 to ’93. Gregory’s, which the brothers had from 1971 to 2006, was always studded with bold-faced names. As WAG noted in its July 2014 piece on Sapori: “From politics to the Rat Pack, (Losapio) ran in enough of the right crowds to rub elbows with the likes of Nelson A. Rockefeller and Frank Sinatra. Both dined at Gregory’s, plus legends like Dean Martin, Liza Minnelli and Bette Midler.” But it was Losapio’s beloved mother, Yolanda, who would provide the impetus for his second career with another musical star. In the late 1960s, she told her youngest son that she wanted to see a certain British singer with an unforgettable German stage name, Engelbert Humperdinck, who was performing in Manhattan. And she wanted to go in style — in a limousine, recalled Losapio’s wife, Lucille. Losapio complied, accompanying his mother to the concert. Through a friend, they managed to visit backstage. It was the beginning of a personal and professional relationship as Losapio became the singer’s road manager from 1979 to ’81 and then again from 2006 to ’10. William M. Losapio was born March 11, 1942 in Yonkers to Biagio Losapio and his wife, the former Yolanda Raho — immigrants who came from southern Italy’s Puglia region to the United States while in their 20s. They had just a couple of suitcases with which to pass through Ellis Island and live the American Dream. Biagio worked in the construction and ice trades. Yolanda worked in a
blouse factory with her sister, Nina. Both of Losapio’s parents were industrious. But in reflections he left behind that William Jr. graciously shared with WAG, it was clear that the parents were opposite in temperament. In the tradition of the time, Biagio was a distant breadwinner. The elegant Yolanda was the affectionate parent, particularly to her baby, who was so much younger than his brothers. What he learned from each parent in different ways made Losapio determined to be a loving husband to his wife, the former Lucille LaRosa, whom he married on June 13, 1982 and their two children — son William M. Jr. and daughter Cristina. They survive Losapio, along with Cristina’s companion Mike Murnin. Losapio was also a demonstrative friend, beginning each meal with a personal toast. Indeed, you always knew where you stood with him and where he stood on any subject. A graduate of what is now Saunders Trades and Technical High School in Yonkers and a member of the U.S. Marine Reserves from 1960 to ’67 when he was honorably discharged as a lance corporal, Losapio was fiercely patriotic. He raised money for organizations like Wounded Warriors at Knollwood Country Club in Elmsford, his home away from home, where he indulged his passion for golf. When he was diagnosed with AML on Sept. 27, 2021, his golfing days, it would seem, were at an end. But even as he suffered through his illness, wife Lucille said he never forgot to say “please” and “thank you. If there is an upside to cancer, a friend told him, it is that it reminds people of all the love they bear to those challenged by the disease. In his reflections, Losapio said he was astounded by the outpouring of love and support that he received. But friends, family and acquaintances alike were merely reflecting the love he gave them.
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Creating coastal chic STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH BY CAMI WEINSTEIN
A pastel sunset off the Long Island Sound outside the author’s Montauk home.
The seashore has held a timeless allure for many of us. The rhythmic sound of the surf cascading to the shore, the tang of the water tantalizing the nostrils and gradated colors of sea and sky are automatic stress relievers for so many of us. I grew up going to a beach on the Long Island Sound every single nice day in the summer with my mother, brother and friends. The scent of suntan lotion, the echo of children laughing and the sight of candy necklaces making pastel hues around our necks are some of the many sensuous beach memories I have — memories I’m sure I share with residents in Westchester and Fairfield counties. When my husband and I had our own children, I wanted to replicate that carefree fun in the summer for my family. We purchased our home in Montauk many years ago and it can now accommodate our growing family. It serves as our family’s home base and gathering place for summer weekends, birthdays and holidays. Coastal design is naturally a part of my interior design business. In bringing that style to life,
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I am aware not only of the look people gravitate toward but of the fixtures and furnishings that are needed to stand up to the environment of coastal living. Because the elements can be harsh and life at the beach means family, friends and fun, who needs to fuss? Here’s how to enjoy your weekend, or season, while entertaining guests without running a small B&B: Start the morning with a huge pot of coffee and set up an easy “get-your-own-breakfast goodies” station stocked with bagels, baked muffins, cereals, yogurt and fresh fruit. Setting up this breakfast buffet works well because everyone gets up at different times. Keep plenty of fresh towels for both bath and beach handy. I usually roll beach towels up and keep them in a basket by the front door along with a basket of sunscreen lotions. I have a large dec-
orative shell filled with sun hats so guests can easily grab them on the way out to the beach. I also keep beach bags filled with sunscreens and towels for an easy dash out the door. Think barbecue. Everyone loves to grill and you can grill everything from vegetables to meats, fish and even pizzas. Make fresh salads in the morning and complete the meal with some take-out sides and desserts. Keep an assortment of serving dishes and trays handy so that you can easily move items out onto a patio or deck. I often like to make a large dispenser of iced tea or lemonade and put it out midmorning so guests can easily pour themselves refreshing drinks. Furnishings should be easy to clean. I prefer cottons, canvas or the many indoor/outdoor fabrics now so easily available that can handle damp bathing suits, children and pets. For rugs, I usually choose natural fibers such as jute or sisal. Kilims — pileless Persian rugs — also keep that casual vibe going. Unlined sheer window treatments allow the sea breezes to blow through your home. Once the sun starts to set and that eve-
ning chill sets in, have plenty of cozy throws on hand for everyone to cuddle up in. Use marine-grade fixtures wherever possible. The salt in the air can cause so many things to rust. So marine-grade fixtures are a big help. There are several light fixture companies that make outdoor fixtures for the tough, salty weather. The same goes for outdoor furniture. Teak is a great option that can stand up to the elements. Instead of heavy cushions for the chairs on your patio, consider mesh. It dries quickly, and you don’t have to worry about storing the cushions. Keep games and puzzles on hand for all age groups. They’re fun ways to engage everyone for a night of entertainment and keep everyone off the computer and phone. Whether you live by the shore or are visiting for the day or a vacation, take the time to relax, enjoy the sunshine and the sounds of children playing and laughing. For more, including details on Cami Weinstein Designs’ upcoming East Hampton office, call 914-447-6904 or email Cami@camidesigns.com.
The Connecticut shore as muse BY KATIE BANSER-WHITTLE
Coastal Connecticut has long drawn people to its beauty and rich history. Some of the most attractive settlements dotting the sheltered shore of Long Island Sound are a historic group of villages called “the Lymes” – Lyme, Old Lyme and East Lyme. Strategically located between the cultural centers of New York City and Boston, these quiet, rural towns became an early-20th century magnet for artists who specialized in landscape painting — much as Greenwich and in particular its Cos Cob neighborhood had become a focus for many of the American Impressionists in the late-19th century. And like the Cos Cob Art Colony, the Lyme Art Colony would become one of the most influential in the country. The late 19th century was a period of rapid industrialization. Artists, and their patrons, were keenly aware of profound, irrevocable change. Many painters were eager to capture and immortalize the disappearing countryside. Furthermore, professional artists were mostly urban-based. Before air-conditioning, a summer escape from the hot — and also crowded and expensive — urban environment, was very appealing. Many of the Lyme painters had studied and worked in Europe, where semi-utopian artists’ colonies like Germany’s Willingshausen and France’s Pont-Aven and Barbizon, a precursor to the French Impressionists, flour-
ished. Old Lyme, first anointed by Henry Ward Ranger, became a favorite retreat in the United States. The unofficial headquarters of the Lyme Art Colony, which eventually numbered more than 300 artists in its 20-year heyday, was Florence Griswold’s boardinghouse — just as the Bush-Holley House in Cos Cob, now the Bush-Holley House Museum and part of the Greenwich Historical Society, served as a summer home for many American Impressionist painters. In the case of the entrepreneurial Florence, she converted the family home in Old Lyme to a girls’ school, then a summer hotel as the Griswold fortunes declined. Today it is the Florence Griswold Museum, displaying a fine collection of artworks by members of the Lyme colony. Henry Ward Ranger was soon joined at the Griswold establishment by other painters like Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf and Guy Wiggins, who were in the vanguard of the emerging new styles of Tonalism and American Impressionism respectively. Tonalists like Ranger used a limited color range and emphasized subtle gradations to suggest mood and emotion and produce misty effects. Hassam was a proponent of American Impressionism, which took a looser, more vibrant approach to the light-dappled effects and quick, colorful brushstrokes of its French cousin. The Lyme artists applied their varied methods and philosophies to the vanishing beauties of oldtime New England, creating two notable firsts in the U.S., the annual summer exhibit and the art-
Louis L. Betts’ “Hollyhocks in a Seaside Garden,” oil on canvas. Sold for $3,600 at Skinner Inc.
Henry Ward Ranger ‘s “Landscape Near Old Lyme, Connecticut” (circa 1899), oil on academy board. Sold for $2,844 at Skinner Inc. Images courtesy Skinner Inc.
ist-financed cooperative gallery. They came to work, but they also made lifelong friendships and found discerning buyers for their art. And certainly they made time for fun. In a 1903 letter to a friend, Hassam — who with wife Maud was also a regular at the Bush-Holley House — referred to Griswold’s boardinghouse as “just the place for high thinking and low liv-
ing.” Many years later, when the old house was being restored for its new life as a museum, archeologists found a quantity of empty bottles in the crawl space beneath Hassam’s studio. They were not milk bottles. For more, visit florencegriswoldmuseum.org. And contact Katie at kwhittle@skinnerinc. com or 212-787-1114.
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COOKING UP A
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GREAT KITCHEN BY JEREMY WAYNE
The Darien-based interior designer Prudence Bailey has always been interested in fashion and has always loved color. In a recent conversation with WAG, she explained her particular take on design and talked us through a kitchen project she has recently completed.
A kitchen in Hamilton, New York, shows off the work of Darien-based interior designer Prudence Bailey. Courtesy Stephane Kossmann Photography. MAY 2022
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Here are some edited highlights:
Prudence, thank you for talking to WAG. Tell us a little about your background and how you got into interior design.
