Westport Magazine, May/June 2018

NYC Grit + L.A. Chill

Bryan Rafanelli

INSIDERS' GUIDE FOR NEWCOMERS

A PASSION FOR WEDDING PERFECTION

MAY/JUNE 2018 | $5.95

NEARLY 1 IN 4 YOUTH AGES 13 TO 18 ARE SUFFERING FROM

ANXIETY Social Media. Academics. Athletics. Peer and Parent Pressure. And Now School Shooting Drills.

Our teens have had enough.

P. 80

D I SCOVE R THE WO RL D OF VI N CE .

A C ASUA L U ND ER STAT E D A P P ROAC H TO LUXU RY.

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HUNTINGTON

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CONTENTS MAY/JUNE 2018

FEATURES 80 | The Anxious Generation

BY TIMOTHY DUMAS

Today’s teens share everything—except their struggles with anxiety. Here’s what they’re trying to keep to themselves.

88 | Our Town

BY JILL JOHNSON

How newcomers from New York City and L.A. are finding a new home here, settling in and changing us.

98 | Jack Moffly

BY TIMOTHY DUMAS

A tribute to our late co-founder, who loved family, sailing, fierce writing and adventures in the publishing industry.

DEPARTMENTS 12 | EDITOR’S LETTER 15 | BUZZ Southern Tide • Barbour • Brunello Cucinelli at Mitchells • Imperfect Heart necklace • Whip Salon • Greenwich Medical Spa • Savannah Bee • Doryn Wallach • Talking about “Me Too” • Range Rover 24 | SHOP Finds for weddings 26 | HOME Making over the kids rooms Serena & Lily • American Frameless 30 | DO May Lindstrom • Wag Central 34 | EAT GrayBarns Tavern • Brunches for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day • French wine 41 | PEOPLE & PLACES 58 | FINANCE FIX Make a Plan

A tween’s bedroom makeover

by Winding LaneDesign

63 | VOWS 111 | INDEX OF ADVERTISERS 112 | DON’T MISS THIS

WESTPORT MAY/JUNE 2018, VOL. 20, NO. 3 WESTPORT (USPS/ISSN 1941-9821) is published bi-monthly by Moffly Media, Inc., 205 Main St, Westport, CT 06880. Periodical postage paid at Westport, CT, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes (Form 3579) to WESTPORT, PO Box 9309, Big Sandy, TX 75755-9607. U.S. Subscription rates: $19.95/ 1 year, $34.95/2 years; Canada and Foreign $44/1 year, $72/2 years.

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VOL. 20 NO. 3

Y MAY/JUNE 2018

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Amy Vischio EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Cristin Marandino

editorial EDITOR

Diane Sembrot

Estate & Tax Planning

Business Succession Planning

MARKET EDITOR

Megan Gagnon ADVISORY EDITOR

Wealth Preservation

Corporate & Finance

Trust Administration

Commercial & Residential Real Estate

Probate & Estate Settlement

Litigation & Arbitration

Charitable Giving

Banking & Lending

Donna Moffly ASSISTANT EDITOR

Colleen Crowley CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Kathryn Satterfield–NEW CANAAN•DARIEN•ROWAYTON Camilla A. Herrera–STAMFORD COPY EDITORS

Meaghan Casey, Terry Christofferson CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

www.cl-law.com

Carol Leonetti Dannhauser; Timothy Dumas; Kim-Marie Evans; Beth Cooney Fitzpatrick; Chris Hodenfield; Jill Johnson; Emily Liebert CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Noah Fecks, Lisa Garcia, Kyle Norton

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

G. Kenneth Bernhard; Bridgett Csapo-DiBonaventura; Nancy Conroy; Nancy Gault; Caren Hart Nelson; Jennifer O’Reilly

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SENIOR ART DIRECTOR

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SENIOR ART DIRECTOR, STATUS REPORT

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ART DIRECTOR

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Kerri Rak

digital media DIGITAL MEDIA MANAGER

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VOL. 20 NO. 3 MAY/JUNE 2018

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EDITOR’S Letter

DIANE SEMBROT

Now Hear This

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Today’s teens may not be aware that they’re trailblazers, because they have never known anything else; nor, as parents, have we. While many of our kids are thriving— soaking in the benefits of wide and constant access to information, entertainment and one another while also meeting the high expectations for academics, athletics, popularity, affluence, etc.—others are not. Stress builds, coping skills fail, anxiety develops. We parents are trying to see what’s going on, even though they themselves don’t truly understand what’s happening and we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for.

To dig into the issue, Senior Writer Tim Dumas presents his piece, “The Anxious Generation.” For this work, he interviewed teachers, counselors, therapists— professionals who interact with teens every day—as well as parents and teens going through this experience. What he discovered is shocking and important for every parent; sometimes a teen’s struggles are not big and loud and obvious, but hidden. We need to see it anyway.

Stay in touch! diane.sembrot@moffly.com

WILLIAM TAUFIC

MY TEENAGE SON IS BIG AND LOUD—AND

utterly unaware of it. As he bangs his way through the house (usually to my amusement), he appears completely different from the child I thought I knew.

The switch was flipped; now I must change my parenting as quickly as I can.

Parents, what worked for us as teenagers, may not work for our children; our experience as teens was vastly different from that of today’s generation. We were spared stressors that are common now.

Social media, for one, is a pressure cooker, even though it doesn’t bill itself as one— making it all the more surprising when it burns you. We roamed freely; we didn’t face a daily frenzy to build a platinum-level high school résumé; we barely checked in with our parents; and our friends didn’t get updates on our lives minute by minute.

We didn’t know about everyone’s collegeacceptance offers. We were blissfully unaware of what our latest crush was doing or who up-thumbed or down-thumbed what we wore to school. Our bad hair day didn’t end up as a photo immediately distributed far and wide. And we never had shooting drills. We never questioned if the person at the locker next to ours would make a deadly threat against our school.

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BUZZ

by diane sembrot

Southern Tide Sport Shirts (starting at $89)

status report

SOUTHERN TIDE • BARBOUR • MITCHELLS • MOTHER'S DAY • WHIP • DORYN WALLACH • "ME TOO" • RANGE ROVER VELAR Trellis Bay Plaid Sport Shirt ($99.50) and 7" Channel Marker Short ($79.50)

Comfort Southern

Southern Tide style rolls into Playhouse Square

D

id we in Fairfield County think we owned the market on colored polos, seersucker bow ties and pink shifts?

Southern Tide, a clothing company from South Carolina, says no and counters, “Hold my Mint Julep, I got this.” The clothing company—comprising equal parts preppy clothes and accessories, aspirational lifestyle allure and southern charm—was founded by Polo-perfectionist Allen Stephenson in 2006. From its “salt-faded” red t-shirts to its vibrant blue shorts, the brand feels every bit beach-town prep.

After fifteen years in business, Amy and Marc Cesaratto, owners of Splash of Pink, caught the Southern Tide wave and landed space in town to open a free-standing signature store. It stocks the entire men’s and youth collections, as well as the newly launched women’s line. “We truly feel that Southern Tide will excite Westport and the surrounding communities now and well into the future,” says Amy. Find it at 275 Post Rd. E.; southerntide.com.

A SHORE THING CONTRIBUTED IMAGES

The long-loved English brand Barbour opens at Bedford Square

The iconic brand Barbour has made its mark here in the States—and now Westport gets its own shop. With clothes, leather goods, shoes and, especially, outerware, Barbour

has boasting rights to both a long history and global brand recognition.

Founded in 1894

by J. Barbour, it has every reason to be proud of its pedigree. A Barbour wax jacket, for

example, is like a stamp of approval from high society at leisure as well as fashionable street cred—just ask the Queen of England, celeb Lily Allen or Barbour’s Global Brand Ambassador

Sam Heughan.

Plus, the company's apparel fits, works, looks good and lasts forever.

When the shop opens in town, expect stylish Anglophiles to cheer. barbour.com/us

MAY/JUNE 2018 WESTPORT

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BUZZ “Imperfect Heart” necklace

A COMMUNITY OF HEARTS

There’s more to love of minimalist superstar Brunello Cucinelli

M

room, it is an extension of itchells’ mission is the modern elegance that to tempt local style Brunello Cucinelli is known devotees with elite for and exclusive to us in this fashion lines from around area.” the world, and this familyMitchells is not even takowned store recently did ing a breath before the next just that: It has introduced big upgrade. “This is just a new department for fanthe first step of an extenfavorite Brunello Cucinelli. sive renovation that will be The refined look of the shopbeginning this spring for the ping space, with a personal entire store,” says Mitchellfeel, befits the soothing and Namdar. “We plan to be finsophisticated luxury Italian ished by the end of August— brand. In short, both are as don’t worry, we will be open chic and cozy as cashmere throughout the entire proon a chilly day. cess. We are so fortunate to “The new Brunello The Brunello Cucinelli department at be able to continue to grow Cucinelli women’s space is Mitchells (top) reflects the refined luxury with our community, and we an environment in which to of the designer (above) look forward to providing the experience the casual luxury of the collection,” says Andrew Mitchell-Namdar, finest-quality products and exceptional customer vice president of marketing and creative services. service in a modern and welcoming environment.”

“From the signature fixtures to the private dressing shop.mitchellstores.com

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The Sheibers are taking on hypoplastic right heart syndrome.

CONTRIBUTED IMAGES

Less Is More

In 2016 twins Evan and James were born; and Evan underwent openheart surgery. Doctors could not correct the defect, only treat the symptoms. When he is three, he will have another surgery to improve oxygen saturation in his blood.

His mom, Westporter Britt Sheiber, found support in an unlikely place: spin class.

JoyRide Cycling + Fitness Studio in Westport has hosted fundraisers to benefit Evan’s Heart Fund at Boston Children’s Hospital and to mark National Heart Month and Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week. Local jewelry designer, Jennifer Lau, also helped by creating Imperfect Heart necklaces for her line, Genevieve Lau. Find it at Mitchells (shop. mitchellstores .com); with each purchase, a necklace is donated to a family affected by CHD.

BUZZ SHE'S THE BEST

Do you know a mom who deserves a makeover?

Greenwich Medical Spa (GMS) is offering an amazing VIP makeover day—with aesthetic treatments, skincare, hair, makeup and a goodie bag—that's worth up to $10,000.

Nominate a special mom by posting a photo or video on Instagram and including a few words about why she should be chosen in the caption or in video. Be sure to tag @greenwichmedicalspa and use the hashtag #miraclemom or #miraclemoms. GMS will announce three winners on Mother's Day, May 13. Hurry! Nominations close May 7.

CONTRIBUTED IMAGES

TREAT MOM AND DAD

Enjoy Bee-lini's and Mimosas and high-tea fare at Savannah Bee Company's mother– daughter event on May 5, noon-2 p.m. Lux Bond & Green will be on hand to feature bee-inspired Gumuchaian jewelry from mother–daughter designers. Make a return visit on May 12, when the Bedford Square store hosts a craft workshop and sells bouquets filled with pollinator garden wildflowers. Pop round again on June 14, 6-8:30 p.m., for a Father's Day Bourbon and Cigars Night (maybe even a fire pit). Savor a signature Savannah Bee Honey Bourbon drink and mead. savannahbee.com

Snap to It S

pring makeover! No, not just a new hair style for you, but also a whole new salon for Whip. The 2,000-square-foot space, with nineteen stations, is pumping out the shampoo and firing up the blow dryers at Bedford Square. Salon owner Amy Pal opened the original Whip in Ridgefield in 2016 and is now bringing a fresh, edgy look to Post and Main. “We are a modern salon, with hip and friendly stylists,” she says. “We want our clients to have fun.”

Cool music is a part of the plan, but the key is the cool talent. “We have two complete rock stars at Whip Westport,” she says of General Manager Shay MacInnis, who focuses on cuts and color, and Head Colorist Suzanne Baumann, a color expert, specializing in blondes. “They have been working in the area for

Suzanne Baumann and Shay MacInnis of Whip Salon

many years and have a fierce following.”

While the salon offers blowouts, including memberships, it also has a full-range of services, such as eyelash extension and microblading. Additionally,

Whip Salon opens in Westport

it offers phone charging at each station; free and fast WiFi; and a scalp massage that was designed by a massage therapist. To make things easy, try the Whip app to make your appointment. To make things fun, book an appointment with a friend, sit together and enjoy a complimentary glass of wine or bubbly. “I almost always go with a friend to get my nails done,” says Amy. “Why not offer the same convenience for hair appointments?”

Whip Salon, open seven days a week, kicked off their business with multiple parties, including partnering with Anthropologie to do the hair and makeup for twenty models for their spring fashion show at Bedford Square. Edgy, fun and boldly moving forward? Sounds like this salon is ready to whip Westport into style shape. whipsalon.com

THE LONG AND SHORT OF BEAUTY NOW Eyelash extensions Certified Master Eyelash Extension Artist Cathy Bull can create a classic look (extensions applied one by one to each natural lash) or “Russian Volume” (multiple extensions are applied to each, creating depth, volume and texture). All lashes are high-grade silk, with many different lengths, thickness and curls in black or brown tones.

Microblading The microblading technique uses tailored equipment to create eyebrows. Initially interested in tattoo removal, Microblading Specialist Carolina Villalon comes from California, saying microblading has “been popular there for several years.” Her clients’ reactions to it inspired her. “Now I am obsessed with eyebrows and microblading.”

MAY/JUNE 2018 WESTPORT

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BUZZ Jewelry designer Doryn Wallach

Doryn Wallach’s jewelry, inspired by the big and small of architecture

I

used to sit on the floor of the boutique where my mother worked and sketch the jewelry in the cases,” says jewelry designer Doryn Wallach. “I’ve always been drawn to the history and romance of jewelry, and I love the beauty of reinvention.”

Those early influences and lasting interests emerged in her inevitable first piece—she used diamonds from an eternity band that she rarely wore and found inspiration in the architecture of the Chrysler Building. Not only 18

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was that the birth of her signature piece, the Gladiator Ring, it was the start of a whole new chapter in her life. “When many people stopped me to ask who designed my ring, I realized I could make my passion into a career.”

The NYC mom of two— formerly of Greenwich—went through a self-transformation.

She called on her nearly two decades of experience as an interior designer to create a jewelry collection, and each piece is influenced by interiors

and architecture with an updated Art Deco feel. Outside of NYC buildings, her creative touchstones include the entrance lobby of London’s Daily Express Building and the Art Deco architecture of Miami’s Collins Avenue. She also responds to the limitless house details: ladderback chairs, fireplace screens, faceted doorknobs, marble countertops, cabinet hardware and such. While some designers find inspiration in the stars or the wide-open seas, Wallach finds her spark from man-made innovation, big and small. It's revealed in her jewelry’s bold shapes, contrasting textures and rich stones, including white and black diamonds, black onyx, agate, turquoise, red coral, pearl, sapphire and emerald. “I love playing with complementary forms, textures, colors and layers to create jewelry with a timeless appeal,” she notes.

Each piece is handcrafted in New York; find them at Lux Bond & Green in Westport. More at dorynwallach.com and lbgreen.com.

THANKS MOM! Doryn's gift ideas for Mother's Day

MAGNOLIA BRANCHES

“I love how they last a long time and work yearround in a vase in any entryway or bathroom.

Cheery!” Terrain; shopterrain.com

RED DELFI COLLECTIVE "A chic dress in one of my favorite colors.” fred.; thefredshop.com

FAUX OSTRICH BAG “Great for a dinner date or just errands around town!”

Dovecote, 56 Post Rd. E., Westport

CONTRIBUTED IMAGES

In Detail

Normandie Scale Pendant ($5,170) • Signature Pearl Kite stud earrings ($1,120) Black onyx stud earrings ($1,160) • Gladiator Ring ($3,700)

Sophisticated Brilliance IN AR CHI TE CTU R AL G LAS S

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We can custom build to fit any space!

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Have you ever imagined or actually seen structural glass fencing for pools and outdoor perimeters?

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BUZZ

Talk How the #MeToo movement is changing the conversation at home and school for the better

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ast fall, #MeToo entered the national lexicon and has been driving the conversation about sexual assault and harassment ever since.

The issue is no less relevant in Fairfield County, where local organizations have seen a jump in calls and walk-ins by victims seeking help. This increase is good news, as 60 percent of sexual assault cases go unreported nationally, says Deb Greenwood, president and CEO of The Center for Family Justice (CFJ). “The movement is empowering,” Greenwood says. “It’s allowing so many

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people to come forward.” CFJ, which serves six towns including Bridgeport, Fairfield and Monroe, reports a 52 percent increase in calls to its domestic violence and sexual assault hotlines. Similarly, says Quentin Ball, executive director of The Center for Sexual Assault Crisis Counseling and Education, “we have seen a 20- to 30-percent increase in clients.” The Stamford-based center provides free programs and services to eight towns from Greenwich to Westport.

For both centers, community and educational

HOME WORK

The reinforcement at home is so important,” Deb Greenwood of the CFJ says. “As parents, we need a toolbox.”

Here, she offers tips and some talking points.

THAN GIRL TALK >It’sMORE crucial to talk to boys also, not only because men and boys can be allies in the effort to end harassment and abuse, but because they also can be victims.

KEEP IT AGE-APPROPRIATE >When tackling these sensitive subjects, remember to tailor the talk to your child’s age and developmental stage.

CONSENT >TellTEACH kids that they have the absolute right to say no—and yes, even change their minds—about things that make them feel uncomfortable as they begin to develop romantic relationships.

OPEN UP ABOUT SECRETS >Perpetrators of sex crimes and abusers are often master manipulators who use all kinds of tactics to keep their victims quiet.

Stress to your child that if they see or experience abuse, they need to tell a trusted grown-up. If that person doesn’t believe them, they need to tell someone else.

GOOD EXAMPLE >YouSETareAyour children’s most important role model; treat others with respect and call out inappropriate behavior when you see it.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ©VADIMGUZHVA ISTOCK.ADOBE.COM

Tough

outreach are essential. Ball says the #MeToo movement has focused a spotlight on the issue. “So many organizations are interested in learning what all this means and what they can do,” she says. The Center offers age-appropriate educational programming for grades K–12. CFJ has programs in high schools that teach prevention and healthy relationships, among other things.

Also, they recently partnered with Sacred Heart University on the #MenCareToo initiative. Ball and Greenwood say that involving men is key to prevention and change.

In related news, Senate Bill No. 17 was introduced in February to the Connecticut General Assembly. Described as, “An act promoting fairness in access to information, support and justice for sexual assault victims,” it lengthens the amount of time a victim has to report a crime, among other things. “Prior to this national spotlight, it was really difficult to advance that the statute of limitations needed to change,” says Ball.

Even the conversation about sexual harassment and assault is evolving. “We’re talking more about the continuum of sexual violence. Currently, there’s no criminal recourse for sexual harassment,” Ball says. “We’re trying to raise awareness that everything on that continuum is unacceptable and harmful. We need to work with the legal system to address how it’s handled.”

—Kathy Satterfield

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BUZZ

Elegant Bruiser Range Rover’s Velar hits the sweet spot

R

ange Rover knows what you really want, and with the new Velar you get it in a hellacious helping. It’s a heartbreakingly stylish ride that happens to look so tough you expect a squad of commandos to break out of it. At the same time it just reeks of luxury.

That’s some combination.

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screen handles navigation and audio, the lower does the climate and other yeoman duties. Some customers will zip through these screens like they would their smartphone. Others might take longer to adapt.

