Artists’ Ally

Kent, Connecticut

by Jan Larraine Cox and photographs by Amber S. Clark, August 31, 2009

When New England poet Robert Frost wrote that “good fences make good neighbors” he probably had not yet visited Kent, Connecticut. Originally a farming community incorporated in 1739, Kent has grown from 1,500 to 3,000 in population, yet it’s still small enough that every neighbor’s input can echo throughout the town, which has expanded over the past 25 years into a profitable rural arts center.

Driving south from Cornwall on Route 7, a former Indian trail, one passes breathtaking Kent Falls, reputedly the highest falls in New England at 250 feet. Several miles later one approaches the town and Kent Green on the left, a lovely country shopping center of 25 businesses in a park setting that includes independent grocer Davis IGA, which has recently marked its 35th anniversary, a noteworthy achievement in the independent business environment in town.

Alternately, driving east from Dogtail Corners through a covered bridge across the Housatonic River, one approaches Beatty Automotive, near the intersection of Kent and Bulls Bridge roads. Here, proprietor Lorin Beatty has old local photos displayed in the waiting room, along with a very worn copy of One Small Town in World War II, which was published in 2006 by the Kent Historical Society and includes photos and stories of Kent boys going off to war.

When one drives around the unpaved roads that maintain the rural nature outside the city center, it’s intriguing to chat with the locals who have lived in Kent since the farming days, or since they decided, like many New York notables have, to make their weekend home a permanent one.

Nancy Hawley Wilsea, 93, has lived full time in the southern Kent Hollow area ever since she bought her cousins out in 1945, and expanded their circa-1731 family vacation farmhouse property into a dairy farm of 50 cows and 200 chickens. Brock-Hall Dairy distributed the milk in amber bottles throughout the region during the 1950s, and Wisea also delighted in turning the cooled milk into butter and cheese, “way ahead of Martha Stewart,” she says.

From their Fairfield County residence, Wilsea’s family sent the kids to the Kent farm during school vacations while her father worked as a doctor in the Bridgeport area. “We were little but we were put to work if we wanted to stay on the farm,” she says. “It was good for me. I learned how to milk cows, cut ice in the lake, and put sawdust around it to keep our food cold. It was fascinating. Once you’re exposed to farming, all of a sudden you always want to farm, from that day on. Everybody takes time to help their neighbors, the old-fashioned way.”