“My background was in corporate America, big manufacturing software systems. But when I got married, I became a stay-at-home mom. We had this beautiful home in Darien, which a lot of my friends loved so much they asked me to help them with theirs.”
How did the business get off the ground?
“Back in 2015, I literally woke up one day and said, ‘This is it. I’m going to start an interior design company.” And it’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears from where I started back then to where I am now… taking risks, putting myself out there. And I would have to say my experience in sales — because design is a selling job, but it also involves structure — has helped me in how I work with my clients. They know what to expect every step of the way. It’s a very collaborative process.
Early days?
“I started out doing every job that came my way, didn’t really matter how small or big. Staging houses, carrying furniture in and out, moving it around. I’d do everything. “And Instagram. I really dug into Instagram. I have a very strong presence and that started coming about in 2017 when I hired my cousin to do my first shoots. She has a beautiful photographic eye. She works for Facebook and I flew her in from California. She sat me down and told me literally everything I needed to do every day to grow my Instagram organically and I still do it to this day. It’s such a robust tool. “Honestly, any time a designer says to me, ‘Oh, I just don’t have time for Instagram,’ I don’t understand it.”
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Fast forward, what would you say you’re known for now as a designer?
“I say I like to blend modern and traditional, but I’m not a contemporary designer. I think that’s a very particular look. What I definitely do is incorporate in everything I do a nod to a bygone era. I love mixing something that’s old with the new. Also, I don’t have any formal training but when I walk into a
room, I feel it. It tells me what it wants. And I know that sounds probably faux, but I see exactly what the furniture needs to be and how it needs to be placed. It just seems to come naturally. I always tell people when they buy a new house, ‘You need to live in it for a bit. Don’t rush (to) design it, because eventually it tells you what it needs.’” “I remember once arguing with a designer, because I want-
ed green sofas in my family room and the designer was like, ‘I can’t possibly do green sofas,’ and I said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to, because I’m living here and that’s what I want.’ I’ve designed my practice around a number of different exercises that we do, so I’m going to see what people see, or want, in their house and I’m going to elevate it and put my spin on it — which is always color or pattern of some sort.”
en from start to finish, thinking through the spatial planning and all the design details to make this kitchen special. I loved all the brick but felt it was a bit strong overall so I created the stone backsplash on the sink wall. I designed the island and all the placement and type of cabinetry as well as lighting, color story and stone details throughout the kitchen. The black cabinet/stove wall was super fun. I love to do the unexpected.”
What is the overall aesthetic of the space?
“A downtown Brooklyn vibe I would say. I wanted to mix modern with traditional but not in an obvious way. We also wanted to keep the integrity of the original house, which is really important.”
And kitchen design presumably requires a particular skill set, right?
“Well, we’ve done a lot of kitchens now, so we have those skill sets. But when I did my first kitchen in the early days, my motto then was ‘Fake it till you make it.’”
You’re very honest.
Let’s move on to your recent kitchen project in Hamilton, New York. Why was it so special to you?
“I love this house and I love this kitchen. It was a second home for the owners — and we had done their first, in Darien. Their kids go to Colgate (University), so they bought this home for when they’re there, seeing their kids on the weekends. And they also rent it out. Hamilton is
a four and a half-hour drive, so I couldn’t be there every day. Normally, when I’m doing a renovation project locally, I go and check in on that work every day. But the owner worked with me on the project and she was fabulous. So much so — this is a good story — she now works with me in the business.”
And the overall scope of the work?
“The overall scope was to create a kitchen that was much larger than the existing footprint. We were also charged with finding a place for a powder room and helped with many of the finishes, lighting and other design elements throughout the home.”
Describe the key things you did to the space?
“I designed the entire kitch-
You have to be honest, because that’s the truth. Those people were like, ‘Can you do a kitchen renovation?’ and I was like, ‘Sure.’ Luckily (that job) was what I call cheap and cheerful — painting the cabinetry, new countertops. But I’ve learned so much since then as I’ve gone along — not being afraid of a project and really listening to my clients, so I know what is going to make a kitchen into a dream kitchen for them.”
The takeaway?
“As a designer, it’s never about me. It’s about the client. That’s the approach I try to bring all the time.” For more, visit prudencehomes.com.
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A FEAST OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY RESTAURANTS STAMFORD BARCELONA WINE BAR 222 Summers St. 203-348-4800 barcelonawinebar.com BARI 167 167 Bedford St. 203-504-8270 gianni@viasforza.com BARTACO 222 Summer St. 203-323-8226 bartaco.com BRASITAS 954 E Main St. 203-323-3176 brasitas.com CAFE SILVIUM 371 Shippan Ave. 203-324-1651 cafesilviumct.com COLUMBUS PARK TRATTORIA 205 Main St. 203-967-9191 columbusparktrattoria.com FIN II 219 Main St. 203-359-6688 finstamford.com FINDER'S LANE KITCHEN AND BAR 184 Summer St. 203-323-3137 finderslane.com KOUZINA 233 Main St. 203-588-0110 kouzinataverna.com
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MADONIA RESTAURANT & BAR 1297 Long Ridge Road 203-322-8870 madoniarestaurant.com
VILLA ITALIA 26 Mill River St. 203-348-7742 villaitaliastamford.com
OLIO 934 Hope St. 203-817-0303 oliostamford.com
ZAZA ITALIAN GASTROBAR 122 Broad St. 203-348-2300 zazagastrobar.com
PRIME STAMFORD 78 Southfield Ave 203-817-0700 stamford.restaurantprime.com
GREENWICH
REMO'S BRICK OVEN PIZZA 35 Bedford St. 203-973-0077 www.remospizza.com SIENA RISTORANTE 519 Summer St. 203-351-0898 sienastamford.com TABLE 104 299 Long Ridge Road 203-388-8898 table104stamford.com THE CAPITAL GRILLE 230 Tresser Blvd 203-967-0000 thecapitalgrille.com TRIPS' RESTAURANT 348 Hope St. 203-324-2600 triprestaurant.com TUTTI PAZZI 269 Bedford St. 203-324-7000 tuttopazzict.com
BAMBOU ASIAN TAPAS & BAR 328 Pemberwick Road 203-531-3322 bambourestaurant.com BEACH HOUSE CAFE 220 Sound Beach Ave. 203-637-0367 beachhousecafe.com DOURO 253 Greenwich Ave. 203-869-7622 madoniarestaurant.com EASTEND RESTAURANT 409 Greenwich Ave. 203-862-9200 zhospitalitygroup.com/eastend ELM STREET OYSTER HOUSE 11 West Elm St. 203-629-5795 elmstreetoysterhouse.com HARVEST WINE & RESTAURANT BAR 372 Greenwich Ave. 203-869-4080 harvestwinebar.com LE PENGUIN 61 Lewis St. 203-717-1200 lepenguinbistro.com
Via Sforza T rat tor ia
2 43 Po st Road We st , We st p or t C T 0 6 8 80 | 2 03 - 45 4 - 4 4 4 4
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A FEAST OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY RESTAURANTS L'ESCALE RESTAURANT 500 Steamboat Road 203-661-4600 lescalerestaurant.com
TERRA RISTORANTE ITALIANO 156 Greenwich Ave. 203-629-5222 zhospitalitygroup.com/terra
LITTLE PUB GREENWICH 531 E Putnam Ave. 203-717-1147 littlepub.com/greenwich
THE COTTAGE - GREENWICH 49 Greenwich Ave. 203-769-1220 thecottage.kitchen
MEDITERRANEO RESTAURANT 366 Greenwich Ave. 203-629-4747 zhospitalitygroup.com/ mediterraneogreenwich
THE GINGER MAN 64 Greenwich Ave. 203-861-6400 gingermanct.com
MIKU SUSHI BAR AND RESTAURANT 68 Greenwich Ave. 203-900-7676 mikugreenwich.com ORIENTA RESTAURANT 55 Lewis St. 203-489-3394 orientarestaurant.com PASTA VERA 48 Greenwich Ave. 203-661-9705 pastavera.com POLPO RESTAURANT & SALOON 554 Old Post Road #3 203-629-1999 polporestaurantgreenwich.com REBECCAS 265 Glenville Road 203-532-9270 rebeccasgreenwich.com SOUTH BAY GREENWICH MEDITERRANEAN CUISINE 403 Greenwich Ave. 203-717-1836 southbayct.com
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TOWNHOUSE 35 Church St. 203-622-4223 townhousegreenwich.com
NORWALK AJI 10 10 Wall St. 203-957-8585 aji10restaurant.com APPETIT BISTRO 136 Washington St. 203-354-7344 appetitbistro.com BRUXELLES BRASSERIE 63-71 N Main St. 203-857-1494 bruxellessono.com DONOVAN'S 138 Washington St. 203-354-9451 donovanssono.com DRY DOCK BAR & GRILLE 215 Main St. 203-956-6365 drydockbarandgrille.com
EVARITO'S MEXICAN KITCHEN & BAR 16 N Main St. 203-939-1620 evaritos.com GOOD HOPE DUMPLING AND RAMEN HOUSE 172 Main St. 203-957-8881 goodhopect.com IL POSTO 122 Washington St. 203-957-8855 ilpostosono.com LA CALLE AREPAS BAR 74 N Main St. 203-612-4949 orderacallearepasbar.com MATCH 98 Washington St. 203-852-1088 matchsono.com OAK AND ALMOND 544 Main Ave. 203-846-4600 oakandalmond.com OSTERIA ROMANA 250 Westport Ave. 203-229-0844 osteriaromana.com RINCON TAQUERIA 493 Connecticut Ave. 203-354-7313 rincontaqueria.com SALTWATER SONO RESTAURANT & BAR 128 Washington St. 203-939-9330 swsono.com
SEDONA TAPHOUSE 515 West Ave. 203-299-1800 sedonataphouse.com
DON MEMO 90 Post Road E 203-557-6198 donmemowestport.com
SPOTTED HORSE TAVERN 26 Church Lane 203-557-9393 spottedhorsect.com
TABLAO SONO 86 Washington St. 203-939-9602 tablaosono.com
DUNVILLE'S RESTAURANT 41 Saugatuck Ave. 203-227-0511 sites.google.com/view/ dunvillesct/home
TARANTINO RESTAURANT & BAR 30 Railroad Pl 203-454-3188 tarantinorestaurant.com
TAVERN ON 7 611 Main Ave. 203-642-3791 tavernon7.com THE SPREAD SOUTH NORWALK 127 Washington St. 203-939-1111 thespreadsono.com WASHINGTON PRIME 141 Washington St. 203-857-1314 washingtonprimect.com YARD HOUSE 100 North Water St. 203-295-0065 yardhouse.com
WESTPORT AMIS TRATTORIA 1 Church Lane 203-514-4906 amistrattoria.com BLACK DUCK CAFE 605 Riverside Ave. 203-227-7978 blackduckwestport.com CAPULI RESTAURANT 143 Post Road E 203-557-9340 capulirestaurant.com
KAWA NI 19A Bridge Square 203-557-8775 kawaniwestport.com
THE WHELK 575 Riverside Ave. 203-557-0902 thewhelkwestport.com
LITTLE BARN 1050 Post Road E 203-557-8501 littlebarnct.com
VIA SFORZA TRATTORIA 243 Post Road W 203-454-4444 viasforza.com