The lightweight aluminum chassis helps make this rakish bruiser a fine handler. The air suspension turns sharp potholes into vague shadows that you roll past. Passengers will feel like pashas borne aloft on clouds.

There are five trim levels, starting out with relative “econo” models powered RANGE ROVER by either a VELAR P380 You probably won’t workhorse fourscale mountain walls cylinder or a Base Price: in it, like they do in diesel, starting at $65,000 the commercials, but $50,900. You’d Drivetrain: homeowners along probably prefer 3.0-LITER V6, the Connecticut coast the muscular V6 SUPERCHARGED, might be impressed that 380 HORSEPOWER, edition. If zany it’s capable of fording 4WD hyper-power is two feet of water. desired, wait for EPA Mileage The Velar provides Rating: the upcoming sumptuous seating for 18 CITY/ SVR model with four adults. It is way 24 HIGHWAY its supercharged, smaller than the big542-horsepower gun Discovery model, V8, intended and just enough smaller to compete with the German than the Sport model to give bullies down the block. it around-town friendliness.

All Velars come standard The ultra-sleek flash with a sliding, panoramic aesthetics continue inside glass roof. And all Velars with a dashboard that belongs have the look that recalls the in a museum for modern British gentleman’s school of style. There are almost no toughness: The iron fist in a buttons! Replacing these are velvet glove. two display screens; the upper —Chris Hodenfield

430 Tunxis Hill Road | Fairfield, CT

203-384-0005 EXT: 3102 Rick Hecker

SHOP

status report

WEDDING GUEST LOOKS by m eg a n g ag n o n 1

2

3 4

5

Best

Guest 6

1. Sachin & Babi

Chacha earrings; $250.

Fred, Westport, 203-3495167; thefredshop.com

Get RSVP-ready with summer wedding staples

2. Kjaer Weis

Eye shadow in Angelic; $45.

ORGÁNACHS, Westport 203-221-0435; organachsfarmtoskin.com

7

3. Brooks Brothers

Floral bracelet; $168.

Westport, 203-226-9893; brooksbrothers.com

4. Nicholas

Mayflower maxi dress; $750. intermixonline.com

5. JL Rocks

14k white gold and rhodium multi-gem earrings with blue opal, diamond, aquamarine and moonstones; $2,400.

Westport, 203-454-4541; jlrocks.com Fillipa combo dress; $448. parkerny.com

7. Smythe 9 8

Wrap fitted blazer; $595.

West, Westport, 203-557-4157; west2westport.com

8. Anthropologie

Fruit-embellished clutch; $98.

Westport, 203-221-0015; anthropologie.com

9. Fendi

Camelia two-band sandal; $895. Mitchells, Westport, 203-227-5165; mitchellstores.com

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IMAGES COURTESY OF DESIGNERS/BRANDS. JLROCKS: DONNA CALLIGHAN’S PHOTO DESIGNS

6. Parker

MOM+ ENTREPRENEUR+ VOLUNTEER+ LATTE LOVER+ Our inspired knitwear and stylish apparel is made for the women of Westport who look and feel good while doing it all.

VISIT US IN BEDFORD SQUARE NICANDZOE.COM

© NIC+ZOE, 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

HOME

status report

KIDS' ROOM MAKEOVERS • SERENA & LILY • AMERICAN FRAMELESS A modern, masculine room that will grow with a ten-year-old into his teens

Sneak Peek by emily liebert

is more carefree. It’s heartwarming to see how excited parents are to talk to me about their children and this special gift they’re giving them.

Of course, the best part is witnessing their child’s reaction upon completion. I have kids who send me thank you notes, bring me flowers, and hug me every time I walk through the door.

It’s so sweet. It’s also an opportunity for me to throw in more saturated colors and wow factors, since most kids are less commitment-phobic than their parents. I think it sends a positive message to children when their personal spaces are treated like the other areas of the home—it fosters a sense of appreciation and encourages them to be responsible for

maintaining nice things.”

HOW DO YOU GET EACH KID’S PERSONALITY TO SHINE THROUGH? “It’s all about balance.

My main goal is to learn about their likes and dislikes, hobbies and overall lifestyle habits, and then blend the three into a space they’ll feel happy and comfortable in. It’s not much different than designing any other room, except that kids are typically willing to take more risks.”

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU? “We’re fine-tuning our website, which has gorgeous photos of our work. Also, my tenyear-old has requested a redesigned room by the time she gets home from camp. Her color of choice is black—so there’s that.”

Making over the kids' quarters while they’re at summer camp

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WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START WINDING LANE DESIGN? “When I was growing up, my [Russian] mother was constantly redecorating our Manhattan apartment. I became accustomed to scouring the city with her in search of European furniture and décor. Like my mother, I love nothing more than the hunt for spectacular pieces.”

WHAT DRAWS YOU TO STYLISH KIDS’ ROOM PROJECTS? “Designing kids’ rooms is unique for a few reasons.

First and foremost, the overall approach

Traditional style with touches of vintage for two young sisters

HEADSHOT BY JEN GOLDBERG PHOTOGRAPHY; ROOMS BY NEST PHOTOGRAPHY

O

ver the past few years, as the spring season has approached, interior designer Simona Levin has noticed an unmistakable pattern: a growing number of requests to design kids’ bedrooms. “Parents love the idea of surprising their children when they return from summer camp. They also appreciate the convenience of renovating and decorating their home while they’re likely to be on vacation,” says the Westport resident who launched her firm, Winding Lane Design (windinglanedesign.com), in 2014, following a prolific career as a beauty, fashion and lifestyle PR executive. “Summer is definitely the most popular time for projects with a big reveal!”

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HOME

The Great

Outdoors Serena & Lily collection for the spring/summer season

Drinks, anyone?

Dressed up in weatherfriendly wicker, this bar cart ($448) adds a touch of refinement to outdoor gatherings. Try it in the entryway as a catchall for keys and mail.

THE OUTDOOR COLLECTION HAS NEW PIECES (JUST ADD A WARM BREEZE!) 1 The Outdoor Marine

Daybed is modeled after the brand's bestselling Avalon daybed.

2 New outdoor throw

pillows come in various sizes and signature patterns—and beg to be layered.

3 Elevated outdoor

counter stools (right) are lightweight, functional and easy to clean.

4 Additions to the

Pacifica Outdoor

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Collection, such as pendants, a cooler that doubles as a coffee table and a wicker bar cart (above) are weatherfriendly.

5 Indoor-outdoor

terrace dining tables feature interchangeable table tops and bottoms.

6 New beach towels

have eye-catching designs, like splashy watercolored sailboats and geometric patterns.

Director's Counter Stool ($558)

SEEING IT CLEARLY NOW

Expert-level decluttering…with glass What’s the best color for a sleek, clean, calm home? White?

Gray? How about no color at all. Short of nothing, clear glass is the ultimate lessis-more concept.

From free-floating glass rooms to airy bath and shower enclosures to clear walls, partitions and hallway railings, frameless glass can be used throughout your home and office, and it's clear minimalism has a big impact.

For proof, consider the Westport house above. “The client was seeking unobstructed views of Compo Beach and Long Island Sound from their pool, balconies and walkways,” says Westporter Dennis Grimaldi, president of American Frameless. “Our architectural-glass systems were a perfect solution. In these applications, we used stainlesssteel bottom supports embedded in stone pavements and rustic stone wall

bases for a look that is both traditional and contemporary.”

Over the past fifty years, Grimaldi’s company has worked with glass for accents to entire rooms.

Despite invisibility (or nearly so), frameless architectural glass, used on a wide scale, actually makes a strong statement and adds a contemporary influence. Wine rooms are put on display, not hidden.

A glass balcony preserves every inch of a water view. Glass fencing around the pool provides safety while also letting sunbathers soak in the full beauty of the water.

The business handles design, manufacturing, installation and maintenance support. It also has a new Trade Access section— with new materials, manufacturing and installation methods—for architects and contractors. americanframeless .com

SERENA & LILY IMAGES CONTRIBUTED; AMERICAN FRAMLESS BY JONATHAN SLOANE

W

hen Serena & Lily adopted the c. 1889 Queen Anne Victorian Kemper-Gunn House in Westport, they lavishly transformed the historic home into a gorgeous retail-and-design center. It is serene yet brimming of ideas, complete with vignettes to show how the fabrics, wall treatments, furniture and such harmonize—the kind of place that makes you wish you were at an open house and could put in a bid.

Aside from happily preserving a slice of local history, their updated nest inspires shoppers and design mavens to re-imagine their own home projects. This summer's outdoor collection makes sure our homes are beautiful inside and out.

DESIGN NOTE

“MOR-HE Art Tectonics creates furnishings that resonate with the human psyche and desire for proportionality”

mor-he.com

roman@mor-he.com CUSTOM DESIGN & BUILD | FURNITURE

347. 993. 3723 LIGHTING | FABRICATION | MILLWORK

status report

DO

MAY LINDSTROM • WAG CENTRAL

by diane sembrot

The calming beauty of ritualized skin care with May Lindstrom

M

y journey into skincare began as a small girl,” says MAY LINDSTROM, founder of the eponymous, luxurious skincare line.

“Growing up, I would spend full days mashing wild plants into a pulp and covering myself, and everyone who would humor me, in ‘potions’ made from these vibrant green liquids and the clays I would dig from the iron-rich soil in my yard.” Lindstrom’s

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creative spirit evolved, and she now creates high-quality natural oils, serums and spritzes and suggests that users ease up and enjoy the ritual of caring for themselves.

That way, the routine flips from one more thing to get done to treasured time for pampering.

“I am passionate about pure, potent ingredients and a return to our roots,” she says. “Our planet provides

ENJOY EACH STEP OF THE ROUTINE CLEAN

THE PENDULUM POTION ($80/100ML): Steam away oil and environmental debris, ease congestion and stagnation.

BRIGHTEN

THE PROBLEM SOLVER ($100/250ML): Brighten, fade spots and discoloration and treat and prevent breakouts.

HEAL

THE JASMINE GARDEN ($70/100ML): Protect skin, restore elasticity, stimulate microcirculation and reduce redness and inflammation.

CONTRIBUTED

Time Out May Lindstrom creates small-batch, all-natural skincare products.

such an elegant bounty of delicious botanicals, clays, salts and spices that it is hard for me to fathom how we have strayed so far from that to the current trend of hocus-pocus performed in laboratories, mass-produced plastic bottles filled with damaging synthetic chemicals and cheap fillers.”

Some clients come to Lindstrom with overstressed skin that is highly sensitized and exhausted. “I tell them their skin needs a vacation.”

She takes them off all products, including her own, and designs a transitional routine using only water, maybe a bit of honey and a few oils. This lets skin rest and renew. Only then does she begin talking about her line. That high-end line is alluring for its purity. For example, Pendulum Potion is a cleansing oil, removing makeup and nourishing the skin, and Clean Dirt, with clays, spices, salts and Vitamin C, refines the skin’s appearance. The serums, balms, masques and mists (try the yummy jasmine mist) address specific concerns, such as dehydration or dullness and are handcrafted with nutrient-rich ingredients that are organic, bio-dynamic, wild-crafted, cruelty-free and sustainable. Additionally, Lindstrom doesn’t purchase base formulas or use fillers.

Instead, in a private studio, she bottles her products in micro-batches and packages them with the lavish care we all should show ourselves. maylindstrom.com and organachsfarmtoskin.com

Presents

2018

www.nearandfaraid.org ww.nearandfaraid.org Targeting Poverty, Changing Lives

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years of excellent service

Blowouts starting at $35 Keratin Hair Straightening starting at $250

Voted Best Salon and Best Color for 4 years in a row!

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MAY/JUNE 2018 WESTPORT

31

DO Was the pup separated from the litter too early without learning how to speak dog?

Has the pup been shuffled from shelter to shelter and now has issues as a result of the instability? The list can go on and on. And behaviors exhibited in the home, in social situations, or integration into a household can be all over the place. It’s admirable, politically correct and socially responsible to adopt a rescue dog. There are so many in need of a good home, who need love and who will give it back unconditionally. Dogs are loyal, love unconditionally, and some would even say are soulmates.”

ANY TIPS ON FINDING A RESCUE DOG?

To the

Rescue

Angela Pantalone on setting up an adopted dog for success

I

meet dogs every day from all walks of life—young little pups carefully chosen from breeders, adolescent dogs who need to burn off energy, older sugar faces who want to sport their stuff,” says Angela Pantalone. As the owner of WAG CENTRAL (wagcentralct.com)—a state-of-the-art doggy daycare that offers day programs for boarding, training, grooming and swimming— her specialty is dog socialization and her business is “the hub of canine social culture.” That means she knows rescue dogs.

Westport magazine asked for her advice on adopting pups and introducing them to their new family.

WHAT SHOULD ADOPTERS KNOW ABOUT RESCUES:

“Rescue pups are always an interesting case. Young or old,

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there are gaps in the dog’s history that we don't know about. Did the pup come from a mom who was overbred?

“Get the dog from a respected and reputable rescue.

There are so many, and in my experience are run by dedicated, loving people whose first priority is the health, welfare and safety of the dog at present and into the future. There are stringent applications and meetings, sometimes home checks, and if there are other pets in the household, meet and greets are a must.”

WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP A RESCUE ADAPT TO A NEW HOME?

“Let’s talk a bit about what setting up a dog to succeed means, since we hear this expression a lot. When you welcome a new pup into your home, you expect it to live by certain standards. Perhaps you don't want the dog on the couch, or upstairs, or on your counter top! No one wants an Oriental rug to be a dog waste station. More seriously, you may not want an anxious dog that chews up your shoes, chair legs or Lillian August couch. And most seriously, you do not want a dog who is aggressive to other dogs, and especially humans. The whys of this are all obscure; we are dealing with a rescue.”

WELCOME HOME 5 WAYS TO SET UP A NEW DOG FOR SUCCESS

1BLOCK THE NO-GO ZONES

“Gates, blockades, closed doors and crates all help to contain pups in the spaces they are meant to be in.”

2 DOG-PROOF

“Dog-proofing your house isn’t much different from babyproofing. Pick up your shoes, bags, snacks and plates and keep them a good distance away from where the pup can get to them.”

3 OFFER CHEWS

“Always have a lot of things that are OK for them to chew on hand. Antlers are a bit pricey, but they last forever and keep pups busy for a long time. I’m also a fan of No-Hide rawhides, which comes in flavors. If your wagger is a destroyer, tough toys are best. Ingesting small bits of plastic or fluff can cause choking or blockages.”

4 DETER BAD CHEWING

“Bitter apple spray tastes yucky and can help deter pups from chewing on table legs, wood or anything else that they shouldn’t.”

5 GET A TRAINER

“A reputable trainer can help with teeth showing, aggression, lunging and barking. Word of mouth is the best bet to finding a trainer because of their different philosophies on how to train your dog. The word “No!” works in all philosophies, so use it. Tell the trainer that you have a rescue, and listen to what he or she has to say. If e-collars and pinch collars are not your cup of tea, move on.”

IF IT DOESN’T WORK OUT…

“You are not a failure. Every rescue I’ve ever worked with will take their dogs back. You need to do what’s best for you, your family and, of course, the dog.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LISA GARCIA

Angela Pantalone, founder of Wag Central dog care

EAT

status report

TAVERN AT GRAYBARNS • BRUNCHES • FRENCH WINE Signature Grayhound cocktail

Roast chicken with new potatoes

New Classic The Tavern at GrayBarns in a newly renovated inn serves comfort food with a twist. by carol leonet ti dannhauser photographs by noah fecks

A

few weeks before we hoped to have dinner on a Friday at the wildly popular Tavern at GrayBarns in Silvermine, we logged onto the reservation portal. Just two choices: 5:15 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. What was all the fuss about?

On a cold and dark afternoon, we settled in at a cozy table for two by the roaring fireplace. It hardly seemed possible this was once the Silvermine Tavern, which closed in 2009.

New owners Andy and Marsha Glazer have transformed not only the tavern, but also the adjacent inn and surrounding property. The color scheme and design, a warm and welcoming cream and wood, with whitewashed floors and handmade lighting fixtures along with original beams 34

WESTPORTMAG.COM

and accents, is beautiful, curated, tasteful and comfortable.

A small shaft of bread appeared, as well as grass-green crystals atop a dollop of butter. Our server Kristen told us that Steve the bartender moonlights as a forager. Later, Executive Chef Ben Freemole said he’d brought home about twenty-five pounds of ramps from Steve, pickled the whites, and put the greens in his dehydrator for three days, knowing he could “do something interesting” with the ramp powder.

Chef Freemole said the Glazers wanted the food to match the environment. “They were looking for a modern take on a tavern, an unstuffy place where you can let your hair down. They wanted it to be seasonally and locally inspired.

372 Greenwich Avenue, Greenwich 1104 Chapel Street, New Haven 36 Railroad Place, Westport 64 LaSalle Road, West Hartford www.harvestwinebar.com

2 Forest Street, New Canaan www.cavawinebar.com

1077 Post Road, Darien www.scenawinebar.com

55 Miller Street, Fairfield www.55winebar.com

403 Greenwich Avenue, Greenwich www.sundownsaloon.com

EAT Hamichi Crudo with mint, cucumber and aji chili

Roasted oysters with nduja and crispy shallots

Burger with triple cream purple mustard and red wine onions

QUICK BITES 1. Executive Chef Ben Freemole’s resume includes time at Melisse in Santa Monica, the Fat Duck in England, and the now-shuttered wd~50 in Manhattan, famous for using molecular gastronomy to transform fresh, farmers’market ingredients.

2. The menu is seasonally and locally inspired.

The selections change every few weeks.

3. New owners Andy and Marsha Glazer have transformed The Tavern, which used to be the Silvermine Tavern, the inn and the surrounding property.

TAVERN AT GRAYBARNS 192 Perry Ave, Norwalk 203-580-1900 tavernatgraybarns.com

DINNER

Tues.–Sat.: 5 p.m.–10 p.m.

Sun.: 5 p.m.–9 p.m.

BRUNCH

Sun.: 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m.

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That leaves us a lot of room for interpretation.”

With one taste of the ramp salt and butter— perfectly crunchy-creamy, with a faint garlic essence—we understood.

We ordered roasted oysters, which came sizzling on hot rocks. Roasted uni butter, made from sea urchin, formed a golden crust on top. Its rich and caramelized lusciousness overpowered the oysters, which sadly got lost in the mix.

We’d asked to split the pear, fennel and crab soup, and the kitchen sent out two bowls without comment or added cost. The layers revealed themselves with each spoonful: a little sweet crunch from the Seckel pears playing perfectly off of shaved green onion; celery root and butter for depth; a generous scoop of fresh, sweet and bright Jonah crab. When I finally opened my eyes and looked at my companion, we spoke without words: We wanted another bowl apiece.

Our next small plate arrived. Care had been taken to cut delicata squash and green apples in wafer thin half-moons, and pomegranate seeds, pistachios and a few perfectly positioned green lavage leaves created a stunning canvas. The squash had been pickled, bruleed and roasted, but we couldn’t single out one preparation from the next without trying too hard, due to the pool of straciatella at the dish’s base. Fun and fussy were competing on the plate, ending in a draw.

The menu changes every few weeks, which keeps things interesting but limited. We ordered a cheeseburger ($20), fettucine with crab ($29) and smoked cauliflower ($22).

