Photos: Nicholas Venezia
The Ridgefield Holiday Historic House Tour is a biennial event, sponsored by the Ridgefield Historical Society and Tiger Hollow Inc., the 501(c)3 that supports the Tiger Hollow Stadium on the Ridgefield High School Campus. The last Tour grossed over $90,000, with proceeds being split between the two causes.
The 2025 Ridgefield Holiday Historic House Tour will take place in December 2025, and will include a Friday evening gala and a walkable tour of historic homes on Saturday.
To help celebrate this 2024 Holiday Season, and B&NC Mag's having added Ridgefield to the B&NC Mag readership in 2024, B&NC presents the history of four fantastic homes that were featured on the 2023 Tour: The Lounsbury House, The Olmstead House, The 1740 Benedict House and Cobbler Shop, and The Benjamin Keeler House.
No. 1The Lounsbury House
The tour began at the prominent mansion overlooking Main Street, and the pinnacle of the spectacular homes leading into Ridgefield’s downtown.
Ridgefield’s “gilded age” began in the post-Civil War period and accelerated into the 20th Century, as wealthy city dwellers increasingly discovered its beauty and healthy air, convenient to New York by a new train line connection. Ridgefield, in turn, recognized the potential of the “summer people” to contribute to the town, both financially and culturally, and town leaders were welcoming to the newcomers.
Originally coined Grovelawn, this special property was constructed to emulate the Connecticut State Building at the request of Phineas Lounsbury who was a successful shoe manufacturer, banker, and businessman, and who had served as the 53rd Governor of Connecticut… a position his brother would later hold as well.
The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, celebrating the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, inspired Lounsbury to create one of the town’s most prominent mansions, modeled after the neoclassical Connecticut pavilion. Completed in 1896, Grovelawn remained in the Lounsbury family until 1945 when the Town of Ridgefield purchased the mansion and surrounding 17.2 acres bounded by Main, Governor and Market Streets and East Ridge Road, as an early example of historic preservation. The property was dedicated to those who had fought in the just-ended World War II and was named Veterans Memorial Park; the mansion eventually became the Community Center. A beloved gathering place, the building that is now known as Lounsbury House is not only a Ridgefield landmark but a National Historic Site.
No. 2The Olmstead House
Built on land purchased in 1923 by Frances M. Olmsted, wife of Franklin H. Olmsted, who was a relative of the renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, from Julia Finch Gilbert, wife of Cass Gilbert. The Gilberts owned large areas surrounding their country home, the former Keeler Tavern, which they called the Cannonball House, now the core of the Keeler Tavern Museum and History Center.
Franklin Olmsted was a native of North Carolina and spent much of his business career in Japan. Their daughter, Frances Helen Olmsted, who was born in 1890 in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan, moved to Ridgefield with them and spent the rest of her life here. Also in residence with the Olmsteds was the senior Frances Olmsted’s sister, Miss Edith Otis.
According to Frances Helen Olmsted’s obituary, “The Olmsteds were interested in the Ridgefield Library and many other civic enterprises.”
In 1964, Dr. Frederick and Joan Van Poznak and their daughters Karen and Elissa moved from Lounsbury Road to the Olmsted House. Dr. Van Poznak was the police and fire surgeon for Ridgefield and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and Mrs. Van Poznak was active in numerous Ridgefield organizations. Dr. Van Poznak began volunteering aboard the hospital ship S.S. Hope; after several tours on the S.S. Hope, he closed his surgical practice in 1973, and the family moved to England.
The house then became the home of Charles and Sandra Tepfer. Mr. Tepfer, one of the founders of Temple Shearith Israel, now Congregation Shir Shalom, owned Tepfer Publishing and was former executive editor for the Nielsen Publishing Company and editor of Electronics Illustrated. He started one of the first publications that focused on cable television. The Tepfers, whose three children grew up here, moved to Westport after about 20 years in the house.
Richard and Deanne Mincer also enjoyed the house for about 20 years. He had been the Emmy Award-winning producer of the Phil Donahue Show in Dayton, Ohio, a talk show believed to be the first in which audience members were invited to contribute questions and comments. Winner of five national Emmys, Mr. Mincer worked on the show for 18 years, most of the time as Executive Producer. He later worked on program development for Multimedia Inc. and produced The Rush Limbaugh Show. Deanne Mincer’s career in Ridgefield centered on sharing the discipline of yoga, particularly with people who had special needs, whether physical or spiritual. She created a studio in the basement of this home where she taught class and led sessions for private clients, focusing on the healing power of yoga.