OKO 6 Wilton Road 203-557-8404 okokitchen.com PINK SUMO SUSHI & SAKE CAFE 4 Church Lane 203-557-8080 pinksumoct.com RAINBOW THAI 5 Bridge Square 203-557-9000 rainbowthaict.com RIVE BISTRO 299 Riverside Ave. 203-557-8049 rivebistro.com
THE COTTAGE 256 Post Road E 203-557-3701 thecottage.kitchen
WAFU WESTPORT KOREAN BBQ 34 Elm St. 203-557-8626 wafubbq.com WALLRUS ALLEY 90 Post Road E 203-333-2733 wallrusalley.com LITTLE KITCHEN OF WESTPORT 423 Post Road E 203-454-5540 littlekitchenwestport.com
RIZZUTO OYSTER BAR & RESTAURANT 540 Riverdale Ave. 203-221-1002 rizzutos.com
A SAMPLING OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY RESTAURANTS
A MOST ‘SOCIAL’ PLACE BY JEREMY WAYNE
Opened in White Plains in July 2021, Ice Cream Social is getting into gear for what promises to be a busy and exciting second summer season. Set back from Mamaroneck Avenue in a space that features a cheerful indoor design and a pretty outdoor terrace — complete with tables, chairs and big sun umbrellas — it’s a great place for families and friends to get together over ice cream, a sundae, a cappuccino or all three. Co-owners Pam Geiger and Erin O’Keefe are themselves originally from White Plains, friends since high school, with multigenerational roots in the community. Pam, whose entire career has been in event fundraising, works full-time as senior director of special events in the development office at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, but says that ice cream is her passion and is pleased that she can put as much of her free time as she can into the business. Erin’s background is in fashion. She has styled celebrities, magazine shoots and a number of brands such as Amazon, J. Crew and Lord & Taylor. She also served as art director for Visual Country, working on multimillion-dollar campaigns for companies such as Clinique, Subaru and Tommy Hilfiger. The idea to open an ice cream parlor first came to the women — both young mothers — three years ago. “I wish there was an ice cream parlor in White Plains — not just in a mall,” Pam texted Erin one day. Erin responded that she thought the same thing
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all the time. A gap in the market had been spotted and all that remained was for the two friends to fill it. They were fortunate to secure the space, Erin says, which was “just a box” when they first saw it. “It didn’t exactly have that oldworld charm so we had to go in a new direction. We love color. We wanted it to be fun. So it all started with the color palette (five stenciled chevrons on the wall) and everything grew from there.” Next, they decided that they wanted Jane’s ice cream to be their supplier. Erin knew the brand from having spent a lot of time in Rhinebeck, which is close to Kingston, where Jane’s is located. “Every time I went up there, I had to get the salted caramel pretzel,” she tells WAG, a dreamy look coming into her eyes even as she says the words. (She also has enjoyed ice cream on every continent except Africa, so she knows her product.) And they both really liked what Jane’s stood for, namely hormone-free ingredients, nothing synthetic. Amy Keller, who started Jane’s, says Erin is “incredible” and has
given them a huge amount of support. “We opened not knowing anything about how to run an icecream shop,” Pam acknowledges. “We didn’t even know what type of equipment we would need, what temperature to set it at.” Jane’s has basically taught the women the business, both agree — “freezing, storing, scooping, etc. We wouldn’t be here today without them,” says Pam. Being vegan-conscious is also important to Pam and Erin, so they work to maintain at least four vegan options on the menu daily as well as many for the gluten-intolerant. Their best-selling flavor? Cappuccino Kahlúa, closely followed by Killer Chocolate. Pistachio is also up there. And lavender — “especially in the summer,” says Erin. “People ask me what it tastes like and I say ‘lavender,’ because that’s the only way I can describe it. And then they try it and it really does taste like lavender. People love it.” They share stories, too, of customers who come in for ice cream every single day, “come
Erin O’Keefe, left, and Pam Geiger, co-owners of Ice Cream Social. Photographs by Darina Todorova.
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rain shine, snow, zero degrees, whatever.” Be that as it may, it’s summer when most people’s thoughts turn to ice cream and, if last year was anything to go by, summer evenings are likely to be packed — mainly with grown-ups. “Yes, we have flavors, which lean more toward kids, I’d say. But for ice cream in general we probably have more adult customers,” Erin notes. “And a fascinating thing I’ve noticed,” she adds, “adults really need to give themselves permission to put a topping on it. When you ask them if they’d like hot fudge, their eyes light up. Most sundaes are ordered by grownups.” Ice Cream Social also plays its part in local philanthropy. “Our goal,” Erin explains, “is that Ice Cream Social will not just be a place with delicious, hormone-free ice cream but will also be an active participant in the community with cause-marketing campaigns, helping the underserved and serving as a gathering location.” They get a lot of requests for birthdays and school dinners and they partner with local organizations such as My Sisters’ Place, White Plains Public Library and the White Plains school district. Every month they bring ice cream cakes and balloons to the kids at the nearby Coachman Center, which focuses on families in need, and talk to them about job opportunities. “We built Ice Cream Social to be a part of the community so we never turn anyone away. If we get an email and it sounds legitimate, we will respond,” Pam says. “We wanted to be part of the community and also to be a gathering spot for local people, and that’s just what Ice Cream Social is,” Erin says in sum. ‘Social’ is in our name for a reason.” For more, visit icecreamsocialwp.com.
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Ice Cream Social exterior.
More than a heating company BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA
Dan Singer is a man made for the moment. As president and CEO of Robison — the Port Chester-based, family-owned home comfort company — he must contend with oil and gasoline prices that have soared, first on the heels of Covid-fueled inflation and then due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What customers and the general public need to understand, he says, is that “we don’t make the products. We have to buy and sell them and are subject to the same volatility and stress as our customers.” It’s one of the reasons that Robison is about so much more than supplying natural gas and oil — actually biofuel, a clean, renewable blend of heating oil and biodiesel, which is made with vegetable oil (soybean and palm). “Heating, cooling, air quality solutions, plumbing, electrical: What we like to say is that we provide everything to make you comfortable in your home.” With the cost of oil and natural gas skyrocketing — up 80% and 60% respectively — Singer is bullish on clean energy. (Indeed the company has trademarked the slogans “Green is the new kosher”; “Green begins at home”; and “Making the world green one home at a time.”) That green energy includes geothermal heat pumps, which Singer calls a “fascinating technology.” It operates on the idea that the ground below Earth’s surface maintains a constant temperature of 55 degrees Fahrenheit. In winter, the pumps draw heat from the ground into your home, reversing the process in summer when they transfer hot air from your home to the
ground. Air source pumps work on the same principle, Singer says, transferring warm air out of your home in summer and using air outside the home to warm it in winter. Air source pumps are less expensive, he adds, but they are also less efficient. The vast majority of Robison customers in Westchester, Fairfield and Putnam counties use biofuel or natural gas. The company is the largest supplier of biofuel in the area and one of the largest suppliers of natural gas. (Nationwide, half of homes use natural gas; 8%, oil.) Asked which is better, Singer demurs, saying he must remain impartial. According to experts like Bob Vila of PBS’ “This Old House” fame, natural gas is in general cheaper and cleaner but provides less heat per BTU (British Thermal Unit, the U.S. standard heat measurement) than oil and can carry the risk of carbon monoxide and explosion. Keep in mind that to use natural gas as your heat source, you must live in an area that can pipe it into your home. Despite Con Ed installing a large, New York state-mandated main gas line in Scarsdale as part of a new transmission line extending from the Bronx to White Plains, the utility has placed a moratorium on new natural gas connections in all but the northernmost municipalities in Westchester. (Those unaffected by the moratorium include Buchanan, Cortlandt, Croton-on-Hudson, Lewisboro, North Salem, Peekskill, Pound Ridge, Somers and Yorktown.) Meanwhile, New York state has good news for residents using a bioblend biofuel, offering a 10-cents-per-gallon tax credit for 2021. (That’s $100 on every $1,000 spent.) Robison uses a blend of 10% biofuel in its oil, which qualifies. Singer sweetens the pot for
Dan Singer, president and CEO of Robison. Photographs courtesy Robison.
those customers who purchase biofuel and the company’s 100% green electricity — a free electric vehicle charger. (Singer, a Briarcliff Manor resident, husband and father of three, has driven an electric car for 10 years.) Electricity is just part of Robison’s versatile portfolio, which also includes plumbing, electrical, mold detection and chimney and air-duct cleaning. Though Robison began in 1921, the Singer family didn’t acquire the business until 1984. By then the Singers had been in the heating business for 57 years, beginning with Singer’s great-grandfather Sol, grandfather Harry, father Saul and brother David. Singer grew up in Ardsley and graduated from Syracuse Uni-
versity, working for 10 years at PepsiCo in human resources and as manager of labor relations. But Singer — whose personability is immediately apparent in our phone interview — says his interactions were mainly with other executives. The more successful he became, he says, the more removed he became from the people PepsiCo served. Now he heads up a business of 175 employees in which interacting with the customers is vital. The results speak for themselves. In 1984, Robison had 7,000 customers. Today, that number has nearly quadrupled, underscoring the company’s motto, “The House That Service Built.” For more, visit robisonoil.com.