The homemade fettucine felt a tad too al dente.

The dense pasta overwhelmed the delicious and delicate lemony buttery sauce. The smoked cauliflower was cut like a steak and beautiful to behold in its Sicilian-inspired sauce. But my companion reached for the salt when it came to the cauliflower itself, and I wished for something absorbent to swirl in that delicious sauce of basil and mint leaves, curls of red pepper, pickled onions, pine nuts, golden raisins and more.

Our burger, served with a pickled green tomato, orange American cheese and an aiolibased béarnaise, was perfectly medium rare. We took a juicy bite into the toasted bun. Pickled, cheesy, salty, creamy layers introduced the main meaty event. Why was this burger so perfect? An unctuousness lingered in the best way with each swallow. Later, Freemole told us he’d asked the butcher to grind bone marrow into the mix of chuck, brisket and short rib.

By now, more than two hours had passed, and the joint was jumping. We had to strain to hear Kristen when she asked if we wanted dessert. We thought about it. In the end we decided to move along. We knew how hard it was to get a table. »

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WESTPORT

1445 EAST PUTNAM AVENUE, 2ND FLOOR OLD GREENWICH, CT 06870 203-983-5748

162 KINGS HIGHWAY NORTH WESTPORT, CT 06880 203-349-8430

MAY/JUNE 2018 WESTPORT

37

EAT

Brunch!

by diane sembrot

Trying to be Mom’s favorite? Bring her to a place that’s as cozy as home and offers creative dishes that appeal to today’s tastes.

SHE READ YOU STORIES

With a storybook-worthy location (a re-imagined school), Schoolhouse at Cannondale packs a powerhouse kitchen serving fine cuisine. Mom’s favorite brunch gets extra-credit treatment; consider frittata with duck confit, cipollini onions and spinach, served with locally made Wave Hill toast. 34 Cannon Rd., Wilton; schoolhouseatcannondale.com

FATHER’S DAY SUNDAY, JUNE 17 Celebrate his day with a few of his favorite things: family time, dispensing fatherly advice, and a meal to remember years from now

HE PUTS FAMILY FIRST

One of three different restaurants with multiple locations run by the Siguenza family, Harvest has something for everyone. Starters include steamed mussels, lobster bisque and shaved Brussels sprout salad, follow with a filling main, such as a classic eggs Benedict, challah French toast or veal ravioli.

36 Railroad Pl., harvestwinebar .com/westport/westport-brunch

SHE PLANTED SEEDS OF WISDOM

HE LOVES LOCAL HISTORY LORE

Her two favorite things (aside from you): shopping and dining.

Enter through the store, which sets the stage for the cool and nurturing mom. Then head to Terrain Garden Café for a brunch menu that includes contemporary fare, from a starter of grilled avocado, kohlrabi, red onion and aioli to an artisanal cheese board with house-made pickles, preserves and crostini. Vegetarians can dig into the quinoa and cauliflower in a cranberry-turmeric dressing, while others choose a New York strip with eggs, potato hash and salad. 561 Post Rd. E., Westport; shopterrain.com/ westport-restaurant

SHE ROCKS THE KITCHEN

Is your mom a pro in the kitchen?

Make a reservation at The Cottage.

Culinary celeb Chef Brian Lewis will impress even the pickiest unofficial critic with creative delights like buttermilk pancakes with wild huckleberries and toasted almonds or soft duck egg with chorizo, wild ramps and white beans. 256 Post Rd. E., Westport; thecottagewestport.com

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If your cool dad doesn’t live in the past but certainly appreciates it, he’ll enjoy Spotted Horse Tavern.

This historic home turned restaurant serves plenty of updated classics, such as Apple Pie French Toast (brioche topped with cinnamon apples, caramel, Chantilly cream, vanilla streusel) or frittata with roasted tomatoes, asparagus, mushrooms, Gouda and pesto sauce. 26 Church Ln.; spottedhorsect.com

HE REMINISCES A LOT

Does Dad dig all things New England?

Consider the cozy Tavern on Main.

He won’t be rushed, so he can relax and take his time sharing old family stories in between bites of options such as the Tavern Omelette with spinach, tomato and feta cheese or the Breakfast Burger with a fried egg, Grafton cheddar and bacon-onion marmalade. tavernonmain.com

IMAGES CONTRIBUTED; THE COTTAGE BY HANS NELEMAN

SUNDAY, MAY 13 MOTHER’S DAY

French Classics

White wine from the Loire Valley—the refreshing choice for spring and summer

PHOTOGRAPHS: CORKS BY ©EGOR MURIKOV ISTOCK.ADOBE.COM; VINEYARD BY © PEDRO SALAVERRIA ISTOCK.ADOBE.COM; DRINKS BY ©GTRANQUILLITY ISTOCK.ADOBE.COM; OYSTERS BY © YVDAVID ISTOCK.ADOBE.COM; SHRIMP BY ©NIPAPORN ISTOCK.ADOBE.COM; CHEESE BY © KARELNOPPE PHOTOGRAPHY

I

n the heart of France, the valley that surrounds the River Loire and its tributaries is home to some 400 vineyards that produce a good deal of the fresh, light white wine (plus rosés and red wines, too) that we love to enjoy in warmer climates. Known as the “Garden of France,” the Loire Valley is a cool region with long, warm autumns, where the rivers create microclimates among slopes of chalk and flint, and river banks of clay. As a result, it is one of France’s great wine-making areas, producing a variety of styles that match well with seasonal menus. Whether you’re dining out or hosting dinner al fresco, wine experts share some intel for your next pairing pleasure. —Elizabeth Keyser

LOCAL EXPERTS’ FAVORITES Tony Capasso

General Manager Gabriele’s Italian Steakhouse Greenwich

“The COMTE LAFOND SANCERRE is truly a special-occasion white, with layers of flavor and complexity associated with better white burgundies.”

“SAUVIGNON BLANC pairs with full-bodied fish in citrus and white wine sauces, although some of the better ones like MAISON IDIART go well with Livornese preparations, which use capers, olives and cherry tomatoes to accent the sauce.”

David Nelson Owner Ten Twenty Bistro Darien

“Regarding SANCERRE and POUILLY-FUMÉ, the mineral notes in both tame the fruit of the Sauvignon. Either are perfect with any of our simple fish preparations, Spinney Creek Maine steamers or steamed lobster.”

“MUSCADET is a perfect oyster wine. Many say better than champagne. It’s the minerality in both that complements our large selection of raw oysters.”

The Fantastic Four

EAT PARTY PLANNER White Wine Pairings A few suggestions for guaranteed soirée success Cheers!

Start your gathering by toasting with a glass of sparkling Crément de Loire.

Raw Bar Sip a minerally Muscadet while slurping oysters on the half shell.

The inside story on grapes from the “Garden of France”

1

Melon de Bourgogne

It’s from the Muscadet region, where the Loire meets the Atlantic Ocean.

It boasts brisk, fresh, mineral flavors.

2

Chenin Blanc

There are many expressions of this grape grown in the

central regions of Tourraine in Vouvray, Anjou and Saumur; it is sparkling, sweet or bone dry.

3

Cabernet Franc

4

Sauvignon Blanc

The red of the region.

For those of you who prefer reds and rosés, they are produced in Anjou and Chinon, which pair well with seafood stews.

The “ambassadors” of this familiar grape, with its crisp, grassy, and citrus flavors, are Sancerre, which balances fruit, body, minerals and acidity, and Pouilly-Fumé, which is richer and more full-bodied. W

First Course Share a conversation over a juicy Sancerre and shrimp avocado salad.

Best For Last Savor a sweet Chenin Blanc with a cheese plate for a refined dessert.

Elizabeth Keyser has written about beer, wine and spirits for newspapers, magazines and blogs. She has sat on the Yankee Brew News tasting panel and judged craft and European brew contests.

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to benefit the Norma Pfriem Breast Center Featuring

Jane Seymour with musical guest Brendan Fletcher from "The Voice"

June 6, 2018 Vip Celebrity Champagne Reception: 11:00 am - 12:00 pm Luncheon: 12:00 pm - 2:00 pm Fairfield County Hunt Club, Westport, CT Multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Award recipient, acclaimed artist, author and philanthropist.

Lead Corporate Sponsor

Media Sponsor

To Purchase Sponsorships or Seats: HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/ROHLUNCHEON2018

PEOPLE

by colleen crowley

& Places

NEAR & FAR AID • PHOTOGRAPHS BY MOFFLY MEDIA’S BIG PICTURE/MARILYN ROOS

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A Grand Time

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espite bad weather, patrons bedecked in 1920s-inspired fashion flocked to Near & Far Aid’s A Grand Affair Gala at Mitchells of Westport. The lively sounds of a Harlem jazz band set the tone and a live auction featuring packages for surfing in Costa Rica and reservations at Rao’s, among others, garnered record-high bids. Cindy and Rob Citrone offered a challenge match of $100,000, which patrons enthusiastically met and exceeded. Proceeds raised from the event make up a large percentage of Near & Far Aid’s total granting budget, which gave more than $1.3 million last year to agencies and programs in Fairfield County working to support individuals and families living in poverty.

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1 Laura Sweedler, Christina and Dominick Como, Alexandra Oracheff 2 Emily Gordon, Andrew Mitchell-Namdar, Gabriella Mays, Katia Mead, Jonathan Moffly 3 Pat O’Meara, Cindy Citrone 4 Kelly Scinto, Katerina Powers, Jenny Nelson, Lauren Healy, Kim Meier, Betsy Ewing, Sarah Hale, Kelsey Johnston 5 Courtney Petti, Sarah Menninger 6 Michelle Dowicz, Jennifer Efstathiou, Dawn Schaufler 7 Addie and Michelle Hogue

( for more party pics visit westportmag.com )

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1 Bob and Jack Mitchell flank champagne server 2 David and Danielle Perdue 3 Bill Loftus, Jim Pratt-Heaney, Kevin Burns 4 Dana Ian, Tina and Chris Kampitsis, Jim Ian 5 Karen Mitchell, Lizzy Mitchell, Georgie McComb, Liza Diffley 6 Tim and Molly Howe 7 Norma Brown, Mar Jennings, Sharon Skyers-Jenkins 8 Lolie Mathews, Heather Woodworth, Marlowe Mitchell, Betsy Ewing 9 Jim Pratt-Heaney, Miggs Burroughs 10 Katie and Dan Sullivan, Sarah and Mark Hale, Gabrielle and Robert Wile 11 Everyone joined in the costumed fun 12 Chris and Laura Cortesi 13 Jaclyn Picarillo, Nicole Tymniak, Georgie Whitehurst, Kelsey Johnston 14 Jess Parker, Jennifer Kent

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MOFFLY MEDIA’S BIG PICTURE/MARILYN ROOS

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SEASIDE SERENITY 15 DUCK POND ROAD | WESTPORT | $4.8M

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1 Joanna Gleason and Chris Sarandon 2 Paul Leibowitz and Gail Sagel 3 Lee and Eva Rawiszer with Deb Montner and Michael Smith 4 Phil and Wendy Shaffer 5 Calla and Jenna Stern

|| W E S T P O R T C I N E M A I N I T I AT I V E ||

Award Season PHOTOGRAPHS BY NOAH HENDLER

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t was an evening of glamour at the Westport Cinema Initiative’s “Night of the Oscars” party at the Birchwood Country Club. Guests were greeted with a red-carpet welcome and enjoyed cocktails while Grammy-winner and Broadway regular Paul Bogaev provided musical entertainment. Dinner followed as attendees watched the Academy Awards. During commercial breaks, show biz insiders Susan Granger and Scott Bryce acted as emcees, providing inside film gossip and trivia. Guests completed their Oscar ballots, with the winners receiving prizes from Simon Pearce, Mitchells and others.

MICHELLE

COMPANY

your home.

your realtor.

MICHELLEANDCOMPANY.COM | WILLIAM RAVEIS REAL ESTATE | 203.454.HOME (4663)

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1 Juanita James with Bank of America representatives 2 Mendi Blue-Paca, Marcus Paca, Terry O’Connor 3 David Stone, Susan Ericchetti, Beth Ulman 4 Congressman Jim Himes with musicians from Intempo 5 Marc Donald, Kristy Jelenik, Meg and Michael Hall, Ian Taylor 6 Crisbel Vergos, Lauren Cummings 7 Ellen Tracy, Laura Magnotta, Kaite Termaglio

| | F A I R F I E L D C O U N T Y ’ S C O M M U N I T Y F O U N D AT I O N | |

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Giving Big

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Southport | Quogue | apdarchitects.com

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airfield County residents came together online and in-person to give where they live through Fairfield County’s Community Foundation’s Giving Day. The twenty-fourhour fundraiser, the region’s largest philanthropic event, raised over $1.4 million in support of 415 local nonprofit organizations. More than 13,000 generous individuals contributed to the campaign, and Bank of America served as the champion sponsor of the event. Since Giving Day’s inception, more than $5.9 million has been raised.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MOFFLY MEDIA’S BIG PICTURE/MARILYN ROOS

Fresh, inventive, and timeless architecture.

Give peas a chance!

Connecticut 203.353.8000

marciaselden.com

New York 212.921.4100

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| | G R E E N S FA R M S A C A D E M Y | | 5 1 Lou Gigante, Cathy and Paul Shaffer, Doreen Gigante, Allison Stockel 2 Norma Jean Wright 3 Linda Clifford 4 Ashley Paltauf Lee, Julie Paltauf 5 Annette Robertson, Sue Fernandez 6 Martha Wash

| | R I D G E F I E L D P L AY H O U S E | |

Disco Queens

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ove was in the air at the Ridgefield Playhouse’s Valentine’s Day Disco Ball. Guests enjoyed drinks, desserts, a live auction and a raffle to win deluxe prizes like a diamond necklace, a spa package at Adam Broderick Salon & Spa, dinner at Sarah’s Wine Bar and more. The main act of the night was a performance by the “First Ladies of Disco;” Linda Clifford, The Weather Girl’s Martha Wash and Norma Jean Wright of Chic.

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On the Horizon

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he Patterson Club was packed with more than 200 guests for Greens Farms Academy’s (GFA) Horizons Fall Gala. The soldout event featured The Voice semifinalist Brendan Fletcher, who performed with his band, as well as with a group of Horizons students. The Horizons program helps underserved Bridgeport students pre-K through high school develop strong habits and academic skills to succeed in school and beyond. Horizons alumna Michelle Garcia, now a Quinnipiac University graduate, gave a touching speech, and the Inspiring Minds Award was given Janet Hartwell, the retiring GFA Head of School. A lively auction and jewelry raffle capped off the evening. W

RIDGEFIELD PLAYHOUSE BY J.C. MARTIN PHOTO; GREEN FARMS ACADEMY, CONTRIBUTED

1 Michelle Garcia 2 Roberta Conroy, Lynne Taikowski, Brendan Fletcher, Stephani Whittaker 3 Brendan Fletcher and Horizons Singers 4 Roger and Bevo Tarika 5 Louise Baldwin, John and Heather Kreitler, Sofia Atehortua, Juliery Montes, Roberta Conroy

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CELEBRATE YOUR WEDDING

We welcome wedding announcements together with candid photographs.

Weddings should have a current Westport, Weston or Wilton family connection and must be submitted within three months of the wedding day.

Regretfully, we are unable to run every wedding submitted.

Send Information to: Colleen.Crowley@moffly.com Westport Magazine | 205 Main Street Westport, CT 06880

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Join Us!

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16 • 8:45 a.m.— 2:30 p.m.

GREENWICH COUNTRY CLUB • 19 Doubling Road

FULL DAY PROGRAM INCLUDES:

FOR TICKETS GO TO WOMENINBUSINESSFC.COM

EMILIE RUBINFELD

KEYNOTE SPEAKER President, Carolina Herrera

WELCOME BREAKFAST 8:45-9:30 a.m.

INTERACTIVE SPONSOR SESSIONS 9:30-10:30 a.m.

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First County Bank’s Sara Tucker & Sandra Greer with Special Guest from Jade Marketing Solutions, Suzanne Stillwell Present “Personal Branding & Authentic Messaging”

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Nichols MD of Greenwich’s Dr. Kim Nichols Presents “Looking Your Best at Any Age”

11:00 a.m.- 12:00 p.m.

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Pullman & Comley Attorneys: Nancy A. D. Hancock, Karen Jeffers and Megan Carannante Present “Legal Bootcamp for Entrepreneurs”

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Darby Fox, Child and Adult Family Therapist, Presents “Shifting the Parenting Perspective: How to Bridge the Gap with Your Adolescent and Enjoy Raising Your Teenager”

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Atria Senior Living’s Melanie Bedell Presents: “Better This Year: Atria’s Whole Person Approach to Greater Well-Being”

NETWORK WITH OUR EDITORS, EVENT SPEAKERS AND SPONSORS 12:45-2:30 p.m.

–

Luncheon, Keynote & Women of Influence Awards Presentation Hosted by Rebecca Surran

–

KEYNOTE PRESENTATION by Emilie Rubinfeld, President, Carolina Herrera

ENTER TO WIN! THE ASHA ESSENTIALS PACKAGE: Jewelry and accessories that can take you from the beach to the boardroom VALUE: $2,500

Provided by ASHA by Ashley McCormick

Melani Lust Photography

WOMEN OF INFLUENCE HONOREES

ALISA BAHL, PhD CORPORATE LEADER Senior VP of Clinical Solutions, OptumHealth

FLAVIA CATTAN-NASLAUSKY and CAMILLA GAZAL ENTREPRENEURS OF THE YEAR Co-owners of Zaniac Greenwich and Co-CEOs of Summit 7 Holdings, LLC

TRACY CHADWELL WOMEN’S BUSINESS ADVOCATE Founding Partner, 1843 Capital

PRESENTING SPONSORS:

SIGNATURE SPONSORS:

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WINE SPONSOR:

EXCLUSIVE WATER SPONSOR:

FLORAL SPONSOR:

LIMITED SPONSORSHIPS STILL AVAILABLE,

Contact Caroline Steber 203.571.1631

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A portion of the ticket proceeds benefitting:

caroline.steber@moffly.com

BREAST CANCER ALLIANCE

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BUSINESSWOMEN IN FAIRFIELD COUNTY >

MOFFLY 8 T H A NMEDIA’S NUAL

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION WOMEN, WEALTH AND WISDOM

Emilie Rubinfeld Keynote Speaker PRESIDENT, CAROLINA HERRERA 501 Seventh Avenue, 17th Floor New York, NY carolinaherrera.com

Emilie Rubinfeld has been a leader in luxury fashion for over a decade. Throughout her career, she has built brand marketing and communications strategy for iconic U.S. and European-based fashion houses.

Today, Emilie Rubinfeld is the global president of Carolina Herrera—the New York-based fashion brand internationally recognized for bold elegance and sophistication. Founded by Carolina Herrera in 1981, the design house and namesake creates women’s luxury ready-to-wear and bridal collections distributed globally at over 200 points of sale. As president, Emilie is leading the organization to be at the forefront of women’s luxury fashion while building a thriving and enduring global brand for the future. Prior to the role of president, Emilie held the position of chief marketing officer at the

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company. During her nearly two-decade career in fashion, Emilie has had senior marketing and communications roles at the U.S.-subsidiary of Italian fashion brand Giorgio Armani, as well as the Swiss-based women’s luxury brand, Akris.

