Rowayton is an affluent coastal village in the city of

Norwalk, Connecticut , image_map = Fairfield County Connecticut incorporated and unincorporated areas Norwalk highlighted.svg , mapsize = 230px , map_caption = Location in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Fairfield County and ...

, roughly from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The community is governed by the Sixth Taxing District of Norwalk and has a number of active local associations, including the Civic Association, the Historical Society, the Rowayton Library, a Gardeners Club, and a Parents Exchange. Rowayton annually plays host to a

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

an production at Pinkney Park, produced by Shakespeare on the Sound, and also has an active community of artists, many of whom are associated with the Rowayton Arts Center. The Rowayton station on the New Haven line of the

Metro-North Railroad Metro-North Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a public authority of the U.S. state of New York and under contract with the Connectic ...

is located within the community, as is an elementary school, a public beach and the Rowayton Public Library.

Coastline

The Rowayton coastline has been a source of inspiration for centuries. John Frederick Kensett, a famous 19th century landscape painter of the Hudson School, frequently painted this seascape in his later life. This tradition has been carried on in an active local arts scene. Rowayton is home to a number of beaches, three of which—Roton Point, Bayley Beach, and a coastal enclave of Wee Burn Country Club—share a common history. In the early 20th century, the properties of all three made up the Roton Point Amusement Park. A boat landing attached to Sunset Rock, just to the West of Belle Island, allowed steam boats to bring day-trippers from New York City to the park. A trolley ran from both Darien and Norwalk, arriving at the Park via Highland Avenue and over present-day Langdon Preserve, located across from Farm Creek. At the amusement park, amenities included a bath house, a picnic grove, and rides ranging from the classic carousel to roller coasters with views of the beach.

"Rock Ledge" estate

The former ''Rock Ledge'' estate at 33 and 40-42 Highland Avenue was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. In 1910, James A. Farrell, later president of the United States Steel Corporation, built a

Tudor revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

mansion, which burned down in 1913 and was rebuilt in granite. The estate was later bought by the

Remington Rand Remington Rand was an early American business machine manufacturer, originally a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers. Formed in 1927 following a merger, Remington Rand w ...

Corporation, developers of the

UNIVAC UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...

computer, which merged with

Sperry Corporation Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Sperry ceased to exist in 1986 following a prolonged hostile takeover bid engineered by Burroug ...

to form Sperry Rand. Since 1966, the Farrell family stables have been converted to the Rowayton Community Center and the Rowayton Library. In 1964, part of the estate was purchased by the Thomas School for girls, a day and boarding school founded by Mabel Thomas in 1922.http://www.klht.org/podium/default.aspx?t=2124 King Low Heywood Thomas "History". Retrieved March 2012 The school later merged with other private schools in the area, eventually becoming

King Low Heywood Thomas King School, formerly King Low Heywood Thomas, is a private, co-educational day school for pre-kindergarten through grade 12 in Stamford, Connecticut. King attracts students from 30 towns in the Fairfield County, Connecticut, Dutchess County, New ...

in 1988. The school is now co-educational and located in

Stamford, Connecticut Stamford () is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut, outside of Manhattan. It is Connecticut's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport. With a population of 135,470, Stamford passed Hartford and New Haven in population as of the 202 ...

. The mansion and attached office building were previously owned by

Hewitt Associates Hewitt may refer to: Places ;United Kingdom * Hewitt (hill), Hills in England, Wales and Ireland over two thousand feet with a relative height of at least 30 metres ;United States * Hewitt, Minnesota, a city * Hewitt, Texas, a city * Hewitt, ...

. Currently, the main house of the estate is the headquarters of Graham Capital Management, L.P.

Notable people

Jerome Beatty Jr. Jerome M. Beatty Jr. (December 9, 1916 – July 31, 2002) was a twentieth-century American author of children's literature. He was also an accomplished feature writer for magazines. Beatty served in the United States Army, achieving the rank of ...

, author for the ''Saturday Review'', ''Colliers'', and ''Esquire'' *

David Bergamini David Howland Bergamini (11 October 1928 – 3 September 1983, in Tokyo) was an American author who wrote books on 20th-century history and popular science, notably mathematics. Bergamini was interned as an Allied civilian in a Japanese concentr ...

, author of Japan's Imperial Conspiracy and Time-Life Books * Richard Bissell, author of popular Broadway musicals *

Kay Boyle Kay Boyle (February 19, 1902 – December 27, 1992) was an American novelist, short story writer, educator, and political activist. She was a Guggenheim Fellow and O. Henry Award winner. Early years The granddaughter of a publisher, Boyle was ...

, novelist and short story author, taught at Thomas School on Bluff Avenue *

Philip Caputo Philip Caputo (born June 10, 1941) is an American author and journalist. He is best known for '' A Rumor of War'' (1977), a best-selling memoir of his experiences during the Vietnam War. Caputo has written 16 books, including two memoirs, five b ...

, author whose best-known work is '' A Rumor of War'' (1977) *

Brian Cashman Brian McGuire Cashman (born July 3, 1967) is an American baseball executive for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball. He has served as the General Manager and Senior Vice President of the Yankees since 1998. During Cashman's tenure as ge ...

, general manager of the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one ...

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, PBS executive *

Leslie Charleson Leslie Charleson (born February 22, 1945) is an American actress, best known for her role as Monica Quartermaine in the ABC daytime soap opera ''General Hospital''. Life and career Charleson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Actress Kate Charles ...