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Champagne Bollinger’s very good year BY DOUG PAULDING
Greatness in any field — be it athletic, artistic, culinary or oenological — requires patience. Sometimes that patience is thrust on us by world events. As with other industries, the wine business’ public relations outreach has been crushed by the pandemic and is only now starting to regain its footing. Recently, I received an invitation for the release of Champagne Bollinger’s La Grande Année from 2014 at Chef Gabriel Kreuther’s midtown Alsatian restaurant. The Champagne and food pairing was still days away and I got giddy with anticipation. Patience. At the restaurant, we were greeted with a glass of Bollinger’s special Cuvée, a blend of wines assembled to show the house style. This Champagne was aged for twice the amount of time as the appellation requires. Patience. Champagne Bollinger began in 1829 and is still owned by the original family. This in itself is rare in today’s Champagne world. Champagne houses are bought up, merged and changed so that even if the original name is still there, often the original family, the inspiration, is gone. Through the generations, the principals of the Bollinger family have come to realize excellence in the industry requires owning the land and the vineyards and bought up nearby properties as they became available. Today Bollinger owns 179 hectares (442 acres) of planted vines and controls its wine production from the budding of the vines to that “pop” at the table. In the Champagne region, east
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of Paris, the many Champagne houses all make wine every year, sometimes blending multiple vintages for their unique signature flavor. But when all the meteorological influences fall into place to create the perfect growing season from bud break through harvest, a house will declare a vintage year. And it is not usually a vintage year throughout the entire region because of micro climatic differences affecting different plots. The 2014 vintage was just such a perfect growing season for Bollinger — one we recalled as we tasted the justreleased vintage 2014 La Grande Année, precisely paired with a multicourse meal at Restaurant Gabriel Kreuther. Bollinger ferments its juice into wine in used oak barrels that impart some flavor and mouthfeel. The porosity of the wood, as opposed to stainless steel tanks, provides some micro-oxygenation that significantly improves the Champagne’s ability to age. Bollinger also employs its own in-house cooper, who makes the oak barrels, the only Champagne house to do so. But that’s just the beginning. Riddling in Champagne is the process by which the bottles are placed in racks and twisted and positioned more vertical over time, neck down, until all the sediment collects near the cork. Disgorgement is the process of freezing the neck of the bottle so that pulling the cork and the pressure in the
bottle expels the frozen plug of dead yeast. These time-consuming required tasks are done entirely by hand. Bollinger’s deputy Chef du Cave Denis Bunner told us, “We make the wine first and bubbles second. We need that unique and legendary taste and then we add the Champagne bubbles. The year 2014 was perfect for the grapes — a slow-ripening season, no hail or damaging storms. The wine shows good minerality from the soil contribution — acidity, freshness, salinity, creaminess.” Chef Kreuther then told us, “There are layers to wine. There are layers to this meal. These Champagnes were made for food. Savor each by a bite, a sip, a bite and a sip.” The 2014 La Grande Année is nothing short of outstanding. At 61% Pinot Noir and 39% Chardonnay, the majority of the wine is derived from Bollinger’s finest Grand Cru vineyards. Each sip showed a fresh, lively citrus with hints of peach and nuttiness. Each taste seemed to accent a different flavor in its profile. We next tasted the same wine from a magnum bottle, twice the size as the first. Magnums age wines at a slower, different pace. The wine clearly had the same DNA flavors, but it was more lemony fresh, vibrant and youthful. Our next course was paired with the 2014 La Grande Année Rosé, comprised of a touch more Pinot Noir and a touch less Chardonnay, to which 5% red wine from a special parcel in the town of Aÿ was added. This wine presented brilliant peachy and stone fruit flavors along with citrus, grapefruit, strawberry and cherry. Chef Kreuther paired our first La Grande Année with an Alaskan king crab “cannelloni” supported with sea urchin coulis, Osetra caviar and a Parmesan crisp. His slightly simplified “homecook version” is here to allow for something similar to our “in-house” tasting. Look for the Bollinger. Find Chef Kreuther’s ingredients. And start to build something brilliant in your kitchen. Start with patience.
ALASKAN KING CRAB ‘CANNELLONI’ WITH SEA URCHIN COULIS “Imagine taking a cruise and going on a quest of flavors.” — Gabriel Kreuther FOR THE CANNELLONI DOUGH Ingredients: • 4 cups all-purpose flour • 1 teaspoon salt • 1 cup boiling water • 1 teaspoon white vinegar • Grapeseed oil, for brushing the pasta Directions: • Put the flour and salt in a food processor. With the machine running, add the boiling water and vinegar and run until the dough is mealy, a few seconds, and can be worked by hand to turn it into a smooth dough. Knead the dough until it can be shaped into a disc. Wrap it in plastic and refrigerate it for 20 minutes or so. • Roll the dough through a pasta roller many times on the widest setting, folding it in thirds each time until it is smooth and elastic. Roll it out in successively narrower settings until the second-to-last or last setting. It should be thin and translucent. • Cut the dough into a dozen 4 and 1/2inch squares. • In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the pasta, about a minute or so, then remove it to an ice bath. • Lay the squares out on a sheet of oiled parchment paper, brushing them gently with oil to prevent them from sticking. FOR THE SEA URCHIN COULIS Ingredients: • 3 tablespoons vermouth • ½ cup water • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper • 1 teaspoon salt • 6 ounces sea urchin roe • 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil • 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice Directions: • Put the vermouth in a pot, bring it to a simmer and reduce it by one-third, then add the water, cayenne and salt. Remove the pan from the heat and
add the sea urchin roe, stirring to cook it slightly. Transfer the mixture to a blender and blend until the coulis is frothy. Mix in the grapeseed oil. Strain it into a bowl, then set it in ice to chill it. Add the lemon juice. FOR THE CRAB MIXTURE Ingredients: • 10 ounces king crabmeat, roughly chopped • 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil • Lemon juice • Salt and freshly ground black pepper • 1/8 teaspoon cayenne or Aleppo pepper Directions: • Mix the crabmeat with the grapeseed oil to coat, then season with lemon juice. Taste and season with salt, black pepper and cayenne. FOR THE GARNISH (OPTIONAL) Ingredients: • 1 piece of nori seaweed, 2/3 inch in length, julienned • 2 ounces Osetra caviar • Chopped chives • Seasonal baby herbs and flowers • Aleppo pepper TO ASSEMBLE THE DISH Directions: • Place about 3 teaspoons of crab filling along one edge of a pasta square. Roll the dough around the crab so that you have a full cylinder of crab, just until the pasta comes together. (It should stick to itself.) Trim excess pasta. Repeat with the remaining pasta squares. Froth the coulis with a hand blender and divide the coulis among six plates. Place one cannelloni on top of each plate. Garnish as desired and serve immediately. Serves 6. Write me at doug@dougpaulding.com.
Alaskan King Crab “Cannelloni” With Sea Coulis pairs beautifully with Champagne Bollinger’s La Grande Année from 2014, as a recent event at Restaurant Gabriel Kreuther in Manhattan demonstrated. Courtesy Restaurant Gabriel Kreuther.
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‘PACKING’ A POSTBY JEREMY WAYNE
Living in WAG country as we do, we all need a New York City hotel every once in a while – for work, for play, to attend a specific event or celebration, for good deeds or perhaps even nefarious ones.
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PANDEMIC PUNCH
Gansevoort Meatpacking Rooftop pool. Photographs by David Mitchell. MAY 2022 WAGMAG.COM 69
Well, I have just the one. Launched in 2004, Gansevoort Meatpacking was an immediate hit, with its live DJs, rooftop lounge and year-round heated pool. The newly gussied-up Meatpacking District was just coming into its own at the time. The New York annex of London’s toocool-for-school Soho House had opened the previous year and Diane von Fürstenberg’s flagship West 14th Street store was just about to. Then, hot on its heels, came the Highline, Christian Louboutin and an Apple store. Bohemians, hipsters, tourists — even diehard Upper East Siders — all flocked to the area to see what was going on. But, a recession and a pandemic later, and the outlook has understandably changed. The Gansevoort’s owners have divested themselves of their sister hotel on Park Avenue as well as a resort in Turks & Caicos. And although the “Gansevoort Hotel Group” styling suggests — and as group-owner Michael Achenbaum himself has more than hinted — new acquisitions or openings for the group may be in the pipeline, the focus is on the original property for the time being. Gansevoort Meatpacking was always a good bet for its fun, laidback, vibe, but when I last visited four years ago, it was definitely showing signs of age — more “shabby” than “chic,” you might say. It needed work. Now after a multimillion-dollar renovation and rebrand, which has seen redesigned common parts, sprucedup rooms and new food and beverage outlets, the Gansevoort is once again a serious contender. And here’s something to note: At a time when room rates — not only in our region but as far as I can tell across the entire world — seem to be rising stratospherically, Gansevoort heartwarmingly remains good value for the money. The hotel even welcomes pets. On the first floor is a new-concept, all-day eatery, Coffee and
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Michael Achenbaum owner of the Gansevoort Hotel Group.