Emilie has recently joined the Fashion and Luxury Council of NYU/Stern School of Business. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan with a liberal arts degree, majoring in art history and political science. She currently resides with her family in New Canaan, Connecticut.

MOFFLY 8 T H A NMEDIA’S NUAL

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION WOMEN, WEALTH AND WISDOM

Alisa Bahl, PhD Women of Influence Honoree Corporate Leader OPTUMHEALTH Senior Vice President alisa.bahl@optum.com

Dr. Alisa Bahl is a senior vice president at OptumHealth, a division of UnitedHealth Group.

She has been an executive leader at one of the largest and most innovative health care organizations for the past twenty-six years, and led a private group practice prior to joining Optum. She serves as executive sponsor to Fortune 100 clients who are committed to enhancing the emotional well-being of their workforce. She leads a team that manages the most senior national relationships across major consulting firms, and drives both growth and innovation in the company’s clinical business.

Most recently, she played a leadership role in combatting the opioid crisis in our country by championing initiatives aimed at stemming the growth of this devastating epidemic; aditionally she serves on the Advisory Board for the

UnitedHealth Group Opioid Task Force. Echoing Optum’s stance that no single entity can remedy the problem alone, she holds partnership and collaboration among her key business practices. Optum has joined with care providers, pharmacists, governments, health plans, clients, individual consumers and community organizations that fight substance misuse to confront the enormous social, economic and human costs of this national health care crisis.

Bahl also serves on the scientific board of Shatterproof, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to ending the devastation addiction causes families, and has been involved since its inception. Every day, Shatterproof advances its mission to reduce the stigma of addiction and spread knowledge about evidence-based care that will save countless lives. While in her

hometown of Miami Beach, she served for many years as a vice president on the board of trustees of Temple Beth Sholom, where the congregation of 2,000 families has a strong culture of social justice.

She is also the mother of three wonderful boys and active in their school and sports’ activities. Bahl is married to Tracy Bahl, an executive at CVS Health and resides with her family in Greenwich. She is a graduate of the University of Florida and received her PhD from the University of Miami.

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MOFFLY 8 T H A NMEDIA’S NUAL

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION WOMEN, WEALTH AND WISDOM

Flavia Naslausky & Camilla Gazal Women of Influence Honorees Entrepreneurs of the Year

CRISTINA PYE PHOTOGRAPHY

Zaniac, a Zane Prep company, delivers a retail math and science experience that engages, excites and motivates K-8 kids, while making parents feel proud about providing their children with real academic advantage. Zaniac is the go-to afterschool activity for parents who want their children to develop a passion for exploring and innovating.

It is like school at its best—an active, inspiring place that is filled with friends and friends-to-be, where real math and technology learning is fun.

The company’s mission is to provide K-8 students with a quality supplemental education program that addresses STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math).

FLAVIA NASLAUSKY In her professional life, Flavia has always been involved in financial markets and focused on

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emerging markets. Flavia worked as director of Latin American currency strategy at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Connecticut, covering economic and financial market developments.

She traveled regularly to the region to market strategy product in Europe and Asia. Prior to her work at RBS, in 1999 Flavia worked at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York in the emerging markets fixed income research group.

Flavia holds bachelor degrees in economics and political science from NYU. Flavia is currently Co-CEO of Summit 7 Holdings, which opened its first Zaniac franchise in Greenwich in 2013 and the second one in Westport in 2015. In 2017, she received the U.S. Small Business Award for Entrepreneurial Success. Flavia resides with her husband and two children in Riverside, Connecticut.

ZANIAC 644 West Putnam Avenue, Suite 201 Greenwich, CT 203.918.9264 zaniaclearning.com

CAMILLA GAZAL Camilla is a brand management professional with strong experience in finance, communications and analysis. She is highly skilled at interpersonal relations, is multilingual and has expertise with international clientele. Camilla has a master’s degree in hospitality industry studies, with a concentration in brand management from NYU. Camilla received her BA from FAAP, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and worked as a trader for the former bank Unibanco. After moving to New York in 2000, she worked for BBVA Securities and Santander Securities as a senior vice president in fixed income sales. Camilla is the Co-CEO of Summit 7 Holdings. In 2017, she received the U.S. Small Business Award for Entrepreneurial Success.

Camilla lives with her husband and three children in Riverside, Connecticut.

MOFFLY 8 T H A NMEDIA’S NUAL

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION WOMEN, WEALTH AND WISDOM

Tracy Killoren Chadwell Women of Influence Honoree Women’s Business Advocate 1843 CAPITAL 52 Mason Street Greenwich, CT 917.902.6406 tracy@1843capital.com 1843capital.com @tchadwell

Tracy is the Founding Partner of 1843 Capital, an early stage venture capital firm, located in Greenwich. 1843 invests in technology and consumer product companies that have at least one female founder. Companies with a female founder in 2017 received around 2.19 percent of total venture capital dollars, despite research showing that they outperform. This is due in part to the fact that only 7 percent of venture capital fund partners are women. 1843 Capital aims to realize above market returns by investing in a “missed” space, and help solve the funding gap for women at the same time. By funding and supporting the next generation of women CEOs, Tracy is creating a new class of role models and mentors for women. With 11.3 million femaleowned businesses in the United States, generating $1.6 trillion in revenue, there is a lot of opportunity.

Beautycounter, a company launched in Greenwich, is one of Tracy’s most successful investments. In addition to having an incredible female CEO, the company promotes the removal of toxins from personal care products and has created jobs for the 20,000+ consultants it employs. A common misperception is that women don’t build large businesses or highly technical companies. Tracy’s portfolio proves otherwise. In total, the companies she has invested in have created a combined enterprise value of over $1billion.

Tracy is also an attorney, well-versed in corporate structures, and was formerly a Partner of a growth capital venture capital fund, Baker Capital, which had more than $1 billion under management. Tracy also has a broad network within the female-founder community. Recently,

she testified before the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship on the hurdles women face getting funding. She is a frequent speaker and judge of start-up competitions. Most recently she spoke at the MIT VC Conference and at the UBS Project Entreprenuer program, and was a judge for the Cornell (Johnson) Business School Women in Tech Competition. She is featured in a chapter of the book The Internet of Women, a UC TED talk for NYIT TEDx, and was in the documentary Dream, Girl about female entrepreneurs. She is a board member of Marstone and of Sachs Insights and was the former treasurer of The Belle Haven Land Company. Passionate about service, she proudly serves on the advisory board of the MIT Enterprise Forum, the New York Institute of Technology and as an executive advisor for the Echoing Green Foundation.

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MOFFLY 8 T H A NMEDIA’S NUAL

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION WOMEN, WEALTH AND WISDOM

Rebecca Surran Host NEWS ANCHOR/COHOST

Rebecca Surran

Rebecca began her career as a founding member of Cablevision, now Altice USA’s regional News 12 network, where she started as a reporter. She went on to cohost News 12 Connecticut’s daily live talk show, The Exchange, interviewing key figures in news, entertainment, lifestyle, technology and sports. During her fifteen years in this role, she was nominated for three Boston/New England Emmy Awards in the “Best Talk Show Host” category.

Rebecca also served as senior news anchor, developing extensive experience in live breaking news coverage including the 9/11 terror attacks, Hurricane Sandy, and the Sandy Hook School shooting. She also worked as a feature reporter.

During her time as anchor/reporter, Rebecca won a New York Emmy Award for “Best Daytime Newscast” and was nominated for five others, including three for her feature reporting work.

Rebecca’s career has also included work as a contributing editor for Walt Disney’s

FamilyFun magazine, serving as an on-air brand representative on WNBC’s Today in New York, The Today Show and Good Morning America, among numerous other local and national programs.

After leaving News 12 Connecticut, Rebecca went on to work for the boutique public relations firm, The Dilenschneider Group in Manhattan, assisting clients in media relations, strategic communications and reputation management.

She has also spent years in community outreach work supporting local fundraising events in various role, including Mistress of Ceremony and Panel Moderator. Much of that work is with organizations focused on women’s business development, the Alzheimer’s Association and groups working to support the hungry, homeless and underprivileged.

Rebecca graduated from The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and spent a semester of study at Bath University, Bath, UK.

Yonni Wattenmaker Event Beneficiary BREAST CANCER ALLIANCE 48 Maple Avenue Greenwich, CT 203.861.0014 breastcanceralliance.org Yonni graduated from The George Washington University in 1993, and from HUC-JIR in New York City with an MA in 1996. Upon graduation, Yonni spent ten years as director of education at Temple Shaaray Tefila in Bedford Corners, New York; two years as development director for Tikva Children’s Home, a charity supporting homeless and abandoned children in the former Soviet Union; and four years as director of lifelong learning at Central Synagogue in Manhattan.

Yonni has been the executive director of Breast Cancer Alliance since June 2011, a once regional but now national breast cancer charity headquartered in Greenwich. The mission of Breast Cancer Alliance is to improve survival rates and quality of life for those impacted by

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breastcanceralliance

@BCAllianceCT

breast cancer through better prevention, early detection, treatment and cure. To promote these goals, BCA invests in innovative research, breast surgery fellowships, regional education, dignified support and screening for the underserved.

Yonni is also an active volunteer, currently

breastcanceralliance sitting on the Community Advisory Board of Greenwich Hospital and the National Council for Arts and Sciences at The George Washington University, and is a consultant for an addiction recovery center based in Los Angeles. Yonni resides in Bedford Corners with her son, Max.

MOFFLY 8 T H A NMEDIA’S NUAL

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION WOMEN, WEALTH AND WISDOM

Darby Fox Presenting Sponsor 203.313.1662 Darby@darbyfox.com darbyfox.com @askdarbyfox

Darby Fox is a child and adolescent family therapist. With over twenty years of experience, she has deep empathy for children and families from diverse cultural and economic backgrounds and is an expert on parenting, child psychology and family topics. She appears regularly on-air and in print media, covering parenting questions and discipline techniques to current trends in child development. She has also collaborated with Meath Media Group to develop a television series called Fractured Family with Darby Fox. Darby is committed to the community and has provided pro bono individual and group therapy to Bright Horizons Foundation for Children students and parents throughout Fairfield County for the past twelve years. Bright Horizons Foundation for Children is a national organization that focuses on at-risk

children and families. She has served on the board of directors at both Horizons and The Open Door Shelter (a homeless shelter in Norwalk, Connecticut).

In addition to private practice, Darby works directly with parents in small groups or lectures to help them focus on specific age related concerns. She feels there are not enough resources available for parents needing help.

Her years of work with adolescents allow her to equip parents with insight and perspective needed to guide their parenting. She works with children of all ages, yet is especially focused on helping adolescents.

As the mother of four, Darby has wellearned insight into the teenage mind and offers a unique approach to adolescence.

She encourages parents to meet them where

they are, work to facilitate their growth and development instead of fight for control and build on their strengths to position them for happiness, success and fulfillment in life. When parents of teenagers have the opportunity to learn from Darby, they feel relieved that they are not alone and excited to shift their relationship with their teen.

Darby received a BA from Middlebury College, graduating cum laude in sociology and biochemistry. She went on to graduate from Columbia University summa cum laude, earning her MA in social work. Since Columbia, she has pursued extensive specialized training at Yale Child Study Center, NYU Silver School of Social Work, Mel Levine’s All Kind’s Of Minds Institute, Harvard Medical School and The Ackerman Institute for the Family.

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MOFFLY 8 T H A NMEDIA’S NUAL

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION WOMEN, WEALTH AND WISDOM

PHOTOGRAPH BY KASEY HILLEARY

Pictured, from left to right: Livia DeFilippis Barndollar, Jessica Grossarth Kennedy, Jill Bicks, Karen Wackerman, Amy Murray, Marcy Stovall, Rachel Ginsburg, Judge Anne Dranginis (Ret.), Karen Jeffers, Elizabeth Austin, Judge Lynda Munro (Ret.), Martha Royston, Kelly Scott, Margaret Bartiromo and Nancy Hancock.

Pullman & Comley, LLC Presenting Sponsor 2 Stamford Plaza, 281 Tresser Blvd.

Stamford, CT 850 Main Street Bridgeport, CT 33 Riverside Avenue Westport, CT

203.330.2000 info@pullcom.com pullcom.com

The attorneys pictured above are members of the Women’s Leadership Initiative practicing in the Fairfield County offices of Pullman & Comley, a full-service law firm with locations throughout Connecticut and in White Plains, New York. We are close and trusted partners to our clients, and are committed to providing the highest levels of service and value through innovative thinking, hard work and by delivering real results.

Since 1919, Pullman has earned a reputation as one of Connecticut’s preeminent providers of legal services, continuing to grow and adapt to meet our clients’ evolving needs. We serve emerging businesses and public and private companies of all sizes, as well as not-for-profit organizations, educational institutions and

government entities. Our family law and trusts and estates attorneys provide a full range of services to individuals and families, offering trusted, personalized counsel at every stage of life.

We have played a vital role in shaping our local communities and contributing to the legal profession. For the past twenty years, our Women’s Leadership Initiative has been committed to fostering an environment that supports the professional advancement of women, while also seeking to enrich the lives of women in our communities. We are committed to: • Advancing women’s careers in our communities through networking events, substantive roundtables, educational programs and informal coaching.

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PullmanandComley @PullmanComley

• Providing networking opportunities.

Our women’s networking events draw a dynamic range of female business and community leaders, while showcasing the important work of not-for-profits serving women and children.

• Supporting women’s and family-focused organizations in our communities as board members and sponsors.

• Addressing concerns such as heart health and breast cancer, managing financial well-being, and the importance of workplace diversity and inclusion.

At Pullman & Comley, “Pulling Together, Succeeding Together” is more than just a tagline. It’s a reflection of our culture of camaraderie and working together to serve our clients and the community.

MOFFLY 8 T H A NMEDIA’S NUAL

SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION WOMEN, WEALTH AND WISDOM

SARA TUCKER

SANDRA GREER

Sara Tucker and Sandra Greer Presenting Sponsor FIRST COUNTY BANK 3001 Summer Street Stamford, CT

sgreer@firstcountybank.com; 203.462.4364 stucker@firstcountybank.com; 203.462.4362 firstcountybank.com

SARA TUCKER Sara Tucker is a senior vice president and director of business banking at First County Bank, and has been a woman in business for over twenty-five years. Passion, diligence, enthusiasm, adaptability and genuine interest in people have fueled her success. Sara’s career journey started in the financial services industry in the mid-1980s, where she discovered an affinity for providing financial support to businesses. Sara left the corporate world to raise her children, during which time she became fully engaged in the community, working closely with nonprofits and on several boards. Reentering corporate life brought many challenges, however she returned with an augmented perspective gained from the nonprofit world, and also from parenthood.

Sara believes that her rise to leadership positions

has been influenced by her philosophy that people drive an organization. “When you listen, coach and guide with a people-first approach, you can help teams manage an ever-changing environment and achieve results.” Also, working in a field that is male-dominated, Sara observes that “Women bring a perspective to the table that is different, often more collaborative, more purposeful and more intent on making a difference every day. This is a balance that is needed.”

SANDRA GREER Understanding the critical elements that build, nurture and sustain meaningful, trusted relationships is central to Sandra Greer’s personal and professional life. In her role as vice president of First County Advisors, the wealth management division of First County

FirstCountyBank @FirstCountyBank

Bank in Stamford, Connecticut, it is her commitment to a highly customized, holistic planning and investment approach that resonates with her clients.

Sandy has over thirty-five years of institutional investment and personal wealth management experience. Prior to joining First County Bank’s wealth management division in 2014, Sandy was a senior portfolio manager with BNY Mellon Wealth Management in New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut.

Sandy has held many board of director and volunteer positions in organizations of professional, personal and charitable interest.

Recognized by the Greenwich YWCA with the 2013 BRAVA Award, Sandy’s understanding of the numerous and conflicting demands faced by women is reflected in her own balancing act.

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VOLATILITY

Stick to It

Don’t panic—just build in thoughtful planning to survive inevitable market volatility

Y

ou’re a financial genius! You may have seemed like one, anyway, as your investments climbed, climbed, climbed to record highs at the beginning of the year. Early retirement? Vacation home? Sweet new boat? Oh, the possibilities of your newfound wealth. But then, MARK RITTER seemingly out of nowhere, came the free fall, followed by another and more still. The same stock market that had set about a hundred new highs since the 2016 election plunged the greatest one-day point drop in history, then rose and fell again.

How will a savvy investor survive a market with more ups and downs than the Coney Island Cyclone?

We turned to risk expert Mark Ritter for advice. For more than twenty-five years, he worked on Wall Street in investment banking, ultimately leading risk management at UBS. These days, Ritter, of Westport, serves as executive in residence at Sacred Heart University’s Jack Welch School of Business. His advice to Fairfield County investors during tumultuous times?

Do nothing. Corrections are normal even in bull markets, he says. Ignore them and stick to your plan.

If you don’t have a plan beyond wishing for higher highs, it’s time to draw one up. Spell out when, what and how much you will buy and sell, when you will reassess and rebalance your portfolio and, most important, how

ASK YOURSELF… Do you have a rainy-day account holding liquid assets for six months to a year of expenses? How are you dealing with debt?

What are your children’s educational needs, if you have them? How are you saving for retirement?

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much money you will need by what date. Your time frame dictates your risk. “With respect to volatility, your plan really depends on where you are in the investing cycle. You’re willing to accept risk if it’s a longer period of time,” Ritter says. “If you’re planning for retirement in thirty-five years, it will take a different risk profile than if you’re saving for a house.”

For investors, the point of risk assessment is to be prepared in volatile times while maintaining a goal of maximizing wealth, he notes. “You don’t know what’s coming around the corner. People become overly enthusiastic about market prospects. It just takes one event and the stock market can tank by 50 percent.” Rather than hit the panic button, smart investors understand their risk and timeline, and then address specifics.

Ritter tells young investors to pay down credit card and student loan debt and use equities to maximize growth with what remains. Don’t worry about volatility. “The first thing I did when my children called when the market went down was to tell them to buy more. Nothing had fundamentally changed but fear. And that is the time to buy.”

If you’re a parent in your thirties, invest in a 529 plan for college, he says, but beware of targeting too much in the stock market. “A lot of people in the last ten to fifteen years made a little bit of a mistake in respect to that. In 2008 to 2009, they saw their college funds go from x to x minus 50 percent.”

If you hope to retire decades down the road, you can fill your 401(k) with equities. But as you get closer to when you’ll need your money, Ritter says, remind yourself that markets go up and markets go down. “Keep with the plan, rather than ‘chop and change.’ Temper your enthusiasm, the way banks run capital. It’s OK to leave something on the table W for the next person.”

by carol leonet ti dannhauser

NEEDCHANGES TO THE KNOW NOW

ON AGAIN/ OFF AGAIN IF YOU MANAGE YOUR INVESTMENTS ONLINE…

Outline what to do if you can’t access your trading platform.

Many online and robo investing platforms crashed during 2018’s crazy gyrations. Robo investing “is fine for your algorithmic investing, for a certain percentage of your funds,” Ritter says, but understand when those algorithms trigger trades. Robo investing can be a cost-effective way to acquire funds, but “the downside is the investor is trusting the box in front of them.”

WHEN TO DITCH DIGITAL…

Ritter uses robo investing for a certain portion of his funds, but turns to people for advice. “There is no doubt in my mind that getting a second opinion from a human being is worthwhile.