, TV actress *

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, writer and record producer *

Stanley Dance Stanley Frank Dance (15 September 1910, Braintree, Essex – 23 February 1999, Vista, California) was a British jazz writer, business manager, record producer, and historian of the Swing era. He was personally close to Duke Ellington over a lon ...

, writer and record producer, biographer of Duke Ellington * Brian de Regt, US National Team rower and coach *

Jimmy Ernst Hans-Ulrich Ernst (June 24, 1920 – February 6, 1984), known as Jimmy Ernst, was an American painter born in Germany. Early life Jimmy Ernst was born in 1920 in Cologne, Germany, the son of German Surrealist painter Max Ernst and Luise St ...

, artist and teacher *

Ian Falconer Ian Woodward Falconer (born August 25, 1959) is an American author and illustrator of children's books, and a designer of sets and costumes for the theater. He has created 30 covers for ''The New Yorker'' as well as other publications. Falconer wro ...

, children's book author, illustrator, and set/costume designer *

Jim Flora James Flora (January 25, 1914 ‒ July 9, 1998), best known for his distinctive and idiosyncratic album cover art for RCA Victor and Columbia Records during the 1940s and 1950s, was also a prolific commercial illustrator from the 1940s to the ...

, commercial illustrator *

Meg Foster Margaret Foster is an American film and television actress. Some of her many roles were in the 1979 TV miniseries version of ''The Scarlet Letter'', and the films ''Ticket to Heaven'', ''The Osterman Weekend'', and '' They Live''. Early years F ...

, actress *

Crockett Johnson Crockett Johnson (October 20, 1906 – July 11, 1975) was the pen name of the American cartoonist and children's book illustrator David Johnson Leisk. He is best known for the comic strip '' Barnaby'' (1942–1952) and the ''Harold'' series of boo ...

, cartoonist and creator of children's books (''

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'') * John Frederick Kensett, nineteenth-century artist * Ruth Krauss, author of children's books *

Emily Levine Emily Levine (October 20, 1944 – February 3, 2019) was an American humorist, writer, actress and public speaker who lectured on science and the human condition. Levine has been recognized as a philosopher comic. "In her celebrated career, Levin ...

, humorist *

Albert Markov Albert Markov (Russian: ''Альберт Александрович Марков''), is a Russian American violinist, composer, conductor, and pedagogue. He is the only concert violinist of the 20th and 21st century who composed major music wor ...

, violinist and composer *

Horace McMahon Horace McMahon (May 17, 1906 – August 17, 1971) was an American actor. He was one of Hollywood's favorite heavies. McMahon began his acting career on Broadway, then appeared in many films and television series. In 1962, he received a Pri ...

, actor and little league umpire *

Betsy Palmer Betsy Palmer (born Patricia Betsy Hrunek; November 1, 1926 – May 29, 2015) was an American actress, who was known as a regular supporting film and Broadway actress and television guest star, as a panelist on the game show ''I've Got a Secret' ...

, actress * Gabor Peterdi, artist *

Hal Prince Harold Smith Prince (born Harold Smith; January 30, 1928 – July 31, 2019), commonly known as Hal Prince, was an American theatre director and producer known for his work in musical theatre. One of the foremost figures in 20th century America ...

, Broadway producer of shows *

Andy Rooney Andrew Aitken Rooney (January 14, 1919 – November 4, 2011) was an American radio and television writer who was best known for his weekly broadcast "A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney", a part of the CBS News program ''60 Minutes'' from 1978 to 2011 ...

, author, humorist, television commentator * Emily Rooney, TV producer, journalist, and host *

Billy Rose Billy Rose (born William Samuel Rosenberg; September 6, 1899 – February 10, 1966) was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. For years both before and after World War II, Billy Rose was a major force in entertainment, with ...

, Ziegfeld impresario and theatrical showman, married to Fanny Brice *

Stefan Schnabel Stefan Artur Schnabel (February 2, 1912 – March 11, 1999) was a German-born American actor who worked in theatre, radio, films and television. After moving to the United States in 1937 he became one of the original members of Orson Welles's M ...

, Broadway (Plain and Fancy, Three Penny Opera, etc.), movie actor (Counterfit Traitor, Firefox, etc.)and Doctor Jackson on Guiding Light *

Treat Williams Richard Treat Williams (born December 1, 1951) is an American actor, writer and aviator who has appeared on film, stage and television in over 120 credits. He first became well known for his starring role in the 1979 musical film '' Hair'', and la ...

, movie actor, Prince of the City etc.

Gallery

File:NorwalkCTRowaytonAveInDowntownRowayton08132007.JPG, Rowayton Avenue File:PostcardMainStRowaytonNorwalkCT1906.jpg, "Main Street" (Rowayton Avenue), circa 1906 File:PostcardMethodistChurchRowaytonCT1917.jpg, Methodist Church, 1917 File:NorwalkCTRowaytonFiveMileRiver08112007.JPG, Riverfront, downtown Rowayton File:PostcardGroveRotonPtNorwalkCT1905.jpg, The Grove, Roton Point, 1905 postcard File:PostcardBelleIslandNorwalkCT1907.jpg, Belle Island, 1907 postcard File:PostcardRowaytonCTRockledge1919.jpg, Original Tudor look of the Rockledge Estate

References

External links

Civic AssociationHistorical SocietyRowayton LibraryRowayton Arts CenterShakespeare on the SoundRowayton School Sale of 40 Highland Avenue a.k.a. "Rock Ledge Estate"
{{authority control Geography of Norwalk, Connecticut Neighborhoods in Connecticut Populated coastal places in Connecticut