Cocktails, or C+C as it known, with petrol-blue leather banquettes and a glamorous bar at the far end. It also sports a wide outdoor terrace, with bamboo French bistro chairs, made for wannabe Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre types. All boxes are ticked here: Avocado toast with flax seeds for breakfast, paninis or, perhaps, black truffle tagliatelle for a light lunch. It might be churlish to mention the lady at the table next to me who asked for a dry martini received a sweet vermouth over ice, but she was gracious about it and accepted the drink regardless, so pretty did it look in its cut-glass coupe, complete with edible decoration. C+C ticks décor boxes, too. A walnut bookcase contains the de rigueur Crossley record player, with a Jimi Hendrix Experience album cover beside it, and heavy tomes of Keith Haring, Peter Lindbergh and Virgil Abloh. And all the while, looking down on the proceedings, is a Banksy original 2003 “Flying Copper,” with its “smiley face” smile, a face that is not, it must be said, without a touch of malevolence. The artwork is Michael Achenbaum’s own. He is in fact a collector of some renown and the hotel is a repository of notable art. Another Gansevoort F&B outlet, The Chester — which bills itself as an American bistro and also has a street terrace — is open all day and into the evening for casual dining. It’s as popular with residents as with hotel guests. In the 186 guest rooms, you’ll find blue and gray ombré wallpaper (referencing the Hudson River outside the window) a backlit walnut headboard (inspired by the High Line) and a retro Marshall radio. Each room also features a fitness device by the company Mirror, which is to say an interactive home gym via a free-standing cheval mirror that contains a built-in screen, like a TV in a hotel bathroom
Coffee and Cocktails, or C+C as it is known, at Gansevoort Meatpacking.
mirror. (There is also a regular hotel gym for Luddites who like to keep fit.) I found my northwest- facing corner suite, with its well-appointed bathroom and Juliet balcony, to be superbly comfortable, although to be honest any would-be Romeo would have to shout at the top of his voice to attract Juliet’s attention above the Ninth Avenue traffic. Shakespearean Verona the Meatpacking District is not, although its cobbled streets — retained and restored in the last three years — have always given the area a European flavor. Fancy a swim? Head to the Gansevoort Rooftop. This urban oasis, with its rather lovely, year-round heated pool and unobstructed, 360-degree views of Manhattan, has also been completely refreshed. A full menu, in-
spired by the Union Square Green Market, is offered poolside. A new rooftop addition — and one with special appeal to non-hotel guests, too — is the omakase sushi bar, Saishin, from the highly regarded, Michelin-rated Kissaki Hospitality Group. Settled in at the 16-seat counter, I savored a 12-course omakase dinner that included Long Island fluke with pickled wasabi, Hawaiian amberjack, Hokkaido sea urchin in nori and salmon tempura with crispy rice. True, the special of the day, slow-cooked monkfish liver, was something of an acquired taste, one I’m not sure I have yet fully acquired, but I would race back to Saishin for the yuzu panna cotta alone — and me not a dessert lover. As if all this were not enough,
Gansevoort guests will soon have a further new experience to enjoy, this one underground, when the hotel welcomes a basement karaoke and bowling bar in the fall. Beyond the Gansevoort’s front door, new luxury brands in the area, including Restoration Hardware, Rolex and Loro Piana, along with Barry Diller and Diane von Fürstenberg’s recently unveiled Little Island of cultural programming are signs that the Meatpacking District generally is coming back to life after the pandemic. And they add yet further appeal to a stay at the hotel, which Achenbaum calls, “Gansevoort Meatpacking, all grownup.” For more, visit gansevoorthotelgroup.com.
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How to talk – and not to talk – about infertility
one who can’t have biological children. Adoption is a beautiful option for many families and should be treated with respect — not offered up as an easy “Plan B.”
‘EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON.’
Would you say this to someone just diagnosed with terminal cancer? (I hope your answer is a hard “no.”) Apply the same logic to someone going through fertility challenges. No matter your belief system, offering this not-so-comforting phrase minimizes what the couple are dealing with while possibly reinforcing their biggest fear — that they simply aren’t meant to have a baby.
BY JOSHUA HURWITZ, M.D.
As a reproductive endocrinologist, I hear about a lot of insensitive “tips” given to my patients throughout their fertility journey. Patients will tell me they have heard that if they just stop worrying, they will magically get pregnant, or that a specific diet will help. But here’s the truth: There is often a medical reason why a couple has been unable to successfully conceive a baby on their own. Even in cases of unexplained infertility, no amount of meditation can erase the real need for medical assistance. With one in eight couples experiencing fertility challenges, there are likely many more people around you going through infertility than you may realize. Here are some of the most common pieces of “advice” given to those navigating a fertility journey, why they can be so damaging and what to say instead.
‘JUST DO IVF.’
As a doctor who helps patients conceive with the help of in vitro fertilization (IVF), I am grateful that this advanced treatment option exists for those who need it. However, not every patient requires it, it's certainly not the "easy way out" and there are no guarantees that it will work for every person. There are three main levels of
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Joshua Hurwitz, M.D. Courtesy Illume Fertility.
fertility treatment — medicated cycles, intrauterine insemination (IUI) and IVF. Unless there is a medical reason to skip straight to IVF, such as age, male factor fertility issues or blocked fallopian tubes, most fertility specialists counsel their patients to start with the least invasive option first and then move to the next level of treatment if needed. IVF is our best treatment option by far, but it is complex and can be costly. It can be physically and emotionally challenging for some patients. While success rates at high-quality IVF centers are about 60% live-born baby rate per embryo transferred, good IVF centers will only transfer one embryo at a time to reduce risk of multiples and risks to the mother and the baby — in line with the current guidance from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM). There is also never a 100% guarantee that it will work.
‘JUST RELAX.’
I can’t tell you how many times patients come to me and say that they have heard this. While this advice may be well-intended,
it places blame on the person trying to conceive. You simply cannot “relax” your way into a successful pregnancy if you have legitimate medical issues preventing you from conceiving.
‘WHEN YOU STOP THINKING ABOUT IT, IT WILL HAPPEN.’
This is another common phrase my patients hear all the time. It insinuates that the person is overthinking things and possibly even causing their own infertility by “trying too hard,” that if they simply stop thinking about how desperately they want to become a parent, it will magically happen for them. This is not only bad advice but potentially harmful, too. Encouraging someone to wait to seek help for a real medical issue means they will delay medically necessary treatments and possibly make things worse by waiting too long.
‘WHY DON’T YOU JUST ADOPT?’
The problem with this suggestion is twofold: It both minimizes the complex financial, emotional and logistical process of adoption and insinuates that adoption is simply a backup plan for some-
WHAT TO SAY INSTEAD
Want to offer genuine support and empathy to someone going through fertility struggles? Ditch the “advice” above and try one of these responses instead: • “It must be so hard not to have a baby in your arms still.” • “I’m here for you.” • “How are you coping with all of this?” • “I know I can’t fix it, but I am always happy to listen if you need to talk.” • “Is there anything I can do to help?” Remember: You don’t have to have the perfect response or know exactly what to do. Simply offering a listening ear and a safe place for your friends or family members to express how they’re feeling as they navigate infertility is the biggest gift you can give them. Joshua Hurwitz, M.D., is a partner in reproductive endocrinology at Illume Fertility and is board-certified in both obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. For more, visit rmact.com.
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Preventing oral cancer BY NICOLAS ELIAN
According to MouthHealthy.org, more than 51,500 people are diagnosed with cancers of the mouth, throat, tonsils and tongue each year. Early prevention results in less aggressive treatment, which will benefit a person’s overall health and quality of life. Some of the most common symptoms of oral cancer include the presence of lumps, rough spots, swelling, bleeding, sores on the face or mouth and changes in the teeth. Early on, symptoms of oral cancer can be easily missed. To ensure this disease does not go undetected, people who are experiencing symptoms and are regularly exposed to tobacco, alcohol and the human papilloma virus (HPV ) should schedule an examination with a dentist to work closely with physicians to determine the root of the issue. With decades of experience and using the network of resources and insight from our dentists at CareMount Dental in Mount Kisco, I’m happy to help educate patients on dental care tips that people can take to prevent oral cancer:
• Practice good oral hygiene: By staying dedicated to healthy routines such as brushing your teeth twice a
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day, using mouthwash, flossing and regular dental visits, the chances of contracting oral cancer are lowered. Poor oral hygiene can lead to bleeding gums, bacterial infections and loss of teeth, all of which can put patients at a higher risk. Getting professional cleanings twice a year will help ensure that your mouth is as clean and healthy as possible.
• Avoid smoking and other tobacco products: Ciga-
rettes, cigars and chewing tobacco contain toxins, carcinogens and nicotine — ingredients that are known to cause cancer in the cheeks, tonsils, throat, gums and lips. If you are a smoker or tobacco user and are struggling with addiction, have a conversation with your dentist and/or primary doctor, who will provide you with an individualized plan to help you quit using tobacco products. • Eat a balanced diet: All healthy oral hygiene routines should be matched
with healthy eating habits. Start incorporating essential nutrients, including antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals into your diet to help proactively fight tumors. Fruits, vegetables and lean meats are the foundation of a balanced diet. Key ingredients to avoid for lessening the risk of oral cancer are alcohol, fat, salt and sugar. Eating healthy will also help protect your teeth from other issues such as cavities and weak teeth.
• Schedule routine oral cancer screenings: Patients are
encouraged to look into their own mouths. Anything that seems irregular should be noted and brought to your dentist’s attention immediately. Dentists are equipped to screen for and properly diagnose oral cancer. During a screening, potentially cancerous oral growths will be revealed using light transmission-assisted visual inspection with Identafi and bi-digital palpation. A head and neck examination will also be performed during your visit.
Nicolas Elian. Courtesy CareMount Dental.
In addition to educating yourself, you can also proactively fight the chances of getting oral cancer that may lead to more detrimental health issues down the line by scheduling a dentist appointment regarding any symptoms that may be present. Early detection and prevention are possible when medical professionals and dentists work together to treat the whole patient. Nicolas Elian is the chief dental officer at CareMount Dental in Mount Kisco.