I’ve been on Wall Street my entire career and I still need professional advice about my own funds.”

HEADSHOT, CONTRIBUTED

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TeenVoice ISABEL HANDA

That’s Enough Confessions of a high school junior

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reach their potential. We are not robots who are computerized to tackle any routine tasks.

Life is more than a series of motions to go through. It is not some algorithm where I can plug in the right numbers and take the right classes and maintain a certain GPA to curate the perfect specimen. Sometimes I will work hard and it won’t pay off—and that’s okay. We must fail in order to grow.

This balance between wanting to achieve academic success and accepting when the

“Who we are is dependent on if we can look ourselves in the mirror…” outcome is not always favorable is a constant battle. There is always going to be that voice in my head filled with frustration when my studying to the ungodly hours doesn’t give me the grade I want. I will always feel a little disappointed in myself when I don’t perform my best.

As we grow up, we must prioritize how we live before we drive ourselves crazy. It is essential to put everything into perspective and understand that in five years, when we are doing bigger and better things with our lives, this will all be a blip on the radar.

Who we are is not dependent on the college we go to or the classes we take. Who we are is dependent on if we can look ourselves in the mirror and be proud of the young adults we are becoming. Who we are is so much more than the standard we measure ourselves up to today.

SPEAK UP! Know a great local teen who would like to contribute to this column? Send an email to dianes@mofflymedia.com.

CONTRIBUTED

I

f you have ever talked to a Staples student, especially a junior, you can feel the enormous amount of stress on their shoulders. Standardized testing, grades and the thought of college looming just around the corner are inevitably nerve-wracking.

I grew up with this preconceived notion that I had to be spectacular at everything I do. My academic success has been nurtured to a point where the line between what my dreams are and what others want them to be is blurred, so it is difficult to see where reality lies. The problem with these impossibly high expectations is no matter how hard you work for them, you will have already failed.

In my freshman year, I enrolled in biology.

It was challenging and didn’t quite click.

After a few weeks, I did very poorly on a test.

I came home sobbing, unsure of why I had failed myself. I couldn’t understand why this had happened to me. I did everything I was supposed to. I studied hard and met with my teacher when I was confused. So why did I deserve this bad grade?

The truth is, I didn’t. If life were fair, I would have gotten that A I thought I needed because I had done everything a student is supposed to do. Slowly I began to realize that things won’t always go the way they are expected to go. Life doesn’t always deal you a hand that you think you deserve, and that's just the way it is.

We cannot let test grades break our hearts, because there are far greater moments that can and will take our tears. We must attempt to revise what we think measures success to be loyalty and compassion, not to be a number on a report card. Numbers don’t always accurately portray our work ethic or effort. There will always be factors we cannot account for, and instead of recognizing that there were obstacles in our way, teenagers tend to feel as if they didn’t do enough to

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VOWS I do!

KALYN JAY PAUL & BRADLEY JOHN WIEDL

by colleen crowley

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY JENNIFER NEVES PHOTOGRAPHY

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f one is very lucky, life and love will simply “work out.” That’s what happened when Kalyn met Bradley at his fitness boot camp in Stamford, and they knew they were meant to be together. Four years later, the couple traveled to Nepal to trek to Annapurna Base Camp. Although they weathered blizzard conditions, the pair made it to base camp, where Bradley knelt down in the snow and asked Kalyn to marry him.

They were married by Reverend Alan Neale at Ocean Cliff in Newport, Rhode Island. The couple are avid music fans, so the night’s entertainment was a top priority for them. The Sultans had guests dancing all night, to the delight of the newlyweds.

The bride is the daughter of Nancy and James Howes of Newport. She graduated from the George Washington University and received her master’s degree from Western Connecticut State University. She is a digital marketing director for Save the Children in Fairfield. The groom is the son of Tarol Samuelson of New Milford and John Wiedl of Danbury and is the owner of Bradley Fitness LLC in Norwalk.

The couple honeymooned in Kauai, Hawaii. They live in Norwalk.

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1 The wedding party 2 Sparkling invitations 3 The wedding cake 4 Getting ready 5 The bride and groom walk down the aisle 6 Kalyn’s calla lily bouquet 7 Guests rocking out at the reception 6 6

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VOWS

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4 1 The newlyweds 2 Softly colored florals fill the reception 3 Jason performs a dance with daughters Maria and Maddie 4 The wedding party 5 The wedding cake 6 Darcy’s bouquet 7 The couple enjoys a picturesque setting to exchange vows

| | DARCY LIANA SHOOP AND JASON ANDREW STIBER | |

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L

ove was in the air when Jason and Darcy met at Sunday night tennis at Sylvan Tennis Club. After learning that she was a teacher, Jason took Darcy to the Schoolhouse at Cannondale for their first date, and they soon became a couple. A year and a half later, the pair, along with Jason’s daughters Maria and Maddie, went for a walk at Compo Beach, where Jason proposed on the jetty. They then went to celebrate at Vespa, where their extended families were waiting for them. The memorable night wrapped up with a concert at the Levitt Pavilion.

Pastor Danny Hammons officiated the ceremony at Saltwater Farm Vineyard in Stonington, Connecticut, where a reception followed. Maria and Maddie played their violins before the ceremony began, and unity sand was used during the ceremony to represent the coming together as a family.

Darcy is the daughter of Wilma Shoop of Rocky Hill and Randy Shoop of West Hartford, Connecticut. She has her master’s degree in elementary education and works in the Fairfield Public Schools as a language arts specialist. Jason is the son of Andrew Stiber of Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and the late Irene Stiber. He holds an MBA and a master’s degree in engineering and works at Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford as an engineering manager.

The couple honeymooned in Athens and Santorini, Greece. They call Westport home. W

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MELANI LUST PHOTORAPHY

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They call it Bankwell for a reason. CEO Chris Gruseke and the Bankwell team make it their mission each day to treat their customers extraordinarily well.

What sets Bankwell apart from other banks? Businesses and residents tell it this way: they get the personal service that only comes from a hometown bank, combined with a powerful online banking platform that can go head to head with the big banks. It’s also local decision-making that has made Bankwell the “go to” for business loans. And when it comes to community, Bankwell is committed to redefining

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Bankwell has been changing the way people think about banking in Connecticut since 2002, and this spring, there is a new Bankwell branch located at 100 Post Road East — making it even easier for Westport residents and businesses to bank well.

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Nube Siguenza, Vicente Siguenza and Kleber Siguenza Long before they were American citizens, siblings Kleber, Nube and Vicente Siguenza developed Harvest Wine Bar, a Modern American Restaurant with a “farm to fork” concept and a generous wine selection.

Influenced by their Ecuadorian roots, they have always used the freshest ingredients, including fish that are wild caught or sustainably harvested, meat raised on the green hills of upstate New York and wines produced naturally with biodynamic farming practices.

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BEAUTIFUL EYES AND YOUTHFUL FACES The eyes are the central focal point of human expression and the first feature that people notice when they look at someone. Nowhere are the changes associated with aging more apparent than in the eyelid area.

Dr. Flora Levin is a board-certified and fellowshiptrained oculofacial plastic surgeon. For the past eight years her practice has been solely dedicated to aesthetic surgery of the eyelids and the eyebrows, as well as minimally invasive nonsurgical techniques.

Dr. Levin works in a partnership with each patient to establish the most appropriate treatment plan. Having

an intricate understanding and vast experience with each surgical and nonsurgical treatment option allows her to offer each patient the best choices for their individual needs. In many cases a combination of surgery, dermal fillers, Botox, skin lasers and medicalgrade skin care can provide the most natural, long-lasting results and dramatically improve the way people look and feel about themselves.

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THE BEST ONE HOUR WORKOUT IN THE COUNTRY Orangetheory

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Front seated: coach Anthony Crowder Middle: Gia DeRosa (Norwalk), Brittany Ficano (Shelton), Abbey Baricko (Fairfield) and Fred Maudsley Back: Jon Andrade (Westport), coach Amanda Forst, owner Mark Molina and coach Ralph Taylor Missing from photo: coaches Pierre Fitzenberger and Joseph Oniwor Orangetheory Fitness offers high-intensity, heartrate monitored, full-body workouts scientifically designed to keep heartrates in target zones that spike metabolism and increase energy. OTF’s one-hour group classes, lead by elite personal trainers, torch fat, build lean muscle and generate an “after burn” – you’ll burn calories at an accelerated rate for up to 36 hours after your workout.

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Multi-unit franchise owner Mark Molina opened OTF Fairfield, Connecticut’s first Orangetheory location in 2014.

His studios have won top Moffly Media awards for the Best Fitness Studios on the Gold Coast for 3 consecutive years.

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“A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.” – Phylllis Diller Dental Center of Westport has been serving Westport community for over 20 years.

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Pure Barre Westport opened in 2013, providing the next generation in barre-based exercises and a shopping destination in town. They carry brands such as Beyond Yoga, Alo Yoga, Spiritual Gangster, Chaser, Vimmia, Koral and many others. Pure Barre is the largest, most established barre franchise in the nation, with more than 400 studios across the country.

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DENTAL BLISS

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Dr. Steven Regenstein

"Come to the dentist to relax.” That’s the motto of Dr. Steven Regenstein, who has practiced dentistry for more than 20 years in a legacy practice on Westport’s Main Street prior to moving to 327 Riverside Avenue in the Westport Center for Health complex. He designed his new facility to provide patients with a greater sense of comfort, along with the latest technology and high-tech dental equipment. Dr. Regenstein explains, “Our goal was to create a tranquil, spa-like setting that would allow our patients to relax.”

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Anxıous Anxious Anxious Anxious Anxious The

Generation

The social-media generation shares more than ever—yet today’s teens are hiding a crushing amount of fear

ISTOCK.COM@PIOTR MARCINSKI

by t i m ot h y d u m as

The

Anxıous

Generation

H

ere at The Depot, a popular teen center in Darien, Justin Carver*, a high school senior with a mop of dark curls, is sitting in a diner-style booth, fidgeting, scratching, tapping his foot. He never sits still.

Especially not now, as he recounts the first day of his junior year at Darien High School, the day anxiety overwhelmed him. “I was like, ‘I’m not anxious, I’m just sick. First day of school— just relax.’ But I was freaking out. So I went to school that morning, and then I went and yakked up in the bathroom. I was shaking, like, ‘I can’t do this.’ ”

Certain names have been changed to protect privacy.

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JUSTIN IS HARDLY ALONE. ABOUT 25.1 PERCENT OF YOUTHS 13 TO 18 SUFFER FROM ANXIETY disorders at the present moment, and 31.9 percent have ever suffered from them, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. On college campuses, anxiety is the top complaint of students seeking mental health services, having overtaken depression. In 2016 the American College Health Association found that 62 percent of students reported feeling “overwhelming anxiety” in the past year, up from 50 percent in 2011. “Twenty percent of college freshmen are utilizing psychiatric services—that’s gone up exponentially,” says Meghan Skelton, a social worker at Weston’s high school and middle school. “By the time they graduate, 50 percent are accessing some sort of mental health services at college.”

Over the past decade, high schools have witnessed a troubling rise in the number of students who, like Justin, get so anxious they can’t bring themselves to go.

Psychiatrists call the phenomenon “school refusal” or

“school avoidance.” While anxiety disorders generally are quite treatable, says Dylan Kollman, author of Solving the Anxiety Dilemma (2016) and founder of the Anxiety Institute of Connecticut in Westport, “school refusal can be difficult—it’s a sticky problem.”

Kristin Hunter*, whose daughter, Caroline*, left Staples High School last year when anxiety overpowered her, likens school refusal to “grooves in a record” that deepen as the missed days pile up. “The longer you wait, the harder it is,” she says. Kristin shows us a photo of a fit, attractive sixteen-year-old with a radiant smile. “As a parent, it’s confusing. My daughter will go on stage and be in a play. But when she’s walking down the hallway or goes into a store on Main Street, she thinks everyone’s looking at her and negatively judging her.” (Caroline has since enrolled at a small private school, where she is faring better. Kristin hastens to note that Staples was “amazing” in their sensitivity to the problem: “They deal with a lot of this, you can tell.”)

Panic attacks have also become routine in schools, sending kids to the nurse’s office or worse. “I would hyperventilate and pass out and have to go to the hospital,” says Lauren Quinn*, a classmate of Justin’s whom we also met at The Depot. “I’d have probably four or five panic attacks a week. It started when I was in seventh grade.

Since I’ve gotten older and worked with my doctors, I can now feel them coming and I can handle them better. But every now and then they’ll still get really bad.”

Justin thinks that anxiety is far more common among his peers than the adults of Fairfield County know: “I’d say like nine out of ten kids have it.” Lauren agrees. “It’s a huge problem,” she says. “If you talk to any student, I guarantee they’ll be like, ‘I have anxiety.’ There are so many people who don’t get it diagnosed and are suffering from it.”

“Over the last forty years, we’ve seen a 700-percent increase in anxiety, most of it coming over the past ten to fifteen years,” says Dan Villiers, cofounder of the Anxiety Institute in Greenwich, an intensive day-treatment program for adolescents, and of Mountain Valley Treatment Center in New Hampshire, the first residential treatment center for adolescent anxiety in the United States.

The experts are calling this strange turn in the culture an “anxiety epidemic.” But what does that mean? Anxiety has always been with man as an anticipatory response to danger: Confronted with a tiger in the grass, or merely the idea of one, he readied to fight or flee. The same neurochemical response (emanating largely from the amygdala, a center deep in the brain that regulates fear but also pleasure) helps modern man rise alertly to the task at hand, whether in the classroom or on the playing field.

“Anxiety should, in theory, have an adaptive function,” notes Howard Weiner, a psychiatrist at Silver Hill Hospital for Mental Health and Addiction in New Canaan. “We all know that we need a certain amount of anxiety on a test—but too much is bad, and too little isn’t right, either.”

The question of too much anxiety among too many people began to occupy students of the brain about 150 years ago. In 1881 George Miller Beard, a neurologist from Montville, Connecticut, published American Nervousness, a book that, though it got much wrong (hay fever a “nervous disorder”?), managed to touch on something important: “The chief and primary cause of this…very rapid increase of nervousness is modern civilization.” Genetics, capricious parenting and family

strife contribute to anxiety in children—but these factors have always been with us. Beard was talking about the massive technological and cultural change that was then spreading across the land. Train travel, electric light, the telegraph and mass media were still fairly new, and the automobile and powered flight were just around the corner. The French writer Charles Péguy wrote in 1913: “The world has changed less since the time of Jesus Christ than it has in the last thirty years.”

Before now, however, no anxiety epidemic had ever been recorded among America’s young. Where did it come from? The answer is complex. Ours is a moment marked by political contentiousness and mass shootings, which, teachers and social workers tells us, have penetrated school walls as noxious psychic forces. “For kids to feel unsafe about going to school, and teachers to feel unsafe going to work, is a big deal,” Meghan Skelton says. (Staples had dealt with a serious threat the week of our interview.)

While granting these influences, the experts we consulted train their focus on two other twenty-firstcentury phenomena: a vastly ramped-up culture of achievement, centered on the golden ticket of admission to a prestigious college and the good life it promises; and kids’ near-umbilical attachment to the smartphone.

As it turns out, the two are intimately related.

UNDER PRESSURE Suniya Luthar is a psychology professor at Arizona State known for her study of youths who attend high-achieving schools in affluent communities across the country. In twenty years of researching such schools (including Staples and Wilton high schools), Luthar has found serious maladjustment in all of them, without exception.

“They should be better than national norms given their resources, right? If anything, these kids should be happier.

Not only are they not happier, but in every single case, there’s at least one if not more areas in which there’s significant concern—whether it’s depression, anxiety, eating problems, self-harm or substances. It’s stunning.”

She contends that pressure is the core of the problem— “the intense amount of pressure these kids experience to excel in just about everything they do,” Luthar says. “The question is, where does this pressure come from? And the

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answer is, where does it not come from?”

“All of my friends, they feel like they’re under a microscope and have to perform at such a high level,” Lauren Quinn says. “It applies everywhere: sports, school, music, being in a club. Everyone’s worried about, like, ‘I have to be better than I was before, I have to be better than the next person.’ That’s when the anxiety kicks in, because you feel like you’re never doing quite enough. ‘I only got a B. I should have gotten an A.’ ” The kids admit they put some pressure on themselves.

But Luthar says they’re also internalizing a cultural condition they can’t escape. Justin puts it starkly: “I think the culture of Darien is that the weak fall to the bottom and the strong rise to the top. New Canaan, too.

Wilton. Fairfield County. It’s hard to meet the expectation around here. There’s so much that can upset you in an environment like this, where it’s like, ‘you’ve got to be the best to be happy.’ It’s almost impossible not to be anxious, you know?”

Janice Marzano, who heads The Depot and is a beloved confidante of Darien’s young, remarks, “Kids are playing sports they don’t even like, just to get into college.”

Students describe their days as being relentlessly mapped out. Lauren rises at 5 a.m. for physical therapy and does not stop until she turns out the light at night, after completing her homework. “There’s literally no time to be a kid,” she says. Her classmate Maria Price* says she’ll “step back” and put off her work when she’s overwhelmed, “which makes it even more stressful in the end.”

Is gaining admittance to college really much harder these days? It’s a contested issue. But this much is true: The applicant pool has grown dramatically as colleges seek more diverse and more global student bodies; students are applying to more schools than they used to; and acceptance rates at the best schools have shrunk by as much as half over the past twenty years. “When I applied to Kenyon,” Dan Villiers says, “the acceptance rate was something like 55 percent. Now it’s 20 or 25 percent. I don’t think I could get in today.” (Many of the teens Villiers treats, not surprisingly, come to him with “fear about the future, fear of failure, doubts about themselves”—a complex of worries called generalized anxiety disorder.)

HIDDEN CRISIS At one point in the conversation with Lauren, she pauses and waves her hand before her eyes, checking a flow

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of tears. A friend of hers committed suicide, she says.

“In a letter, she kind of explained it all. She felt she was letting her family down, and letting her friends down, because she just wasn’t good enough.” Lauren furrows her brow at the thought of it. “She was getting B-pluses in everything. She was a really smart girl. Everyone loved her. If you’d met her, you would have never thought there was this darkness inside of her. It’s so sad to think that if she was born like, twenty years ago, she never would’ve had the issues that she had.”

This tragedy of this young woman is part of an alarming trend. Since 2007, teen suicides have been climbing steadily, the boys’ rate rising by a third, and the traditionally stable girls’ rate doubling. From 2008 to 2015, the number of children hospitalized for suicidal thoughts also doubled, with October, not surprisingly, being the peak admissions month. (But are they admitted for anxiety or depression? Often the two are “co-morbid,” or occurring together, and not neatly separable.)

The uphill suicide graph correlates eerily with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and the saturation of smartphones generally by 2012—at which point the graph turns steeper still. Phones and suicide? Last year, California psychologist Jean Twenge published a groundbreaking book titled iGen, which documents a powerfully suggestive link between phones—the obsessive, time-devouring use of social media on them—and anxiety and depression. Twenge writes, “The sudden, sharp rise in depressive symptoms occurred at almost exactly the same time that smartphones became ubiquitous and in-person interaction plummeted.”

“I was a little skeptical at first,” says Dylan Kollman. “It felt a little old-mannish to me: ‘Oh, it’s TV. Oh, it’s video games, or rap music.’ But her data is really strong. And you just kind of feel it with kids, that there’s something unhealthy about unadulterated access to these phones.”

