Greenfield Hill is an affluent historic neighborhood in

Fairfield, Connecticut Fairfield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It borders the city of Bridgeport and towns of Trumbull, Easton, Weston, and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. Located within the New York metropolitan ar ...

roughly bounded by Easton to the North, southern Burr Street/northern Black Rock Turnpike to the East, and Southport and Westport to the South and West respectively. The core of the neighborhood is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

(NRHP) as the

Greenfield Hill Historic District The Greenfield Hill Historic District encompasses the historic village area of the village of Greenfield Hill in northern Fairfield, Connecticut. The area was important from the mid-18th to 19th centuries as an intellectual center in the town, ...

. Locally, Greenfield Hill is known for its Dogwood Festival, which celebrates a variety of tree that abounds in the neighborhood. The most famous and perhaps the most picturesque landmark is the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church, which presides over a classic New England

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...

Timothy Dwight IV Timothy Dwight (May 14, 1752January 11, 1817) was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He was the eighth president of Yale College (1795–1817). Early life Timothy Dwight was born May 14, 17 ...

, best known as a president of

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

(and the namesake of one of its residential colleges) was pastor of Greenfield Hill Congregational Church for many years. According to local lore, he was hired by Yale to thwart plans for a rival educational institution in Fairfield. Besides Dwight, famous residents of Greenfield Hill have included

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the lit ...

, the author of ''All the King's Men'', composer and conductor

Leonard Bernstein Leonard Bernstein ( ; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first America ...

and

John Hershey John Richard Hersey (June 17, 1914 – March 24, 1993) was an American writer and journalist. He is considered one of the earliest practitioners of the so-called New Journalism, in which storytelling techniques of fiction are adapted to n ...

, the author of "A Bell for Adano". Several officers of the

AIG Financial Products AIG Financial Products Corporation (AIGFP) is a subsidiary of the American International Group, headquartered in New York, New York, with major operations in London. The collapse of AIG Financial Products, headquartered in Wilton, Connecticut, is co ...

unit live in Greenfield Hill and their homes were scenes of protest at the time of a scandal concerning the payment of $165 million in bonuses to employees of that unit. With Fairfield's zoning ordinance regulating these properties to at least one acre in size, plus large overhanging trees and the historic Greenfield Hill Green, it is admired by many as a pleasant rural alternative to Connecticut's dense suburban design. Along with Sasco Hill and historic Southport, Greenfield Hill is considered one of the wealthiest areas in Fairfield, as well as Connecticut as a whol

References

External links

Greenfield Hill Village Improvement Society

Fairfield, Connecticut Neighborhoods in Connecticut Populated places in Fairfield County, Connecticut {{connecticut-geo-stub