BRADY BUNCH
MARRIAGE? Estate Planning Basics for Blended Families and Second Marriages By: Lauren C. Enea, Esq. Second marriages may often feel like a fresh start, but when it comes to estate planning, balancing one’s duty of loyalty to one’s existing family and children and one’s desire to provide for a new spouse must be considered. With second marriages, the intended beneficiary of one’s assets may not be the surviving spouse, as each party may have adult children or other relatives they wish to also provide for. That being said, not providing for a surviving spouse at all, may not be ideal either. Some items to consider include the following: 1. Dying Intestate and the Importance of a Last Will and Testament In New York, if you die without a properly executed Last Will and Testament, you are said to have died “intestate.” What this means is that the distribution of your assets will be determined in accordance with New York Law. For example, if you are survived by a spouse and children, your spouse receives the first $50,000 plus one-half (1/2) of your estate with your children sharing the remaining one-half (1/2). As such, it is important that a Last Will and Testament be executed that properly reflects your wishes. 2. Pre-Nuptial Agreements and the Right of Election In New York, you cannot disinherit your spouse unless you have agreed to in a contractual agreement, such as a prenuptial agreement. Under the New York Estates, Powers and Trusts Law Section 5-1.1A, each spouse has a right of election to receive the larger of $50,000 or one-third (1/3) of the deceased spouse’s net estate, which is known as the “elective share.” As such, even if one’s Last Will and Testament does not provide for one’s spouse or provides for one’s spouse in a lesser amount than the elective share prescribes, the surviving spouse can still seek their elective share, unless they have waived said right in a pre-nuptial agreement. While not the most romantic gesture, the execution of a pre-nuptial agreement may be prudent before a second marriage.”
3. Joint or Separate Property ? If you and your spouse own property “joint with rights of survivorship,” said assets pass automatically to your surviving spouse. In my experience, individuals in a second marraige often keep the assets they brought to the marriage separate from their spouse (with their children and/or other family members as named beneficaries) and may open a new joint bank account with their spouse for the assets they would want to pass automatically to their surviving spouse. 4. Life Estates and Lifetime Rights to a Surviving Spouse Another common gesture in estate planning for second marriages is to allow the surviving spouse, who does not own the primary residence of the couple, to remain in the home after their spouse has passed away. This can create complexities. For example, if the remainder beneficiaries of the property are the children, they may be concerned as to the ability of the surviving spouse to maintain the home and pay for its expenses. Additionally, if the spouse has to go to a nursing home or assisted living facility before their passing, does the spouse’s life estate in the property terminate, thus, allowing the children to sell the property? These are questions that need to be considered. An option may be to leave the primary residence outright to the spouse in lieu of his or her receipt of other assets, or to allow the surviving spouse to remain in the home for a period of time, such as two years, in order to allow him or her to arrange for alternative housing. 5. Marital Trusts When the first spouse passes away, a trust can be established for the surviving spouse’s benefit. These trusts can be created within one’s Last Will and Testament (a testamentary trust) or through probate avoidance tools, such as Revocable Trusts. Additionally, the trustees of the trust for the surviving spouse can be the children, friends or relatives of the creator of the Trust, which may avoid concerns of the funds being depleted during the surviving spouse’s life imprudently, leaving little for surviving children. Alternatively, the Trust can provide that the spouse
receives the income of the trust for their life. Once the surviving spouse passes away, the remaining funds can then be distributed to the creator’s children. 6. Life Insurance The use of a Life Insurance Policy is another viable option for providing for one’s second spouse. The insurance can be owned by an Irrevocable Trust, in order to remove the value of the death benefit and cash value (if any) from one’s taxable estate upon death, and it can also provide that the income and/or principal can be used for the support of the surviving spouse. One’s age, health and insurability will be a factor in obtaining the insurance. Each family’s situation is different and this list of considerations is not exhaustive and only exemplary of one’s options. If you are considering a second marriage or already married, it is important to speak with an estate planning attorney who has worked with clients who have had multiple marriages to discuss structuring an estate plan that fits your needs.
Lauren C. Enea, Esq. is an Associate at Enea, Scanlan & Sirgnano, LLP. She concentrates her practice on Wills, Trusts and Estates, Medicaid Planning, Special Needs Planning and Probate/ Estate Administration. She believes that it is never too early or too late to start planning for your future and she enjoys working with individuals and families to ensure that their estate and long- term care plan best suits their needs. Ms. Enea is on the executive committee of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) Elder Law and Special Needs Section and is also the Co-Editor of the NYSBA Elder Law and Special Needs Section Journal. She is admitted to practice law in New York and Florida. She can be reached at (914) 948-1500. 245 Main St Suite 500, White Plains, NY 10601 www.esslawfirm.com MAY 2022
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The skinny on The Skinny Center BY JEREMY WAYNE
One of the first things you need to know about The Skinny Center in Harrison is that it’s not all about being skinny. Founded six years ago by author and wellness entrepreneur Mitchell Suss, it’s about being healthy. “This is not like Weight Watchers or those programs where you’re buying products or working on calories,” says Lisa Avellino, co-CEO (with Suss), fitness educator and patient liaison director. “It’s really about addressing nourishment, absorption and having your body live your healthy weight — helping your body prepare for weight loss.” Nevertheless, for the majority of patients, doctor-guided, sustainable, healthy weight-loss — the center claims up to 30 pounds in 12 weeks is achievable — is the goal. The “doctor-guided” element of the program is key as is to The Skinny Center' proprietary Health/365, a comprehensive blood panel. Among other things, the panel measures hunger, adrenal and thyroid hormones, blood sugar metabolism and vitamin D levels, all of which reveal a vast amount of information about the individual patient. “Health/365 provides a powerful tool to improve your mental and physical performance, reduce your future risk of disease and increase your longevity,” Suss says. “Our doctors can analyze the genetic markers and blood values that make up your body chemistry and isolate imbalances and their underlying causes to pinpoint the exact reasons why you cannot lose weight.”
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Avellino puts it this way: “(The blood panel) is like having a customized book about yourself, and that’s the dream.” The full program was created by a team of doctors and medical professionals and a doctor oversees the program and each patient’s “journey.” To get to their goals, patients work one-on-one with a nurse (who reads the blood panel) as well as a functional nutritionist and dietician on a weekly basis. The 12-week course comprises three phases — the pre-cleanse, the metabolic cleanse and the “clean body.” As part of treating the whole body, the center also offers hydro or oxygen facials and massage and therapeutic alignment, as well as wardrobe and “style” advice for patients adjusting to a new, improved body image. On a tour of the facility, I peep into bright and airy consulting rooms, some looking out toward woodland. The smart interior design — bold navy-and-white striped upholstered chairs, batik-style carpets — falls midway between a private clinic and a luxury hotel. It was certainly a clean, uncluttered, restful environment. On a side table in one of the consulting rooms, I notice a display of what looks like irregular rocks, molded in plastic. “Do you want to see what five pounds of body fat looks like?” Avellino
asks. “This!” she says, picking up the biggest, rubberiest, ugliest model — the size of a large chicken. She then picks up a couple of smaller models — one representing one pound of fat, the other of muscle. “The interesting thing when you’re learning about this,” she says, “is how body composition and body mass index (BMI) equate in our body.” Men, she says, need their waist measurement to be under 40 inches; women, below 35 inches. Visceral fat, she adds, is indicative of a fatty liver and inflammation of the gut, a remark that made me instinctively clutch at my midsection. In the large room at the end of the corridor, events are held on a regular basis. Doctors, health professionals and other guest speakers address patients. “It’s all about education and inspiration and working on an individual basis,” Avellino says. What the center is not about, she adds, is “1980s or old-millennium thinking about reducing the size of your thighs.” For years, apparently, people thought of weight loss in terms of “calories in, calories out” — in other words, eat less, move more. “And, unfortunately, many still do today.” I confess that the “eat less, move more” mantra entirely sums up my approach to dieting, and one with which I have enjoyed reasonable success over
the years. “Yes, but here’s the issue,” counters Avellino. “As overweight people age, they become yo-yo dieters. Look, this isn’t snake oil, this isn’t our opinion, it’s medical research. If we cut our calories to such an extreme in order to lose weight, then, as soon as our bodies adapt to it, we may not have the macro-nutrients to sustain our lean body mass, so we have to eat less and less to maintain that.” This is why restricting our caloric intake or only following a particular food group inevitably leads to gaining the weight back — and then some. A vicious circle indeed. “We’re one of the fattest countries in the world,” Avellino says, “and so evolved with technology but not in understanding how our bodies work pertaining to fat loss.” There is no typical Skinny Center patient. They run the gamut from young adults to seniors and come from all over — Westchester County, Greenwich, New York City, Long Island, even Boca Raton, Florida, and Los Angeles. And for patients who can’t or prefer not to travel, consultations via Zoom and TeleMed are an unforeseen benefit to have risen out of Covid. But whether attending in-person or virtually, Skinny Center patients are looking for longevity and mental clarity, Avellino says. They might come in with “brain fog” or depression or are not sleeping well and not living optimally. The correlation between all of that and weight loss “is right here,” she says, adding: “We don’t give drugs, we don’t give nutrients. It’s a customized approach with a medical team…. It’s human physiology and science.” For more, visit theskinnycenter.com.