The current owners of the Olmsted House have spent the last decade restoring the original elements that remained, including the original front door and hardware as well as a leaded glass arc window. All of the original windows were returned to full working order using period-appropriate materials including cotton rope and copper weather stripping. The foyer and butler’s pantry light fixtures were restored, plaster walls were repaired and floors were refinished. The butler’s pantry with its original built-in, glass-paneled cabinets, which had long been painted over, was brought back to its original state, with the glass doors and original hardware lovingly restored by the homeowners, as were the original chestnut counter, bar sink and faucet.
As the original kitchen was no longer in place, the family looked to add modern functionality in a traditional way. Fir floors and a Connecticut Chestnut wood island were used as period materials to help create a cohesive look. The soapstone sink was uncovered in the basement and is believed to have been used in the summer kitchen that once was part of the home’s lower level. The current owners chronicle their restoration work and proudly call this 1923 village house home.
No. 3The 1740 Benedict House and Cobbler Shop
The Benedict House and Shop, listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, was the home of a cobbler who had his shop on the property. A modest structure, sitting above Rockwell Road against the side of a hill, it’s described as comprising two of the oldest surviving colonial buildings in Ridgefield. The house was built around 1740, probably by Ensign James Benedict (1685-1762), on family land that was one of the original Proprietors’ Lots. A deacon of the Congregational Church, Ensign Benedict was a shoemaker, an officer in the local militia, and also served the town as a fence viewer.
The generations of Benedicts who followed James continued the shoemaking trade, becoming part of “an evolving rural industrial economy, in which shoemaking was a major cottage industry employing 40 men in Ridgefield as early as 1820”, according to the National Register report. “…Shoemaking on this scale continued until trade was disrupted by the Civil War”.
The property left Benedict ownership in 1848, but shoemaking may have continued there for some time. The cobbler’s bench and tools remained with the shop through a succession of owners. The house and shop were extensively restored by architect Cass Gilbert, who bought the property in 1920. It was later the home of Robert and Mildred Wohlforth, both writers of note and six-decade residents of Ridgefield.
The Wohlforths made the case for the National Register listing of their home, based on its early connection to the cottage industry of shoemaking as well as to the famed architect, who made his home here at the former Keeler Tavern beginning in 1907. The architect of the Woolworth Building and the U.S. Customs House in New York, Cass Gilbert was also involved in the restoration of several Colonial structures in Ridgefield and other Connecticut towns.
He sold the Benedict house and shop to the Wohlforths in 1932, complete with furnishings; they moved here from New York City, among the first suburbanite commuters to New York. Robert Wohlforth worked in publishing, and Mildred Gilman Wohlforth was a columnist for the Hearst papers, and earlier one of the original ‘Sob Sisters’. A well known figure in Ridgefield, she was the first chairman of the Historic District Commission and into her 90s was still riding her bicycle daily. She died in 1994 at the age of 97. Robert Wohlforth, a West Point graduate, served in several government posts before and during World War II and later joined Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishers. In 1977 when the town celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Ridgefield with a re-enactment, he played the part of General Benedict Arnold, one of the battle’s heroes. He died in 1997 at the age of 93.
The National Register listing calls the Benedict House and Shop “exceptional and rare examples of vernacular colonial architecture, enhanced by the integrity of their unusual terraced setting. Few of these modest cottages or shops have survived at all; often houses of this type evolved into full five-bay Capes or even more elegant two-story Colonials which obscured their original form and plan”.
Describing how Cass Gilbert restored the house and shop, the report said, “Gilbert’s remodeling of the Benedict House was a typical expression of his restoration style. As he did with his other Ridgefield properties, Gilbert added more floor space while preserving the basic integrity of the original structure. He skillfully held back wings, or confined additions to less visible rear elevations, as was done here”.
“…Having retained much of its original plan, form, and materials, the essential historic core of the dwelling can still illuminate the status and life style of the builder. That he was relatively poor is clearly conveyed by the functional simplicity of the design, in which utility takes precedence over symmetry. There are no formal, little-used rooms, such as the parlor or entry porch found in larger colonials, and finish detail is quite plain. …The rooms are very small; every bit of living space is utilized and arranged to take maximum advantage of wood-burning fireplaces.”