Why should this be so? With the advent of smart-phones, multiple studies say, young people are spending more time alone than they used to; their “real” adventures out in the neighborhood, among flesh-and-blood people, have become rare; mediating their worlds so incessantly through the smartphone inhibits their maturity; and constant digital stimulation weakens their ability to concentrate on tasks that require sustained attention, not to mention their ability to cope with uncomfortable emotions like boredom.

Tracey Masella, a social worker at Silver Hill who deals extensively with adolescents, observes, “We’re breeding kids who have no tolerance for discomfort, whether it be boredom or anxiety or sadness or rejection or failure.” »

Treating Anxiety Disorders THERAPISTS SAY MOST TYPES OF ANXIETY ARE FAIRLY EASY TO TREAT—ASTONISHING NEWS TO THOSE WHO CAN’T STOP WORRYING OR WHO SUFFER REPEATED BOUTS OF SWEATY, WHITE-KNUCKLED TERROR.

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IMMERSION

“The whole secret of treating anxiety— which 95 percent of people don’t do—is learning how to increase it, not decrease it,” says Dan Villiers, founder of the Anxiety Institute in Greenwich. “Treating anxiety is immersing yourself in it.” What does he mean? Picture whatever situation lies at the heart of your anxiety—flying in a plane or attending a class that requires speaking. Although you’re in no physical danger, your brain sprays out its danger hormones, causing you deep dread or outright panic. No time soon will you expose yourself again to this danger, you tell yourself. Thus begins avoidance, a word you hear a lot from anxiety therapists. “People come here because of anxiety, but it’s really the way they avoid anxiety that causes the problems,” says Dylan Kollman, a therapist who heads the Anxiety Institute of Connecticut in Westport (no relation to the Greenwich institute).

CBT

One especially reliable anxiety-reducing process is cognitive behavioral therapy.

Think of CBT as a two-part affair: talk therapy plus exposure therapy.

The talk part isn’t designed to plunge you into Freudian murk, but to examine the irrational underpinnings of your anxiety—to fix the brain’s incorrect suppositions about danger stimuli.

(Standing in front of a group of people won’t harm you, even though your brain’s on red alert.)

The exposure part desensitizes you, step-by-step, to your over-active danger response. Some therapists, like Villiers, incorporate virtual reality devices as a way to prepare you to confront your realworld fear. Eventually, you leave the office for the “in vivo” part of your exposure therapy, in which you confront, with your therapist, the actual plane or classroom.

MEDICATION

The CBT process lasts a few weeks to a few months, and it can be costly. It works especially well with panic disorder and specific phobias. “The success rate for the treatment of panic disorder is 85 or 90 percent, and that’s without medication,” Kollman says. People with generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder also benefit from CBT, but the success rates are less clear-cut.

Often these sufferers couple CBT with anxiety medications such as Xanax; the combination appears to work better than one or the other alone—if by “work better” we mean return people more frequently to their normal routines.

Anxiety therapists tend to frown on medication or, at least, a medicationonly approach. It masks rather than fixes the problem.

Meditation techniques, breathing exercises, and activities like art and equine therapy may also be part of the tool kit.

NEUROFEEDBACK

A recent arrival on the anxiety treatment scene is neurofeedback. Some years ago the medical establishment regarded it as quackish. Now it’s gaining respect as a treatment for ADHD, post-traumatic stress, anxiety and much else.

The idea is that we can train the brain to produce its energy in a more harmonious way. Darien High student Justin Carver* (see main story) was initially skeptical, but after several treatments he believes that neurofeedback calms and focuses him. “This is literally me strengthening my brain,” he says, “so that I can healthily make thoughts in the day and I can healthily power down at night.”

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5 FACES OF ANXIETY Anxiety is a catch-all term. Therapists look to identify one of these specific problems:

1. PANIC DISORDER

is “a misfiring of your fear response,” says Westport therapist Dylan Kollman. “It’s a false alarm—it would be a real alarm if a cheetah were there.” Still, the fear is so acute that people feel as if they are going to die.

2. GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER

is marked by feeling worried or on-edge and by an inability to escape negative thinking.

3. SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER

or social phobia, the most common anxiety disorder, is characterized by a fear of social situations and, more specifically, by a fear of being unfavorably judged by others.

4. OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER has been given its own heading in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It involves intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors, like hand-washing.

5. POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

has also been given its own heading in the manual. It stems from traumatic experiences, like being attacked or witnessing violence, and therapists see little of it among teens.

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of disinviting guest speakers for fear of causing students “emotional injury,” to borrow a remarkable phrase used

by Williams College’s student editorialists. Twenge writes, “If some people might be upset, the thinking goes, we’ll ban the speaker.”

SAFE DISTANCE This brew of high expectation and emotional frailty is bad enough. What makes it worse, though in ways we don’t yet fully understand, is smartphones’ power to amplify. (Who could have predicted the clout of the Tweet?) Lauren Quinn describes the smartphone world as a world of mirrors in which one is always found wanting. “It’s horrible—you see these people who look like supermodels. Even someone who goes to your school. They post a picture and you think it’s so cool, and everyone else loves it, you’re just like, ‘I want to be like that. I need to be skinnier. I need to do cooler things.

I need to own nicer clothes.’ It just causes so much more unnecessary stress and anxiety.”

The research indicates that Lauren’s feelings are widespread. “One thing our data is showing is that these kids think other people’s lives are always better than their own,” Suniya Luthar says. “ ‘My friends are happier than I am, more popular than I am, more successful in their love life.’ That aspect of social media is particularly damaging in terms of young people’s well-being.”

This is to say nothing of cyber-bullying and the like, that not-so-brave new world where one can practice nastiness at a safe digital remove.

Anyone would agree: Smartphones have their virtues.

But Lauren has decided the vices outweigh them. She’s tired of the phones’ Pavlovian pull. “Literally the other day, I asked my mom for a flip phone,” she says. “I was like, ‘I don’t want my iPhone anymore.’ ” The engineers of Silicon Valley would applaud her. Justin Rosenstein, who helped create the “like” button for Facebook, banned himself from Snapchat—teens’ social app of choice—which he likens to heroin. Rosenstein is among a growing number of tech engineers who deem their own products unhealthy, a fact that should give us all pause.

But there’s a deeper point to be made. Between the push to achieve and the compulsion to live digitally, the young are conditioned to fixate on outcomes and rewards—not on the pleasure of doing a thing, much less on the care of the soul. “It’s a hard way to live, if your

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Howard Weiner adds, “Something has changed in the expectation we have of getting through life without distress.” He notes a disconcerting paradox: smartphones are contributing to kids’ distress, yet the kids are turning to them to lessen the selfsame distress— like lab rats hitting the sugar lever. As Dan Villiers puts it: “They’re self-medicating through instant access to the smartphone. That’s a fact.”

A broader point is that young people’s powers of resilience—of handling setbacks or uncomfortable situations—have seriously eroded. (The phones are but one cause. Masella also notes a shift in today’s parenting, whereby many parents’ reluctant to say “no” to their kids muddle the family’s authority structure, with chaotic results.) Jean Twenge mentions the new college habit

sense of self-worth is all tied in with the splendor of your accomplishments,” says Luthar. Howard Weiner adds, “If that’s all you have, there’s not a lot to fall back on when you don’t succeed.”

It’s touching to hear Lauren Quinn recall the presaturation days of her childhood: “We were lucky, because we were the last kids who didn’t grow up with smartphones—we had flip phones. So we got to play outside still.” The generation now in elementary school has never known a world in which people were not slaves to their gadgets. How will these children grow up? Count Dan Villiers among the concerned. “What’s so valuable in a child and an adolescent is to develop a sense of self-worth, self-confidence. And you do that by growing independence.” Too often we’re doing the opposite, he says. “We’re actually regressing them. We’re developing a generation of anxious and avoidant kids.”

Changing the culture is, obviously, a tall order, since it involves “the entire ecosystem of kids” and then some, Meghan Skelton of the Weston schools says. “Everyone’s got to jump on board.”

The schools do appear to be finding their footing as they recognize the enormity of the problem. Justin Carver says Darien High lightened his workload at critical times. Kristin Hunter recalls how Staples sent a small delegation to her house to delicately coax her daughter back to school, one class at a time. In 2013 the school’s guidance department launched the Staples Resilience Project in response to rising anxiety and depression; it’s designed to foster “emotional agility”—to help students gain a healthier perspective on inevitabilities like failure and rejection. Last year, Darien inaugurated Fitch Academy as an alternative high-school program for kids dealing with severe anxiety and related issues. And as schools put mental health and well-being at the forefront of their agendas, they turn increasingly to cutting-edge outfits like the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence in New Haven. The new emphasis on emotional skills (starting with the ability to understand one’s own emotions and to read others’ emotions) is hardly accidental: They are essential for healthy growth and learning, and yet numerous studies show they are under assault.

Meanwhile, the hope is that students who need help will ask for it rather than suffer in silence. Consider Justin.

“I’m feeling great,” he says, drumming the tabletop. “The anxiety still comes in little waves—but it used to be this big tsunami. Now, like Japan or New Orleans, we’re cleaning W up, and sooner or later it’ll be a nice city again.”

5 TIPS FOR PARENTS

Having a child with an anxiety disorder can leave parents feeling overwhelmed, but therapists say these practical guidelines provide needed support.

1

Listen. In the hurly-burly of daily life, we may hear our kids without listening to them and, thus, miss their distress signals. Despite appearances, our kids want you to get beyond the monosyllables. So don’t just ask them how their day was; ask them what they think about things.

“You know how friends can realize that something is wrong?” asks one Darien High School senior. “A parent could do that if they listen.”

“Be curious, not furious,” advises Kristin Hunter,* a Westport mother whose daughter suffers from anxiety. “Ask them, in an empathetic tone, what they are worried about, what is keeping them from going. Try not to get mad or frustrated or ask what is wrong with them—that just shuts them down.”

Finally, refrain from lecturing.

“What they want,” says Weston schools social worker Meghan Skelton, “is to connect.”

2

Limit Screentime. This is a battle in every household, but the evidence is increasingly clear: social-media addiction leaves teens feeling less satisfied with their lives and more depressed and anxious. While social media can be great for connecting, it, ironically, leaves more kids feeling lonely and excluded (ask your teen about FOMO—fear of missing out).

“When I take my daughter’s phone away, it’ll be twenty-four hours of hell—and then six days of bliss,” says Kristin Hunter. “Then she says, ‘I don’t feel as stressed. I don’t feel as much pressure to keep checking my phone.’”

While they’re offline, have them read psychology professor Jean Twenge’s iGen, which warns of a

looming mental health crisis among our young. If they won’t read it, pin them to a chair and read choice passages aloud.

3

Encourage Good Habits. Do your kids exercise? Do they eat well? Do they go to sleep at a decent hour (social media often leads to nocturnal hours)? Do they get together—in person—with friends? These eternal good habits are among the things getting lost to digital addiction.

4

Lighten the Load. Between multiple AP courses, sports, clubs and volunteer work— the better to build an impressive college application—many kids feel they have too much on their plate and not enough time to discover, explore, imagine. The healthiest choice for your child might be to do less. Distressingly, mental health professionals tell us, it is often the parents who won’t let kids put on the brakes.

5

Understand. Sometimes a parent will view anxiety as a character weakness and encourage his child to “toughen up” or “snap out of it.” Greenwichbased anxiety therapist Dan Villiers’ own father took this view when Villiers suffered from social anxiety in his youth. But it’s misguided, he’ll tell you. Let’s remember that Thomas Jefferson suffered bitterly from anxiety; closer to home, so did Steve Young, the Greenwichraised Hall of Fame quarterback.

Our anxious kids are battling a neurochemistry they cannot hope to defeat—not without guidance, tools, understanding and, in some cases, therapy.

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SAUGATUCK RIVER BY ADOBE.STOCK@TRUDY

OUR TOWN West Coast and East Coast newcomers find a laidback-cosmopolitan balance here—and it feels like home by j i l l j o h n s o n

Get Your Fix

NYC

L.A.

HERE

Newcomers, we get it. Sometimes you miss home. Inside, your fellow big-city transplants offer a few suggestions for the next time you need a taste of life before the suburbs—or reminders about why we all love living here.

Get a unique view of town— and a workout— by rowing along the Saugatuck River. The local club has competitive programs.

N

ew York and L.A. sound like the coolest places to call home, but a steady stream of folks from these sea-to-shining-sea bookends settle in our quaint coastal town in Connecticut. OK, so “folks” may seem like a misnomer; maybe “trendsetters,” “hipsters” and “jetsetters” are more fitting labels for these big-city transplants. But when you meet some of them in this story and learn why they picked Westport, Weston or Wilton, what they love about these towns, and how they’ve adapted—both personally and professionally—you will find they mesh quite nicely with the folks around here. They also infuse the unique flavor of their cities into our towns, creating an irresistible combination of New England charm and urban flair. Whether you are a new arrival here or an old-timer, read on for insider tips on getting your East Coast or West Coast fix right here, as well as appreciating those places and experiences that are quintessential to this area.

SAUGATUCK ROWING (OPPOSITE) BY KYLE NORTON; ORGANIKA KITCHEN CONTRIBUTED

FINDING THE ’BURBS People are drawn to these parts for all different reasons; just visit Compo Beach, our public schools, or Main Street, and a few of the obvious ones will be as clear as the blue sky over Long Island Sound.

Actress Melissa Joan Hart (Westporters know her as Melissa Wilkerson) and her husband, musician Mark Wilkerson, had no ties to Westport when they decided to leave L.A. in 2009 and raise their family here. They looked at Nashville, the North Shore of Long Island and Fairfield County. They had friends in Darien and Stamford, but Westport won.

“We wanted new construction, a community feel and, of course, good schools,” explains Hart. “I loved the downtown area, the river, the shops and restaurants.” The housing crisis made selling their house in L.A. difficult, so the Wilkersons had time to visit Westport in every season. “It was the dense trees, fireflies and snowfall that really warmed my heart,” she says.

The Burmeisters moved from L.A. to Westport in 2014 when Paul was offered a job as an anchor for NBC Sports Network in Stamford. “Our move was really last minute,” says his wife, Anne. “We lived in a beach town in California that had a really strong public school system, and people there universally recommended Westport—also a beach town, with people who are active outdoors and support the public schools.”

Jodi Schoenbrun Carter and her husband, Brian Carter, an actor, had a tough decision to make when she was offered the role of managing director at Westport Country Playhouse. They weren’t really ready to leave New York City, but they discovered a culturally rich community here. “Westport has such an active life in the arts,” says Jodi.

“We realized we aren’t suburbanites, but we are Westporters. It has a small-town feel, but you get New York too. It’s ideal.” The couple also found that a yard and beach is especially nice if you happen to have five dogs.

L.A. FIX

Go Organic

“Granola Bar and Organika— those feel very close to the everystreet-corner kind of places in California. Border Grill—similar to the taquerias there. The Farmer’s Market and anywhere that serves local food, like Bill Taibe’s restaurants and Lobster Burger.

It’s not the same food, but the notion that you can source locally is very L.A.” —Anne Burmeister

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Laura Maged, owner of the boutique West in Westport, went from Long Island (where she grew up) to L.A. to New York to Westport. Her husband grew up in Manhattan. “Everyone told us Westport,” says Laura, who also was drawn to the town’s “strong arts heritage.” The beach sealed the deal. “The water is my happy place. We visited Compo and I thought, OK, the kids can play on the beach. It felt right.”

Megan LaBant Abrahamsen, owner of Blue Star Bazaar grew up in Wilton and gradually worked her way back here after ten years in New York. “My husband, Mark, our dog, and I were sharing a one-bedroom apartment,” says Megan. “We wanted to raise our kids with more space and a green environment.

We took baby steps, though, and moved to Stamford before settling in Wilton.”

SETTLING IN Hart says Westport’s government website (westportct.gov) was an essential tool for

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planning their move and new life. Hart pictured herself rowing on the river and did for several years at the Saugatuck Rowing Club. Now she enjoys tap class and is taking Italian through Continuing Ed at Staples. Hart loves that their friends here hail from the South, Mexico, Scandinavia, India… “L.A. feels like a small town because everyone is in the same business,” she says.

“Here you have people from all different walks of life and all different countries living in a small town.”

Anne Burmeister started volunteering at her boys’ schools as soon as she arrived but craved a deeper connection to the community. “The cool thing about Westport is that people our age are quite politically and civically active,” she explains. “I found that really inspiring. I started volunteering at Wakeman Town Farm, and I immediately felt like that was my place and I was invested in the town. Wakeman is a place that demonstrates sustainable living, so that

NYC FIX

Asian Cuisine

“If I’m looking for that NYC vibe plus food, I go to Kawa Ni. If I’m in the mood for something quieter, but with outstanding food, I’ll sit at the bar at The Cottage. I can’t get enough of their brisket buns with kimchi.”

—Stephanie Webster

THE WILKERSONS BY COLLEEN COFFEY; KAWA NI BY JULIE BIDWELL: WAKEMAN TWON FARM BY STACY BASS; JOYRIDE FITNESS STUDIO CONTRIBUTED; COMPO BEACH BY NLANOR PHOTOGRAPHY

Melissa and Mark Wilkerson are raising their three boys in Westport.

L.A. FIX

On Trend

Llamas rest at Wakeman Town Farm, a community program located in Westport • Westport Bike Rentals provides rentals and safe-and-scenic routes in Westport, including this one with views along Compo Beach

“Lera Jewels, my favorite jewelry, has an L.A. vibe—[designer Ronit Tarshis] does a lot of Red Carpet events. Joy Ride also has an L.A. feel. Zaniac for ‘Palo Alto meets Westport’—I take my kids there for coding, math, chess, STEM.” —Melissa Joan Hart

pulled from my experience in Southern California, and the farm part goes right back to my youth growing up in Iowa.”

Paul Burmeister adds, “Annie and I had moved from Iowa to Philadelphia to Los Angeles before, but going from L.A. to Connecticut was the first time we had made a move as a family of four. Our son Ben tried out for a baseball team the first

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week we moved, and the parents of that team were our first friends, welcoming us into the group right away. Both boys made friends quickly at school and that paved the way for us to settle in. The exclamation point for us has been Annie’s relationship with Wakeman Town Farm. Her connection to that place and their people has meant as much to our happiness here as anything.”

(Paul seems to have zeroed in on the key to settling in anywhere: Happy wife, happy life!)

Kristy Gordon, owner of The Hair Genies, moved from the city to Westport and then to Weston a few years ago. “We wanted to build a house and found great land at a good price,” she explains. To settle in, she joined Weston Women’s League. “It was a great way to meet other people,” she says.

George Venizelos, who grew up in Manhattan, comments about raising his son, Greg, in Easton and Weston: “There is this Zen-centered calm compared to growing up in a major city. You can always live in the city later.” His wife, Michele, was fighting cancer when they moved out of the city. Becoming actively involved with the EQUUS Foundation helped George settle in during a tumultuous time. Sadly, Michelle passed away in 2008.

Venizelos, now a Westport resident, kept giving back and went on to sponsor Moffly Media’s Light a Fire contest for six years.

Laura Maged was attracted to the artist scene in Westport. She got involved by sitting on the board of the Westport Arts Center for eight years.

