Enjoy a special meal with friends and neighbors, featuring a performance by Arms & Voices. This affordable dining experience promises expansive views and excellent company.

The evening will take place in the River building’s Commons—a 6,900 square foot glass room appointed with social community tables built from trees harvested on the grounds, comfortable sofas, and a coffee bar serving our very own Heavenly Roast.

Stay in the Commons after to participate in our free conversation,  After Dinner: Architecture on the Cusp.

MENU

Corn Chowder

Honey-Lime Grilled Chicken

Rosemary Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

Angel Food Cake

Please note, tickets purchased at the Commons the night of the dinner will be $15 for adults, and $10 for kids. [Tickets bought beforehand go for $6 to $10.]

— from an announcement on the Grace Farms website

‘After Dinner Conversation’

From another announcement on the Grace Farms website; this part of the event, which anyone can attend without charge, starts at 7:30 p.m.:

After Grace Farms’ May Community Dinner, an After Dinner conversation will introduce the cultural and historical circumstances that caused New Canaan to flourish as a place of architectural experimentation after World War II.

With first-hand accounts and historical context by panelists Fred Noyes, Alan Goldberg, Marty Skrelunas, and Cristina A. Ross, moderated by Gwen North Reiss, the evening conversation will provide a glimpse into the work of the modernist architects who settled in New Canaan at a time of change and continued to refine their work over the following decades.  There will be a special focus on Eliot Noyes, who worked in residential and corporate design and served as Curator of Industrial Design at The Museum of Modern Art.

Frederick Noyes is Principal of Frederick Noyes Architects in Boston. His work includes houses and hospitals.  He first studied biology at Harvard, then architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design–and has taught both subjects at the college level.  Fred, a New Canaan native, grew up in two different houses designed by his father, architect Eliot Noyes. He was elected to the College of Fellows in the American Institute of Architects, and awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Education from the Boston Architectural College.

Alan Goldberg graduated from Washington University in 1954 and practiced in New York for 10 years on a number of important projects among them the Seagram Building. In 1966 he moved to New Canaan where he joined Eliot Noyes & Associates. He was named the head of the firm’s Architectural Department in 1972, a Partner in 1974 and in 1977, the sole principal under the firm’s new name AG/ENA. In 1988 Goldberg was inducted into the College of Fellows of The American Institute of Architects. He has been active in the modern house movement in New Canaan for 50 years and currently has a major role in the planning and design of the first retail hydrogen fueling station in Connecticut.

Marty Skrelunas has a B.A. in Architecture from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Preservation from Columbia. He has lived in New Canaan since 1997 when he moved here to work for Philip Johnson and David Whitney to manage the Glass House and fulfill their landscape vision for the Glass House property. After helping to transition the Glass House into a museum site, he formed his own business, Architecture and Landscape Preservation LLC, which manages significant modern and antique homes for private homeowners. In addition to preservation and family, his interests include gardening, woodworking and Tiny Houses.

Gwen North Reiss is a writer and poet who has written articles about New Canaan’s modern architecture for The New York Times, Connecticut Cottages & Gardens,Preservation, and Docomomo’s international Journal. She coordinated the Oral History Project at the Glass House, where she has worked part-time for 8 years. She has a B.A. in Combined Literature from Yale and currently works as a communications consultant and Connecticut press contact for Grace Farms Foundation.

Cristina A. Ross, AIA, is co-author with Jeff Matz and Lorenzo Ottaviani of Midcentury Houses Today (photographs by Michael Biondo). She is a licensed practicing architect and a graduate of Cooper Union School of Architecture. Her 20-year career has focused on corporate, institutional and educational architecture in both modern and classical styles. Her passion for the preservation of iconic structures and their history commenced with projects which included buildings and structures in Central Park, exploration of the restoration of the Customs Building at Ellis Island, and the renovation of the Time Inc. building at Rockefeller Center.  Locally her work has included integrating older buildings with new buildings at the New Canaan Nature Center and later the preservation of Philip Johnson’s Alice Ball House in New Canaan.