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A different take on ‘mother-child reunion’ BY EDWARD ARRIAZA
Queens-based Hour Children has helped incarcerated women get their lives back on track through various services, one being a visiting program for children, like the summer one operated in conjunction with Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and Taconic Correctional Facility. The seven-day program helps give mothers and their kids an opportunity to visit each other for several hours each day. Additionally, the summer program offers games and activities, aiding the children’s social development and allowing them to bond with others in their situation. Host families play a vital role by welcoming children into their households for the summer program’s duration. Hosts transport the kids to and from the facility their mothers are incarcerated in, provide an inviting place to stay between visits and take them on field trips or other excursions. One such host is Kate Poletta, a champion of the program with experience as a special education teacher. A Mount Kisco resident, Poletta has been a host for 18 years, helping about 20 children participate in activities and connect with their mothers. “I just see the benefits of it and the beauty of it and how it helps everyone involved,” says Poletta. “And the staff at the center are just so nice and wonderful, and they know they can always call
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me if they need an extra kid in the house, because I never say no.” Over the years, the children Poletta has hosted have also developed a fondness for her and her four kids, now between the ages of 16 and 22, as well as her loving pets. The mothers of the children are likewise appreciative of the efforts hosts like Poletta put into the program. “Some days, (the children) come back from the center and they have a card that they wrote with their mom, a thank you to my family, and they draw pictures and it’s just so sweet,” Poletta adds. But to the disappointment of everyone involved, the visiting program for children went on hiatus in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid-19. Some of the women in Bedford Hills Correctional Fa-
cility did contract Covid, so the decision to shut down was justified. Nevertheless, mothers and their children have found the circumstances difficult. “It’s sad not to be able to see your mom,” Poletta says. “Some of these kids only get to see their mom once a year.” Incorporated in 1992, Hour Children grew out of a home for children of incarcerated women that Sister Teresa Fitzgerald, CSJ, known as “Sister Tesa,” founded in Long Island City,
Queens, in 1986. Alethea Taylor, Rh.D., CRC, who succeeded Fitzgerald as executive director at the end of January, plans to build on her predecessor’s work, saying, “I’m hopeful that in the very near future when you think about women in justice and criminal justice and reforms and so forth, you’ll center Hour Children in that thought, just like we do (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital) when we think about children and cancer.” Per the organization’s web-
Hour Children enables incarcerated women, like those at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility and the Taconic Correctional Facility, to reconnect with their children in a seven-day summer program that may include a camp this year. Photographs courtesy Hour Children.
site, “Hour Children’s name acknowledges the key hours that impact the life of a child with an incarcerated mother — the hour of her arrest, the hour of their visit and the hour of their reunification.” To this end, Hour Children has developed several programs and services to help incarcerated mothers not only receive visits from their children but reintegrate them into society. This includes mental health counseling, employment services, childcare and housing
for women who have served their time but may not have a place to stay, as well as access to Hour Children’s food pantries and thrift shops, the latter a necessity for young children who quickly outgrow their clothing. “When you picture Hour Children, it’s not just a series of different programs,” Taylor says. “It is a well-thought-out plan to make sure that we give the woman every opportunity to do well, and that’s why we have all the services that we
have — because they’re intrinsically connected to stabilizing that woman and building that relationship between mother and child.” Taylor’s plans for Hour Children will look into several areas for improvement, namely centering on how the organization handles its racial justice equity work, expanding into other women’s’ prisons and securing additional housing. With summer around the corner, Poletta and other host families await a go-ahead from the state after a two-year hiatus. The staff is also planning for the first time a summer camp in Westchester County, where host families can volunteer by running activities and preparing meals. Regardless of what changes Hour Children and its visiting
program undergo, longtime hosts like Poletta are always eager to help nurture the children and reconnect them with their mothers. “When (my own kids) are all out of the house, I’ll still be doing the program,” Poletta says. Beyond the program, she and her family maintain close relations with the children and happily host those who “age out” of the program but still want to visit their mothers and the Poletta family. “I am 100% behind this program, and I try to tell as many friends of mine about it, because they always need more volunteers,” she adds. “A lot of times, people are hesitant. They have busy lives. But when they do it, they realize ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing.’” For more, visit hourchildren.com
The evolving role of caregiving BY ABBE UDOCHI
“My mother used to be so good with words. She was a teacher. Now, watching her struggle to express herself is hard. She can’t really put a whole sentence together anymore.” This was the downcast observation of an adult daughter-turned-caregiver, juggling a full-time job as a corporate executive while raising a daughter of her own.
A woman who once was independent, inquisitive and funny had become quiet, unsure and scared. The daughter lamented not only that change but the transformation in their relationship. Once the daughter had relied on her mother for guidance. Now she was experiencing a role reversal. Many families across our region are managing care for loved ones. According to the New York State Department of Health, 4.1 million people provided this type of informal care in 2021. In Connecticut, the Family Caregiver Alliance reported 3.5 million informal caregivers in 2014. Today, national averages tell us that one in five Americans are family caregivers. The life changes the daughter described above are not unusual, but they are stressful, confusing and draining. Like her, many face numerous challenges as family caregivers: • The sacrifices made can feel overwhelming or burden-
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some, which can lead to feelings of anger and resentment, if not managed. • Others may feel a strong sense of purpose and may choose to decrease work hours, change their living situations and sacrifice their personal lives to care for loved ones. • Neglect of your health can be the result of long-term caregiving. Many ignore their own care needs to prioritize the care recipients. Advance planning can make the transition smoother as can keeping communication open and transparent among family members. When this is lacking, problems can result. Let’s look at a pseudonymous example to see how this plays out.
EVA AND HER FAMILY
Eva is an only child whose parents, Inger and Frank, both Holocaust survivors from Germany and Austria respectively, were kind and loving traditionalists. They saw parents as responsible
for the younger generation, no matter the age. When Frank died suddenly at 75, a week before a planned 50th-anniversary celebration, Inger, devastated and grief-stricken, was thrust into an unfamiliar role. Frank had been the sole breadwinner and the person in charge of all financial and legal decisions. Now Inger had to deal with everything, and she was reluctant to involve Eva. She didn’t want to burden her and it was important to her to do everything the way Frank would have wished. At age 86, Inger began to experience mild cognitive impairment. She was forced to rely increasingly on her daughter’s help though she still tried to handle all the finances. By age 90 she began to show signs of dementia and the condition progressed. Eva found aides, parttime then live-in, sold her mother’s house when expenses became too great and took over all Inger’s medical, financial and legal matters. “It would have been better to have been more involved early on,” Eva says. “Fortunately, though, my parents’ records were well-organized. I was able to assemble a caregiving team. At least I knew that my mother had caring and compassionate care until the very end and I was able to be there for her.”
THE ‘SANDWICH GENERATION’ AND CAROLYN
Caring for a loved one can become complicated when the caregiver is a member of the socalled ‘Sandwich Generation,” a parent who is also the child of an aging parent in need of help. Carolyn considers herself “blessed because my mother had
her mental capacity throughout.” Still, juggling a household, a demanding job and the needs of three children — a preteen son and two teenage daughters — became taxing. Carolyn always made sure that everyone had her phone number and assigned tasks. Her husband prepared dinner, the kids set the table, she came home in time to finish the
EASE THE STRESS
As parents age, their children may be called on to help them with everyday tasks, like navigating the computer.
cooking and serve. Says Carolyn, “My husband was always there for the kids, but he wasn’t the confidant. I needed to be tuned in to my children’s lives. For me, missing their music lessons and concerts was heart-wrenching. Once the girls got their licenses, I’d worry until they came home. You can’t be a mother part-time. The only rest
comes when everyone is in bed.” As her mother had congestive heart failure, Carolyn was always on call and ready to dart out at a moment’s notice, sometimes in the middle of the night. It didn’t help that her mother lived in Brooklyn and Carolyn’s family was an hour and a half away in north-central New Jersey. “With my mother’s condition,
I never knew which incident would be the critical one,” Carolyn says. “I remember driving at 3 a.m. and crying on my way to her once. My children were forgiving. They loved their grandmother dearly and knew she had always been there for them as were my husband and me. They understood that I had to prioritize.”
Following a few tips may help family caregivers manage changing relationships along with the ensuing stress: Take a break to recharge your batteries. Respite care can be a vital part of family caregiving. It provides an opportunity for the caregiver and the loved ones being cared for to have space. Build a team within your network. Whenever possible, don’t try to go it alone. Invite family members and sometimes close friends into plans. Delegate, delegate, then delegate some more. Assemble a team outside of your inner circle. Surround yourself with a personal care team that can include a geriatric care manager, mental health person, a spiritual adviser, a caregiver support group and other friends, possibly neighbors. You may need to expand this to include a financial adviser, lawyer and other professionals. Having this sort of team can help caregivers assess and address their own needs. Identify the activities that you and your loved one enjoy and can still do together. Remember and, if possible, recreate joyful times. Look through old photographs, watch favorite TV shows or films together. Family caregiving is not all about struggle. It can be a purposeful and rewarding time of life. Yet we must always remember to care for ourselves as we care for those we love and manage changing relationships. For more, visit concierge-care.com.
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A father’s love for his daughter BY GIOVANNI ROSELLI
“The smile of a daughter is the secret purpose of every father.” — Unknown
It seems that I end up writing this same sentence every year, but it’s hard to believe one more year has quickly gone by as I enter a new chapter of fatherhood. This is the sixth installment of my annual WAG article chronicling my journey through fatherhood and the fight against the proverbial dad bod. What I also find myself stating repeatedly each year is how much I love everything about being a father to my daughter, Juliet Rose. Every year I tell myself, “It can’t get any better than this.” And then it does. Every year I wonder how will I be able to keep up? And then I do.
NEW MORNING ROUTINE
I’ve started a new morning tradition this past year: Every morning when I get up and say “good morning” to my daughter, I pick her up and then get really excited, proclaiming, “Woohoo. I get to be Juliet’s daddy today and every day for the rest of my life.” There is nothing more I cherish and appreciate every day than the fact that I get to be a father, and I want my daughter to know that every single day. It also puts my day in perspective, reminding me what is truly important as my day commences. I’ve also incorporated one other daily routine into my schedule. This is often at night when the house is quiet. I think about this
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question: “What can I do tomorrow to make my Juliet happy?” In other words, how can we celebrate and take advantage of each day we have together? If there’s one thing we’ve all learned the last two years, I hope, it is that our time is not to be taken for granted or wasted. I want to go to bed each night saying: “That was a great day. I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow.” To me, it is never about how much “stuff” she gets. It is about the moments, the experiences, and always being there for her. Stuff comes and goes and gets forgotten. Seeing Juliet dance with Minnie Mouse until her face was red during a surprise appearance for her thrid birthday, getting a New York Mets player to say “hi “and throw her a baseball at her first game and watching Juliet play with her friends at the local park are just a few examples of times that we will treasure and remember.
THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS ‘YES’
Over the past year, I’ve learned that there is one question that can stop me in my tracks. No matter what I am doing. No matter what’s on my mind. No matter what type of day I’ve had. “Dada, will you dance with me?”
The author with daughter Juliet Rose. Courtesy Giovanni Roselli.
are six of the most wonderful words that I can ever hear. She is my daughter, my dance partner, my little princess and my world. What is interesting about parenthood is that we set an example and teach our children the best we can, but what I’ve realized is that they end up teaching us just as much. If Juliet sees me frustrated with something, or maybe looking a little stressed, she will often say, “Daddy, it’s OK.” And then I chuckle, because when these trivial situations are put in perspective, everything really is OK in the grand scheme of things. Indeed, they are more than OK.
WHAT LIES AHEAD
When discussing parenthood with several of my clients whose kids have grown up, they often remind me, “Little girl little problems, big girl bigger problems.” So I understand in a lot of ways these are the easy times and
bigger challenges as a parent lie ahead. Another client often reminds me that there are two things in life that do not come with instructions — handling your money and raising a child. All I can do is the best I can and be there for her. She’ll make mistakes. I’ll make mistakes. However, it will be how these mistakes are handled and looked at as learning opportunities that will truly define us. Another year in the books and another exciting year ahead. Her first year of ballet, tee-ball and kindergarten is on the horizon. And I will be there for every moment — with a big, proud smile on my face. In just a few short weeks Juliet turns 5 years old. I’ve tried to make a deal with her that she needs to stay 5 forever and stop growing up, but from what I’ve heard this isn’t likely. A father can still dream, can’t he? Reach Giovanni at GiovanniRoselli.com.
WAG
WHEN & WHERE NOW THROUGH MAY 7 ArtsWestchester presents “Who Writes History?,” an exhibit that explores how images and language shape the collective memory and mainstream narratives. Noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and noon to 6 p.m. Saturdays. 31 Mamaroneck Ave., third floor, White Plains; artsw.org
THROUGH MAY 8 Westchester Collaborative Theater presents “Attitude Adjustments,” its annual one-act plays festival, which features a wide variety of works from the theater’s member playwrights. Times vary. 23 Water St., Ossining; wctheater.org
THROUGH MAY 8 White Plains Performing Arts Center presents the musical “Side Show,” based on the true story of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, entertainers on the vaudeville and burlesque circuits in the 1920s and ’30s. It’s a portrait of two women whose physical and emotional bond brings them the spectacle of fame but denies them romantic love and acceptance. Times vary. City Center, 11 City Place, third floor; wppac.com
MAY 1
New Rochelle Council on the Arts hosts “MuralFest,” a guided tour and festival of new murals in New Rochelle with the artists on-site. The tour will be followed by an afternoon of free music, dance and theater performances. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ruby Dee Park Library Green, between Lawton Street (east) Memorial Highway (west) and Huguenot Street; newrochellearts.org
MAY 5 THROUGH 31
The Greenwich Arts Council will turn Greenwich Avenue into a rolling gallery throughout the month of May with the 25th anniversary of “Art to the Avenue.” This festival celebrates Greenwich’s business district and the arts by exhibiting original paintings, photographs and sculpture in participating storefront windows and featuring performing artists, including musicians such as strolling minstrels. 5:30 to 8 p.m. May 5, then all day every day through May 31. 299 Greenwich Ave.; 203-8626750, greenwicharts.org
MAY 6 THROUGH 8
The Lincoln Depot Museum kicks off a new season during its “2022 Opening Weekend.” The event will include a 200th birthday party for former President Ulysses S. Grant, new artifacts and an interactive exhibit. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 10 S. Water St., Peekskill; lincolndepotmuseum.org
MAY 7
The Valentina Kozlova Dance Conservatory (VKDC) holds its Spring Performance at The Wall Street Theater. Dancers will perform pieces from the classical and contemporary repertoire, including a revival of the ballet “Ruslan & Ludmila” and variations from “Don Quixote,” “Le Corsaire” and more. The classical section will be followed by a new work by contemporary choreographer Nina Buisson. 7 to 8:30 p.m. 71 Wall St.; 203-354-9396, vkdcny.com
MAY AND 8
The Stamford Symphony season concludes with the symphony’s first performance of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and Michelle Cann performing Florence Price’s piano concerto, “Real American
May 21: Downtown Cabaret Theatre in Bridgeport presents “John Mueller’s 50s Dance Party.”
Music.” The concerto evokes Price’s experiences as an African American woman raised in the post-Civil War South. 7:30 p.m. May 7 and 3 p.m. May 8. Palace Theatre, 61 Atlantic St., Stamford; 203-325-1407, stamfordsymphony.org
MAY 8
The Sanctuary Series presents a Mother’s Day concert with pianist Fei Fei. The program will include works by Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy and Rachmaninoff. 4 to 5:45 p.m. South Salem Presbyterian Church, 111 Spring St.; thesanctuaryseries.org The Hudson River Museum presents a Mother’s Day celebration with Ballet Folklorico Mexicano de Nueva York. As part of the museum’s “The World of Frida” exhibit, this event will feature regional dances from Frida
Kahlo’s indigenous Mexico and traditional social dances from Mexico City. 2 to 4 p.m. 511 Warburton Ave, Yonkers; hrm.org
MAY 12 MoCA Westport invites the community to enjoy “An Evening with India Hicks,” the designer, entrepreneur and humanitarian. A relative of the British royal family and goddaughter to Prince Charles, Hicks is known for her irreverent style. Following a cocktail hour, she will sit down with CT Cottages & Gardens Editorial Director DJ Carey to speak about her most recent book, “An Entertaining Story.” The ticket price includes hors d’oeuvres, cocktails and a copy of Hicks’ book, which she’ll sign after the conversation. 5 to 7 p.m. 19 Newtown Turnpike; 203-222-7070, mocawestport.org
WAG
WHEN & WHERE
May 12: MoCA Westport invites the community to enjoy “An Evening with India Hicks,” the designer, entrepreneur and humanitarian.
MAY 15
Intempo will hold its signature “Cultural Crossover Concert: Afro-Latinx Diaspora,” showcasing Afro-Latinx and classical symphonic music in celebration of its diverse students and community. Young Intempo musicians will take center stage with members of the Norwalk Youth Symphony and guest artists Bomba Ashe: Roberto and Gloria Cepeda from La Familia Cepeda. 3 to 5 p.m. Norwalk Concert Hall, 125 East Ave.; 203323-9001, intempo.org
MAY 18 Sacred Heart University (SHU) Community Theatre in Fairfield welcomes comedian and SHU alumnus Kevin Nealon of “Saturday Night Live” fame. Nealon, an Emmy and Screen Actors Guild (SAG)-nominated actor, will take the stage for an evening of stand-up. He has received critical acclaim for his role in the Showtime series “Weeds.” 7:30 to 9 p.m. 1420 Post Road; 203-371-7956, sacredheart.edu
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MAY 19
Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens holds its “Gala: Celebrating the Life of Gail Malloy,” with cocktails, a dinner and a silent auction. The master of ceremonies is Dannel P. Mallo, 6:30 p.m. to midnight. Rockrimmon Country Club, 2949 Long Ridge Road, Stamford; 203-487-5263, bartlettarboretum.org
MAY 21
Downtown Cabaret Theatre in Bridgeport presents “John Mueller’s 50s Dance Party,” the official recreation of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper’s final tour. 5 to 10 p.m. 263 Golden Hill St.; 203-5761636, dtcab.com
MAY 21 AND 22
The 40th annual “Bruce Museum Outdoor Crafts Festival” features original work by some of the best artists and craftsmen around the country. Admission is pay as you wish, with a suggested donation of
$10 per adult. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich; 203869-0376, brucemuseum.org
MAY 22
The Center for Contemporary Printmaking invites the community to “Press Out Hate,” an open house and community day in which individuals can take part in a hands-on printmaking workshop expressing what “press out hate” means to them. RSVP required. Noon to 4 p.m. 299 West Ave., Norwalk; 203-899-7999, contemprints.org Greater Connecticut Youth Orchestras’ Spring Concerts at The Klein Auditorium will feature all ensembles as well as the winners of the 2022 GCTYO Concerto Competition, who will perform as soloists with the principal orchestra. 1 to 7 p.m. 910 Fairfield Ave., Bridgeport; 203-293-8447, gctyo.org
MAY 24 THROUGH JUN 5
Westport Country Playhouse presents “Straight White Men,” a satire about three grown sons who come back to the family home on Christmas Eve for pranks, Chinese takeout and gossip. When an impossible question threatens the cheery festivities, all are forced to face their own identities. Times vary. 25 Powers Court; 203-227-4177, westportplayhouse.org/
MAY 25, 29 AND 30 The Play Group Theatre presents a production of the Stephen Sondheim musical “Into the Woods.” The musical tells the story of a witch who tasks a childless baker and his wife with procuring magical items from classic fairy tales to reverse the curse put on their family tree. Times vary. 1 N. Broadway, White Plains; playgroup.org Presented by ArtsWestchester (artswestchester.org) and the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County (culturalalliancefc.org).
GO ANYWHERE FROM HERE. Experience luxury living in modern high‑rise towers. Dine in award‑winning restaurants. Enjoy an outdoor concert on the Hudson Riverfront. Kayak, bike, run, or explore an inspiring art gallery. Take the train to Midtown and arrive in just minutes. You can even ‘star‑gaze’ near the movie and production studio. There’s so much more, you’ve got to see it for yourself. Yonkers on the River … go anywhere from here.
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