Kelly Coveny, chief innovation officer at Milk advertising agency in SoNo (as well as an author, singer and poet), grew up in Greenwich but lived in Chicago, London and New York before venturing back to Connecticut. “We rented in Westport initially,” she says, “because I wasn’t sure it would work not being two blocks from everything. We had the warmest reception when we moved onto our street. Half our neighbors came by with cookies and said hello. Westport is such an arts-centric place and full of individuals doing creative things. It’s the closest to New York without being in New York. It was an adjustment, but I don’t miss living in the city at all.” The Covenys do family overnights in New York a few times a year to soak in the culture and museums there.

WESTPORT ARTS CENTER BY LILLIE FORTINO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Westport Arts Center exhibits works by local and internationally renowned artists.

TAILORING A CAREER Jodi Schoenbrun Carter and Paul Burmeister both came to this area due to job offers, but others had to make adjustments in their careers due to their move (and Jodi eventually would too). The big adjustment for Brian Carter, as an actor, was the commute to New York, but he found a silver lining: “It’s great to have the train ride in to look over scripts and prepare for auditions.”

Brian has added director and instructor to his wheelhouse and has found Westport to be a perfect hub. His first short film, Night Monster, was shot right here in Westport, and as an acting teacher for Triple Threat Academy (founded by Westport native Cynthia Gibb), he has discovered a wealth of talent in our artsy towns.

Jodi redirected her career in 2012 and launched her own talent management company, 1022m. “It’s named after the 10:22 p.m. Metro-North train,” says Jodi.

When working on productions in New York, she said, “I’d tell the actors they could do Laura Maged brings the L.A. vibe to her Westport boutique, West.

NEWCOMER MUST

LAURA MAGED OF WEST BY STACY BASS; INSET BY ADOBE.STOCK/ © JONATHAN

Back to Nature

“My brother happens to own the Schoolhouse Restaurant in Wilton… for a full Connecticut experience, there’s nothing like dining in an old one-room schoolhouse. Also, as a family, we spend a lot of our time on weekends hiking in the local forests.”

—Megan Abrahamsen

whatever they wanted after shows, as long I made the 10:22.” That train no longer exists, but Jodi now maintains a more flexible— though nonstop—schedule. “I work seven days a week and all holidays, but I split my time between home and my office in midtown.” Jodi is also a producer, and one of her films was shot at Burying Hill Beach.

Melissa Joan Hart didn’t let her new base interfere with her starring role on Melissa & Joey; she just flew back and forth between her family here and her job in L.A. for the first five years they lived here. Not surprisingly, she says, “I didn't really settle in until after that.” But over time, Hart discovered “there

are a lot of entertainment people in this town.” She found an agency with a major hub in New York, and she has built up the production company, Hartbreak Films, she owns with her mother, Paula. They have shot two Christmas movies in Connecticut (and cast several Westporters). Hart also has begun directing. Getting to Wales to direct Anjelica Huston in Watcher in the Woods was easier from the East Coast than it would have been from L.A. When Laura Maged encountered a lot of local women complimenting her on her L.A. wardrobe, she thought, “People here really like my California style, so why don’t I bring

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it here?” Her store West, which opened in 2016, brings “a piece of the West to Westport. I try to carry brands others don’t, so it feels fresh and new, with a West Coast vibe. The clothes are less seasonal.” Maged is big on the “high-low” mix: “pairing a very chic expensive blazer with a ripped-up rockn-roll tee, for example.” Laura owns a home in L.A., so she has a bicoastal perspective on trends.

When Megan and Mark Abrahamsen moved out to Weston, they both were still commuting to New York. He’s in finance; she was working in fashion on the corporate level. After they had their first son, Megan decided to take a year off. She then launched her own business, initially with online sales, trunk shows and pop-up events. Six years

NEWCOMER MUST

Coastal View

BEACH BY ADOBE.STOCK/@ERICURQUHART ABRAHAMSON BY XENIA PHOTOGRAPHY

Megan LaBant Abrahamsen inside her boutique Blue Star Bazaar in Wilton

“My secret spot has always been Burying Hill Beach. I love to bring my book to this quiet beach for a long read, and also to watch the older swimmers who come for their daily swim, as they have done for years. My other favorite place in town is Wakeman Town Farm. It’s one of the last remaining pieces of farm property in an area that was once an agricultural hub. It’s a special place where residents can come to feel like they are part of a small town.”

—Christy Colasurdo (a New Yorker turned twenty-year Westport resident)

ago she opened Blue Star Bazaar in Wilton.

“It has an eclectic vibe,” say Megan. “I carry a lot of lesser-known, up-and-coming brands.

I’ve had people say the store reminds them of Brooklyn. It’s in an older building, with wide-plank floors and fireplaces.”

Stephanie Webster, founder of the blog CTbites, came to Westport from Manhattan via Seattle. “I had been out of the workforce for too many years. I enjoyed volunteer work, but I wanted to create and build something,” she explains. “When I arrived in Westport I wasn’t sure if I was going to love it or hate it…hence the ‘Bites’ part of CTbites. I’ve always been marginally food obsessed, and while living in Seattle, we ended up doing a deep dive into the local food scene. The proximity to farms and vineyards (not to

mention Asia) gave chefs the resources to create some really interesting food. The environment got me engaged in food in a serious way.”

The West Coast also made an indelible impression on Tracy Yost, who spent three years in Santa Cruz. “I just absolutely loved it, mostly because of the pedestrian lifestyle,” she says. The former Greenwich Country Club fitness director returned to Connecticut, chose Westport for its “vibrant downtown and beachy influence,” and decided to start her own business. “Westport Bike Rentals is my attempt at bringing the chill West Coast spirit to the East Coast,” she says. Her company rents out beach cruisers (delivered to your home) and runs W bike tours.

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A very young Jack with his Siamese cat in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania

JACK MOF F LY

A TRIBUTE to OUR FOUNDER

I

He made people laugh. He made people think. He made people feel special.

He was a giant among men. And we will miss him. by timothy dumas

n the summer of 1989, Jack Moffly and four friends sailed the forty-four-foot ketch Athene across the

North Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to Ireland—a rough, lonesome expanse of ocean that has swallowed many a boat and spawned many a legend. Indeed, several legends were spawned on that very trip.

Would you believe the great ocean devoured Jack whole? He’d been chatting with architect Bob Hart, the boat’s owner and skipper, as they bobbed on house-sized rollers in ferocious, gale-force winds that sent sea spume blasting across the open cockpit. Neither man saw the rogue wave pounce. “The next thing we knew,” Jack wrote later, “we were enveloped by a ton of green water.”

He might have gone back, in that moment, to the sea from whence we came. But that would have been very bad form. For one thing, his and Donna’s thirtieth wedding anniversary was nigh, and Donna had been snuck aboard for the occasion—in the form of a blow-up doll with a black nightgown and red wig approximating the real Donna’s glorious flame, and a tape recording of Donna’s voice whispering sweet nothings. Now she was waiting patiently in Jack’s bunk for him to stop fooling about in the ocean. » 98

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Sailing in the Virgin Islands on his honeymoon in 1959. Jack made his bride do laps around the boat barefoot to see how fast she could get her sea legs without breaking a toe on a cleat. It would be the last time he’d ever hire a professional captain. “From This Moment On” (the couple’s favorite song), the skipper would have the same first mate for the next fifty-eight years.

For another thing, he and Donna had just embarked on a bold adventure of another sort: They’d bought the Greenwich Review in 1987 with an eye toward making it the best town magazine in the country. The following year, they would add The Nutmegger and soon combine the two ’zines to create greenwich—the foundation of a robust little empire (six magazines, plus digital platforms and custom publishing) now known as Moffly Media and headed by their son, Jonathan. (The transition came in 2007, with Jack’s sage advice to his son: “Don’t screw it up!”)

In short, he had a destiny to fulfill, and now that destiny hung by a tether in the cold Atlantic. Gear bent and gear broke. But the tether held, a wave bore Jack up, and as he swirled into view, he nonchalantly asked Bob Hart, himself soaked and teetering on the stern, “Would you mind giving me a hand?”

The intrepidness, the zest for life, the bonhomie, the gentlemanly cool: These are among the many splendid qualities we shall miss about John Wesley Moffly IV. For on the morning of March 11, 2018, after ninety-one magnificent years, he set sail for the farther shore.

––––––––––– Jack was born into a family of industrious, conservatively tempered Philadelphians on August 5, 1926. Chestnut Hill Academy and Andover launched him toward Princeton (World War II intervening: he served in the Army Air Force), where he studied at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and plied the waters of Lake Carnegie as commodore of the Princeton Yacht Club.

“Returning from class one day, I passed my roommate who casually commented, ‘Albert Einstein called and wants you to call him,’” Jack wrote. “I ignored this ludicrous remark coming from someone whose campus nickname was ‘Joker.’” But further questioning disclosed that Einstein, a resident scholar in Princeton, hoped to arrange to sail his dinghy on “zee lake.” So Jack went around to 112 Mercer Street for tea; his first glimpse of the great man was the famous white frizz poking over mounds of books and papers. Was

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there room for his dinghy in the PYC boathouse, Einstein wondered.

It was really more of a shed, Jack told him, but they’d be honored.

Did they have a launching ramp? It was really a dock, and a flimsy one at that. What about a limousine service? No, they rode their bikes out to the lake. “Vell, I like to ride my bike,” Einstein replied, “but with zee sails over my shoulder?”

After graduating from Princeton in 1949, Jack went to work for Time Inc. Early on they posted him in Cleveland, selling ad space for House & Home magazine, which Time had created to address the postwar housing boom. One night in 1959, Jack went to a basement party. A twenty-three-year-old redhead—we’ll switch now to her perspective—spied a “baldish” man in conversation and tapped him on the shoulder. “I said, ‘Are you Ed Pendergast?’ He said ‘no,’ and just turned back to who he was talking to. And I thought, Well!

Rudest guy I ever met.”

That might have been the end of it. No Donna and Jack, no Jonathan and Audrey, no grandkids, no magazines. But it’s strange what little things fate turns on. Later that evening, Donna found an acquaintance losing her hors d’oeuvres in an upstairs toilet bowl. “You’re in terrible shape,” Donna said. “Who’s your date?”

HE HAD The young woman moaned, “Jack STYLE Moffly,” and gave a brief descripON LAND AND SEA tion of the man. “And so I march Newlywed Jack, pictured back down to the basement, go here in 1959, loved going over to the same guy, tap him on formal. He had learned to tie bow ties at age the shoulder and go, ‘Are you Jack fourteen—filling in at Moffly?’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Well,’ I Philadelphia cotillions for his big brother who had informed him, ‘your date’s throwgone off to war. But he ing up—you’d better take her also could live for a week out of one small duffle home.’” if it meant going to sea.

From this unpromising soil, Below: Crew of Lydian on a run to St. John, New romance blossomed. They were Brunswick, in the ’60s: married six months later. clockwise from bottom right: Jack, A. L. Register, Skipper Jim Robins, Pete McSpadden, John Sinclair, Jim Vaughn and Dick Geismar

––––––––––– The lean, patrician bearing.

The courtly manner. The mellifluous baritone. The traditionalist outlook on the world. And yet: the festive bow ties. The late-staying at parties. The high color in his cheeks, the lively glint in his eye that, even in old age, revealed the eternal boy in him.

“Happy Jack—that was my nickname for him,” says his daughter, Audrey Moffly Klotz.

“Don’t you think he was a Happy

E AR LY O N THE GROOM Leaving the ceremony at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Jack’s first words to Donna were: “Now we’ve done it!” to which she answered: “Done what?” At age thirty-three, Jack was the last of his gang to wed. “With all those older women after you, what made you choose me?” his twenty-three-year-old bride would ask him later. “I married you for your potential,” he’d explained.

THE SKIPPER All dressed up for the Captain’s Dinner aboard Reindeer, Newbold Smith’s forty-three-foot sloop he was ferrying back to Northeast Harbor after the 1962 Marblehead-Halifax Race.

Joanne and Wright Ferguson were part of the crew. In a reflex response to a minor fire in the galley, Wooly Henry threw the oven overboard.

It was hard finding a metalsmith to pound out a new one before the owner found out.

Left: Happy Birthday to Jack from Donna and young Jonathan in 1965—a Sunfish christened Thingbe. Having taught a number of big boat owners how to sail, he finally got his own.

OUT WEST

WEDDING BY EUGENE SPIEGEL

A family dream trip.

The view of the Tetons from their cabin at R Lazy S Ranch in Wyoming in July 1977. Elevenyear-old Audrey rode a bull calf in the Jackson Hole Rodeo and fifteen-year-old Jonathan helped the wranglers put on an elaborate fireworks display on the 4th—to get rid of the pyrotechnics all the ranch kids had brought in from Utah before they had to fly home.

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L I F E I N T H E FA S T TR ACK – H E R E a nd A B R OA D

SCOTLAND Sandy and Russ Herman joined the Mofflys on the trip—two women of Scottish ancestry married to two Krauts.

Above: Jack with kilted guards at Edinburgh Castle. Left: Jack dressed for dinner after a day of grouse shooting in the Highlands. His guide—an old toothless Gillie dressed to the nines—walked his legs off. Women in the Highlands from barmaid to shepherdess looked like Sandy and Donna.

“Don’t lose us!” they begged their husbands.

HUNTING Left: Jack loved goose and duck hunting, especially with his golden retriever Charlie who could do blind retrieves following hand signals. When the chicken plucker in Stamford went out of business, the Mofflys used to pluck the birds at the kitchen table.

“If my mother could see me now,” Donna once commented, then managed to break their new Electrolux trying to vacuum up the down.

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MOROCCO & EGYPT Above: Jack riding high, a pleasure probably inherited from his mother, who embarrassed him in front of his Air Force buddies by climbing onto an elephant—in her skirt—at the St. Louis Zoo. Left: Going native in his galabaya for costume night on Sunboat III on the Nile. Machine guns with full magazines were mounted on the bow and stern, and a police boat ran alongside. Below: Comparing profiles with the Sphinx

ANTARCTIC Left: Jack (in bow) and Bill King go kayaking on a trip to the White Continent on the National Geographic ship Endeavor. One evening they were treated to the rare sight of orca whales training their young to hunt for dinner.

A seal was lying on an ice floe, and they watched these killer whales team up and make enough waves to rock it off the ice and into the water.

Then they threw the poor seal back onto the ice again for more practice.

BARBUDA Above: Treasure from the sea: a giant starfish Jack found while snorkeling at Coco Point Lodge in Barbuda. The little island off Antigua had boasted miles of the most pristine beach known to man; but, tragically, it took a direct hit from Hurricane Irma last fall and will take years to recover.

HOT WHEELS Left: Jack running off to a Governors’ meeting at the Riverside Yacht Club, where he was head of admissions for “too many years,” he said. Dubbed “the red tomato,” the Karmann-Ghia convertible with its Italian body and German engine was his favorite ride.

ON BULL BY BOB CAPAZZO

NASSAU Above: Jack trying on hats on his way to a week in Harbour Island with Jim and Nancy Vaughn and Barbara and Ding Koehler.

Turned out none of the gents were being paid —Jack was between jobs, Ding had just quit his and the execs at Pan Am, like Jim, weren’t paid while the workers were on strike. Plus Pan Am wasn’t flying and nobody could get home. So, after alerting their babysitters to the situation, they were forced to live it up longer at the Blue Ruin.

GREECE Left: Jack cozying up to a real grabber on a trip to the Greek Islands aboard the Argonaut in the seventies. Once known as the world’s largest private yacht, she had been owned by the Forstmanns of Greenwich and sometimes moored at Indian Harbor Yacht Club.

RIDING HIGH Above: An enthusiastic eighty-yearold Jack Moffly on a bucking bull at a benefit for Greenwich Riding and Trails, one of the myriad nonprofit events he attended each year. He loved every one of them and was usually the last to leave the party. »

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FA M I L Y F U N and GAMES

TOP ROW: (MIDDLE) BROOKE NEUMAN FOR GREENWICH POST, (RIGHT) THESHIPSPHOTOGRAPHER; MIDDLE: AMV PHOTOGRAPHY; BOTTOM ROW: (LEFT) FREUDY PHOTOS (MIDDLE AND RIGHT) BOB CAPAZZO

Top row: Editor-in-chief and publisher in their new office on Lewis Street; Donna and Jack cracking up while being roasted at Richards to raise funds for SoundWaters; Masquerade night mid-Atlantic on their way to England on the Queen Mary. Middle row: Everybody, fifteen strong, at the Basin Harbor Club in Vermont, now a twelve-year tradition every August.

Bottom row: Presenting daughter Audrey at the Junior League Cotillion in 1983; playing Titanic on Purple Tiger, which Jack was still sailing in his late eighties. The Moffly tribe, minus Maks and Tim who hadn’t been born yet, onboard his thirty-foot Nonsuch. The grandchildren kept careful track of whose turn it was for a sleepover.

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(TOP) JOHN FERRIS ROBBEN

Jack?” Audrey, a painter and the bohemian of the clan, continues, “Dad and I had such a cool connection. When he found out he had stomach cancer a few years ago, I said, ‘Dad, you can’t die.’ I’ll tell you why. Because he got me—he really got me.” She laughs. “And I’m not the easiest person to get.”

Cynthia Coulson, who knew Jack as a neighbor, friend, sailor and boss—she was a longtime editor at greenwich—observes that people tend to show their true colors on the water. “Jack was what we call a Corinthian sailor—eminently fair and noble.”

Bill King, an old friend and frequent sailing companion of Jack’s, says, “Neither Moff nor I was a Captain Bligh—and a lot of guys are Captain Blighs once they get on a boat. There’s bad language all over the place. I never heard Jack say a four-letter word, ever. Nor did I ever hear him take the good Lord’s name in vain. He was a pious man and a very, very straight fellow. Good sense of humor, though.”

Jonathan Moffly conjures boyhood memories of duck hunting with Jack among the islands off Riverside. “We’d get up at four in the morning and push off in a metal boat with Charlie, our golden retriever. We’d drop the decoys next to one of the islands, and dawn would come and the birds would start flying, and they’d check out our decoys. Then we’d shoot, and Charlie would run into the icy water and bring ’em back.” He pauses. “Those were really great adventures for me, there in the cold and dark in the middle of the night.”

Jack is best known for his terrestrial accomplishments. As publisher, he brought in color printing and new magazines, and steered the business through the reefs of the digital age and, with Jonathan ably at the helm, past the icebergs of the Great Recession. Last year the Greenwich Chamber of Commerce awarded Jack the Malcolm S. Pray Excellence in Business Award.

He was a lucid and witty writer. In his account of the North Atlantic voyage, Jack wrote of the solemn departure, “Liz [Hart, Bob’s wife] read a dockside prayer ‘For Persons Going To Sea,’ choked a little when she came to ‘raging sea,’ but managed to hyperventilate and finish.” Of their balky long-range radio: “All that could be coaxed from the radio’s myriad dials and channels was a voice that sounded like Donald Duck speaking in Spanish.” And of their poststorm repair activity—the sewing, the sawing and the chiseling: “It looked for all the world like arts and crafts day at the senior center.”

Crewmate Miles McDonald recalls that Jack managed to secure his favorite bunk, on the right-hand side of the forepeak, which offered maximum warmth and tranquility. As it happened, Jack thought the sea voyage would be an opportune time to quit smoking; but he still had half a pack left, and it would be a pity to waste it.