In addition to its architectural significance, the Benedict House and Shop sits just south of a hill that is believed to have been the scene of a skirmish in the Battle of Ridgefield, following the main battle on Main Street in April 1777. Future study of the Battle of Ridgefield battleground, under a National Park Service grant administered by the Ridgefield Historical Society, may add to the story.
In recent years, the house and cobbler shop with Gilbert and Wohlforth additions, have been extensively renovated, while maintaining the property’s 18th Century appeal. Visitors will find a merging of old and new that gives the 18th Century house a 21st Century sensibility.
No. 4The Benjamin Keeler House
The Benjamin Keeler House on lower Main Street was originally a one-and-a-half-story dwelling, built around 1756 by Benjamin Keeler on Lot #25 - land that his grandfather, Samuel Keeler, had obtained as one of the original proprietors of Ridgefield.
Benjamin was born in Ridgefield in 1730 and was the brother of Timothy Keeler Jr., who owned the Keeler Tavern, and Isaac Keeler, whose grist mill was destroyed during an early skirmish of the Battle of Ridgefield. The three Keeler brothers were among the six offspring of Timothy Keeler Sr., also a farmer, and Abigail Osborne, who died in 1735.
Timothy Keeler Sr., who died in 1748, left a sizable estate, including four enslaved servants, who were named in his will. At the time, Benjamin Keeler was a minor, only 17, so he did not come into his inheritance until a few years later, in 1754.
By 1756, Benjamin had built his house, a one-and-a-half story home typical for the period, and a large barn, and on Oct. 31 of that year married Martha Smith. They had four children before he died in 1769, only 38 years old.
Benjamin, Jr., their only son, went on to join the Patriot cause in the American Revolution, serving with Captain David Olmsted’s company, and then became a ship’s captain, sailing the brigantine Sally between Connecticut and the West Indies. He and his crew died when the Sally hit the Eaton’s Neck Reef off Long Island in late 1790.
Early in the 19th Century, the Keeler House was sold to Thaddeus Keeler, a farmer; his daughter Betsey, at the age of 25, married another farmer, William Northrup Benedict. Betsey and William Benedict did a large renovation in the late 1800s, which added the full second floor onto the building.
Their son, William, and his wife Frances Elizabeth Frost continued farming the property and ran a dairy business. They lived in the house for the rest of their lives. By the time William died in 1933, the farm was no longer in operation.
Ernest Scott acquired the property in 1943. A well-known builder and entrepreneur, Scott had rebuilt St. Stephen’s Church in 1915 and then built the Scott Block on Main Street. He subdivided the Benedict property and sold the house and half the land to the Harvey family of New York City, initially as a weekend home. Marshall and Edna Harvey became active in the community and were members of St. Stephen’s Church.
Among the other 20th Century owners of the Benjamin Keeler House were Richard and Phyllis Kluger, also initially weekend residents. He was a Princeton graduate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ashes to Ashes, a history of the American tobacco industry. His book Simple Justice, an authoritative account of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision by the Supreme Court, was written while in residence in Ridgefield. Phyllis Schlain Kluger earned a degree in art history at Columbia University and wrote two books on needlepoint and is an accomplished fiber artist. They left Ridgefield in 1976 and now live in the San Francisco Bay area.
The Benjamin Keeler House remains a private residence, its history entwined with the many phases of Ridgefield history, from its early settlers to the 21st Century homeowners who treasure the town’s storied history.
Most recently, local Interior Designer, Jill Rae, who owns the eponymous store, Jill Rae Designs at 19 Governor Street, purchased the home with her husband Rob, and recently renovated all of the main rooms of the first floor and added a large outdoor living space. Jill shared, “We have pretty much touched every crease of our 1756 farm house. While keeping the original look in mind, incorporating updated amenities throughout.”
“We love spending time outdoors so adding a space that we love to hang out in all year round was important to us,” Jill says, “we added a pavilion with a fireplace, a large patio space for entertaining and an all season plunge pool for relaxation!”
“But of course, my favorite room by far is our family room! This is our most recent project, and as a designer, I was able to pick up some favorite things I’ve seen and done elsewhere, and also really personalize my own space. We extended the living space into what was a screened in porch, added a custom wall of cabinetry with beautiful glass and brass doors, painted it a deep green for warmth and cozy feel, added a custom large sectional for lounging and managed to create a secret door to the front foyer…not a secret anymore!”
As featured in the November/December 2024 issue of Bedford & New Canaan Magazine