“After dinner, we went up to our bunks to go to bed, and he had to have a cigarette,” Miles says. “So he opens up the hatch—he didn’t want any smoke to come in, because Bob Hart would smell it contaminating his boat—and a large wave crashes in and soaks his cozy little rat’s nest, clothes, sleeping bag, cigarettes, everything.”

Still, it was as close to a civilized shower as any of the men would get in their nineteen days at sea. As they neared Cork, they could

smell the fragrant Irish pastures and bogs—whereupon Miles wondered aloud, “If we can smell Ireland from here, do you suppose they can smell us from there?”

But the writing: Jack’s Founder’s Page was a model of well-reasoned argument. Cynthia Coulson says, “He would make sense of the most complex issues, and he would expose phony and wrong-headed ideas, both in Greenwich and in Hartford.” He never used vitriol. Jonathan remembers a local candidate whom Jack privately thought “an imbecile,” yet sketched in the magazine with clever restraint—“but the nuance was there.” State Senator Scott Frantz, who grew up down the street from the Mofflys in Riverside and counted Jack as a lifelong friend, says, “He was very respectful of anyone with a different opinion—a rare quality now. He wrote intelligently and beautifully, and he documented everything he wrote extremely well.” »

GOING BACK, GOING BACK

…TO NASSAU HALL Top: Fall guy Jack Moffly, duded up in a Princeton sweater, feels the barbs of Victor Borge, legendary comic pianist, at the Harpoon Club dinner in 2000. Jack would become a part of the Dirty Eleven who picked the Fall Guy every year. Bottom: After graduating in 1949, Jack rarely missed returning to campus for a reunion P-rade, even after he and Donna ended up riding in an Old Guard golf cart.

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Jack read voraciously, especially about history and politics. Atop his nightstand at the time of his death were Ron Chernow’s biography Grant, oddly reflective of our own times, and Luke Harding’s Collusion: How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House. He was also a careful listener (all who knew him remember the hawkishly attentive eye), unless he forgot to change the batteries in his hearing aid, in which case he was sure to go along with your opinion.

Though a fiscal conservative and lifelong Republican, Jack prized integrity and decency above party creed. Thus he could write in

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praise of Democratic Senator Chris Murphy—“a talent more important than ever in today’s contentious climate”—and be “appalled

by Trump” (as Audrey noted), whose abrasive, anti-intellectual America was not Jack’s America.

––––––––––– Jack brushed past the insults of age as if they were minor irritants.

In 2005 he fit in trips to Antarctica and Barbuda before submitting to a long-scheduled angioplasty—which was followed promptly by an emergency triple bypass.

One day in his mid-eighties, Jack went sailing alone aboard his thirty-foot catboat Purple Tiger. The boat was puttering across Captain Harbor on automatic pilot when Jack went on deck and yanked a line that gave way, sending him back against the lifeline— which also gave way—and into the blue-gray chop. Making matters worse, the main sheet caught round his ankle. Consider the irony: a superb sailor on far-flung seas, nearly dragged to death feet-first by his own boat in his own puddle of water. If Jack hadn’t managed to pry off his shoe, Donna says, “It would have been curtains.” Like the Atlantic mishap, this one occurred in early July. “He had a thing for wedding anniversaries,” Miles McDonald observes.

Jack cracked his right hip in 2016 in Barbuda while helping pull a Sunfish into the waters for a race off Coco Point. “He was a real stoic about that,” says Bill King, who was with him. “He knew that if he went over to Antigua, the main island, and went to the emergency room and had an X-ray, they’d tell him, ‘You have a broken hip,’ and he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay and see all his friends.”

He fractured the hip again in 2017, this time in Florida, after rising too quickly from his sunny repose. He spent a couple of weeks rehabbing at Nathaniel Witherell, where, Donna says with a dash of moonlight in her voice, “Every night I smuggled in some shrimp and wine before dinner.”

Then there was the stomach cancer, vanquished with quiet resolve; but these battles had taken their toll. “God took him at the right time, period, end of report,” Donna says. “He’d struggled for so long.”

Audrey, who is open to the mysteries of the universe, says that after her father’s death, she picked up his sailing cap and jacket and detected his scent on them. Later, standing in her Weston living room, Jack’s scent coalesced wondrously beside her. “Dad’s here,” she said to her husband. What was he up to? “I think he was just hanging around to make sure we were all okay before moving on.”

In the final reckoning, Jonathan says, Jack lived exactly the life he was meant to live. “Isn’t it wonderful to take early retirement at age sixty, and end up doing what you love best? Jack never worked harder in his life. But he was out with people, talking about things, challenging them with ideas, having fun. When you enjoy something as much as he did, and as Donna does, it’s not hard work. It’s W love. It’s following your passion.”

(TOP) MELANI LUST; (MIDDLE L AND R) BOB CAPAZZO; (BOTTOM) MOFFLY MEDIA’S BIG PICTURE/KRISTIN BURKE HYNES

COMMUNITY LEADER Right: Jack at the podium at the Hyatt last May receiving the Malcolm S. Pray Excellence in Business Award.

“The biggest challenge,” he quipped, “was just getting up on stage.”; Jack parading down Greenwich Avenue in 2015 on the 375th anniversary of Greenwich. He is holding the 1947 cover of our predecessor, the Greenwich Social Review. Below: Jack celebrating the launch of Stamford magazine at the Loading Dock in 2009. The only dance he never mastered was the Charleston, but he could fake it. Bottom: Senator Richard Blumenthal (second from left), a loyal supporter of Moffly Media, with Jonathan, Jack and Donna at our Best of Greenwich event at the Delamar in 2016.

- OUR SPONSORS -

Shatterproof is incredibly grateful for the 2nd Annual Shatterproof Benefit at Richards We could not have achieved it without our co-chairs, Joanie Reznik & Megan Flanigan, our dedicated committee, benefit sponsors, & attendees. Thank you for your support.

- IN KIND GIFTS BY Bruce Plotkin Photography | The Restaurant at Rowayton Seafood | Dave Price - LIVE AUCTION ITEMS SUPPLIED BY Mitchells/Richards | Tauck Tours | The Ocean House The Late Show with Stephen Colbert | Gato | The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon | The Gansevoort Hotel The Standard Hotel | SOHO Grand Hotel | William Goldberg | Regency Limousine | Devon Woodhill JL Rocks | Movado Group Inc.,

Together we’re stronger than addiction.

Special gratitude to our honoree Larry Leeds

For more information, please visit shatterproof.org

chairman, buckingham capital management

r e m m u s ight to benefit PROJECT RETURN Homes With Hope invites you to

n

ON THE RIVER

TICKETS ON SALE NOW @ hwhct.org saturday, june 2nd • 7pm cocktails • standing dinner • dancing saugatuck rowing club • westport MAY/JUNE 2018 WESTPORT

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THE RIDGEFIELD PLAYHOUSE MOFFLY MEDIA

EVENING OF ART, WINE & JAZZ SERIES

Join us in the lobby for wine tasting by Pera Wines & an art exhibit!

JUNE

1 Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Opening Act: The Red Hots The incomparable kings of swing are back celebrating Louis Armstrong, Louis Jordan & Louis Prima!

JULY

26 Femi Kuti & The Positive Force

Thank you for making the Maritime Aquarium Gala a huge success!

Special Guests Jupiter & Okwess

AUGUST

16 Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox

30 th Anniversary Sponsors

Contemporary pop and rock hits with a vintage twist!

Nancy & Michael Herde Schuyler & Charlie Hinnant Newman’s Own Foundation Kit & Rob Rohn

ALSO COMING UP MAY

3 Ruben Studdard

Angelfish Sponsors

An Evening of Luther Vandross Always & Forever

Clay Fowler / Spinnaker Real Estate Partners Wendy & Richard Hokin Iris & Earl Mix

American Idol winner performs all of Luther’s hits!

4 Upright Citizens Brigade

Sea Turtle Sponsors

Ft. SNL’s Sasheer Zamata

Improv comedy from the troupe that launched Amy Poehler & more!

9 Roger McGuinn

Founding member of The Byrds

“Turn, Turn, Turn,” “Eight Miles High” & more!

Current Broadway stars singing Stevie Wonder’s greatest hits! Ft. Sydney Morton (Memphis), Corey Mach (Kinky Boots), Austin Owen (Jersey Boys) & more!

203.438.5795 • RIDGEFIELDPLAYHOUSE.ORG WESTPORTMAG.COM

A.P. Construction Company Bankwell The Burnham Family / Hotel Zero Degrees Carolyn & Lee Caney Fairfield County Bank Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd The Per and Astrid Heidenreich Family Foundation Kate & Jim Hurlock

Little Pub Basil Mavroleon Kathy & Russ Mitchell O&G Industries, Inc. Purdue Pharma LP The Rich Foundation R. D. Scinto Inc. Elora & David Sweedler

Additional Supporters

14 Broadway Sings Stevie Wonder

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Shipman & Goodwin LLP Trafigura Trading LLC Audrey & Ken Weil Louise & Michael Widland

Kim & Richard Alexander Sandy & David Austin Bank of America Chubb Group Ann & Sandy Davies Emmakate & Leonard DiNardo The Erdmann Family Ann & Frank Gilmartin

Holzner Electric Construction The Karp Family Nancy & Fred Lione Northeast Generator People’s United Insurance Agency Tina Pray & Joe Lockridge USI Insurance Services Melissa & Mark Wilkerson

*As of April 1, 2018

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2018

THURSDAY

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SAT JUN 23

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SUN JUN 24

RELAY/SPRINT/OLYMPIC TRIATHLON

Free and discounted registrations available. Register and learn more at www.KicItTriathlon.com. Money raised benefits Kids In Crisis, ensuring the well-being of children through vital 24-hour services, for 40 years.

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INDEX OF ADVERTISERS AUTOMOTIVE Land Rover Fairfield . . . . . . . Cover 4 Scap Chrysler Jeep . . . . . . . . . . 23

BUILDING & HOME IMPROVEMENT American Frameless . . . . . . . . . . 19 Austin Patterson Disston Architects . . . . . . . . . 44 California Closets . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Grand Entrance Gates . . . . . . . . . 47

BUSINESS & FINANCE Bankwell/Christopher Gruseke . . . 70 Cummings & Lockwood LLC . . . . . . 8 The Forte, Mason, D'Amico Group at Morgan Stanley . . . . . . . 68, 69 Georgette H. Geller, ChFC, CLU . . . 74 GuardHill Financial Corp./William P. Man & Michael Daversa . . . . . . 13 People's United Bank Wealth Management . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Navigators Stamford KIC/IT Races to Benefit Kids in Crisis/Swim Bike Run . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 New Canaan Nature Center Second Annual Lecture & Luncheon . . . 110 Rose of Hope Annual Luncheon to Benefit The Norma Pfriem Breast Center . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Shatterproof Thank You . . . . . . . 107 The Glass House Summer Party . . 62

FASHION Mitchells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2, 3 Nic + Zoe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

FOOD, CATERING & LODGING

Fairfield University . . . . . . . . . . . 10

55 Wine Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Cava Wine Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Harvest Wine Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Harvest Wine Bar/Nube Siguenza, Vicente Siguenza & Kleber Siguenza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Marcia Selden Catering & Events . . 45 Pink House Productions, LLC/ Susie Blumenfeld . . . . . . . . . . 77 Scena Wine Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Sundown Saloon . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

ENTERTAINMENT

HEALTH & BEAUTY

DECORATING & HOME FURNISHINGS M*R-HE Art Tectonics . . . . . . . . . 29

EDUCATION & CHILDREN

95.9, The Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 The Ridgefield Playhouse . . . . . . 108 Westport Country Playhouse . . . . 61

EVENTS 2018 Near & Far Aid Golf Classic . . 31 A-list Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 The Alzheimer's Association Connecticut Chapter Sixth Annual Celebrating Hope 2018 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Best of the Gold Coast . . . . . . . 109 Greenwich International Film Festival . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Homes With Hope Summer Night on the River . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Light a Fire 2018 . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 The Maritime Aquarium 30 Years Thank You . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Atria Senior Living . . . . . . . . . . . 33 The Dental Center of Westport/ Dr. Masha Kogan & Dr. Virginia Romano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Effi's Salon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Elite Health Services . . . . . . . . . . 37 Esthetic Dental Group of Westport/ Dr. Steven Regenstein . . . . . . . 79 Flora Levin MD, FACS . . . . . . . . . 72 The Greenwich Medical Skincare and Laser Spa/Marria Pooya . . . . . 78 Memorial Sloan Kettering Physicians at Norwalk Hospital . . . . . . . . . 9 Norwalk Hospital/Western Connecticut Health Network . . . 21 Rick Garcia Salon . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Westport Dermatology & Laser Center . . . . . . . . Cover 3 Whip Salon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

JEWELRY Lux Bond & Green . . . . . Cover 2, 1, 5

LANDSCAPING, NURSERY & FLORISTS Homefront Farmers . . . . . . . . . . 14

REAL ESTATE Christie's International Real Estate . 11 Higgins Group Private Brokerage . . 11 Michelle & Company/ William Raveis Real Estate . . . . 43 William Raveis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

SPORTS & FITNESS Orangetheory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Pure Barre Westport . . . . . . . . . . 76

WOMEN IN BUSINESS Alisa Bahl, PhD/OptumHealth . . . . 51 Darby Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Emilie Rubinfeld/ Carolina Herrera . . . . . . . . . . 50 Flavia Naslausky & Camilla Gazal/Zaniac . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Pullman & Comley, LLC . . . . . . . . 56 Rebecca Surran . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Sara Tucker & Sandra Greer/ First County Bank . . . . . . . . . . 57 Tracy Killoren Chadwell/ 1843 Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Yonni Wattenmaker/ Breast Cancer Alliance . . . . . . . 54

MISCELLANEOUS Westy Self Storage . . . . . . . . . . 47

PLAN AHEAD Teens to Watch

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER AD RESERVATION CLOSE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1

MAY/JUNE 2018 WESTPORT

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MAY/JUNE 2018

Francis of Assisi Church in Weston, runs from 5 to 9 p.m. and benefits Children’s Connection.

Tickets $115. weston womensleague.org.

Sat. 12

IF IT AIN’T BAROQUE

All Business May 16

Moffly Media’s Women in Business conference at the Greenwich Country Club starts with a welcome breakfast, followed by a variety of informative topic-specific sessions. Enjoy a luncheon and stay for the awards ceremony, hosted by Rebecca Surran of News 12. The keynote speaker is Emilie Rubinfeld, president of Carolina Herrera. Tickets start at $80. Visit ilovefc .com for more information.

MAY Thurs. 3

SMALL BITES

Westport has a plethora of culinary must-try experiences, and you can sample them many at Taste of Westport, benefitting CLASP Homes. Some of town’s favorite restaurants gather at The Westport Inn to present classic recipes and new dishes

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and drinks. 6 to 9:30 p.m. Tickets $75 in advance, $85 at the door. tasteofwestport .com.

Sat. 5

DERBY DAY

Join the Weston Women’s League as they celebrate the Kentucky Derby at their Day at the Races spring fundraiser. Sip a mint julep, show off your fancy hat and dance to live music.

The event, held at St.

Experience a masterwork of Baroque music as the Fairfield County Chorale presents Bach’s Mass in B Minor. The piece was one of Bach’s last compositions before his death and remains a favorite amongst music lovers. Concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets $30. fairfieldcountychorale .org.

Sat. 19

FEMME FATALE

Celebrate legendary female artists like Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keeffe at the Westport Arts Center’s Hall of Femme Gala, held at the Fairfield County Hunt Club. Enjoy dinner, dancing, cocktails and a live auction. Dinner tickets, $500; partyonly tickets, $250. westportartscenter.org.

Sun. 20

DOG-GONE IT

Show off your furry friends and enjoy some canine fun at the Westport Dog Festival, sponsored by the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., gather in Winslow Park for tail-wagging contests, obstacle courses and more. $10 per person, $25 for a family of four. westportchamber.com

Mon. 28

and dancing along the water at Project Return’s Summer Night on the River. The evening begins at 7 p.m. at the Saugatuck Rowing Club.

Attire is strictly summer white. More information at hwhct.org.

HONOR & PRIDE

On Memorial Day, join in a town tradition of honoring our fallen servicemen and women by showing up to the town parade. The route starts at Saugatuck Elementary School and travels up Riverside Avenue. The festivities start at 9 a.m., and head to Weston’s Memorial Day Fair if you’re feeling extra festive.

Wed. 6

ROSE OF HOPE

Tues. 29

MANIFEST DESTINY

Pearl Cleage’s play Flyin’ West, presented at the Westport Country Playhouse, chronicles the lives of a family of homesteading AfricanAmerican women on the frontier at the turn of the twentieth century.

Runs through Sat., June 16. Tickets start at $30.

Showtimes and more at westportplayhouse.org.

JUNE Fri. 1

KINGS OF SWING

The kings of swing, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, are back with a new album—and they’re ready to get you up out of your seat at the Ridgefield Playhouse.

The concert begins at 8 p.m. but arrive early for a complimentary wine tasting. Tickets $47.50. ridgefieldplayhouse.org.

Sat. 2

ON THE WATERFRONT

Enjoy cocktails, dinner,

You’ll be inspired by stories of strength and courage at Norma Pfriem Breast Center’s Rose of Hope Luncheon at the Fairfield County Hunt Club.

Jane Seymour is this year’s celebrity speaker, and Brendan Fletcher from The Voice will perform. Tickets $375.

For more information, go to foundation. bridgeporthospital.org.

Fri. 8

COMEDY OF ERRORS

In Shakespeare in Hollywood, the Bard’s fairies Oberon and Puck are dumped into the 1930s Golden Age, and laughs ensue. This mischievous romp of a play presented by the Westport Community Theatre through Sun., June 24. westportcommunitytheatre.com.

Sat. 9

SUMMER HOEDOWN

Enjoy a summer night of festivities at Ambler Farm’s Sunset Hoedown. Guests will be treated to a barbecue dinner by Barcelona, drinks, hayrides, dancing and other quintessential cookout activities. The night will be capped off with s’mores. Event lasts from 6 to 10 p.m. Tickets $100 members/$115

BY COLLEEN CROWLEY

nonmembers. amblerfarm.org.

Sun. 10

SECRET GARDEN

Embark on a self-guided tour of five unique home gardens around town on the Westport Historical Society’s Hidden Garden Tour. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., enjoy a day amongst roses, lilacs and more. Don’t miss the Garden Market at the Wheeler House lawn.

Tour tickets in advance $50 members/$60 nonmembers, $75 day of. westporthistory.org

Wed. 13 DRINK UP

Join Moffly Media at Stamford’s Best Bartender competition.

Sample some of the city’s best cocktails.

Mingle, enjoy the breeze off the water at Harbor Point and vote for your favorite concoction.

Starts at 6 p.m. Tickets $30 in advance, $35 at the door. Go to stamfordmag.com for more information.

Fri. 29

BACK TO BASICS

Get back in touch with community at Weston’s Lachat Town Farm’s opening Farmers’ Market. Socialize and buy fresh produce while enjoying live music, cooking demonstrations and specialty food trucks. Bring the kids for fun and educational children’s programs. The event runs from 4 to 8 p.m. on the last Friday of the month through October. lachattown farm.org. W

( for more fun events visit westportmag.com )

PHOTOGRAPH BY MELANI LUST

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