
Julia Rogers of the Housatonic Valley Association recently gave a presentation to the Warren Land Trust on strategic land protection priorities.
Photo by Connie Manes
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series focusing on how land trusts in Northwest Connecticut are working in concert to tackle conservation challenges.
The nearly two dozen land trusts in rural Northwest Connecticut may be small, but they are mighty when it comes to collaborative conservation efforts.
A first-of-its-kind research project examining the pace and scale of conservation in the state’s Northwest Corner illustrates the extent of this collaboration.
Working with 19 land trusts, the Kent-based Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy (NCLC) has collected and documented data showing the total amount of land that has been conserved each year in the region over the past decade.
The publication’s findings, said Catherine Rawson, executive director of NCLC, will serve as a roadmap to future conservation efforts.
“It’s not every day that we release a publication that demonstrates that work. It’s a fantastic vantage point from which to look out into the future and gauge how much land we expect to protect by 2023.”
Northwest Connecticut, said Rawson, is the first and only region in the state to track and prepare data on the pace of its collective conservation efforts.
“We are grateful to work in this community of strong conservation partners. It is so exciting to share the collective summaries of the region’s land trusts and what they are all able to accomplish together,” said the NCLC executive director.
Tim Abbott, Housatonic Valley Association’s (HVA) regional conservation and Greenprint Collaborative director, said he views the new NCLC report, titled “The Pace and Scale of Conservation in Northwest Connecticut” as a much needed “call to action.’
“It’s sobering and inspiring,” said Abbott. “It supports data that is coming in from beyond our region. And that is that we need to be doing more and on a wider scale” to meet the pressures of the changing climate and adverse human impact on the environment.
“If we do it piecemeal,” he said,” that won’t be up to the scale of the threat. You need partners.”
Joining forces
Collaboration among state and Litchfield County land trusts, said those in the field, has gained momentum in the past decade.
In increasing numbers, land trusts have come to realize that partnering with other agencies or larger entities can allow for greater transaction expertise, increased funding opportunities, enhanced credibility, more organizational capacity, shared resources including staff and technology, cooperation on easement stewardships, positive publicity, and increased land protection overall.
“The addition of professional help for land trusts has been huge,” said Bart Jones, president of the 35-year-old Cornwall Conservation Trust, Inc. (CCT), who credited collaboration as a game-changer and said professional help “makes fundraising for conservation work critical.”
He noted that the trend away from all-volunteer land trusts started in earnest about 15 years ago through shared resources and resulted in a heightened level of professionalism and credibility.
“We couldn’t have acquired as much land as we have without it,” said Jones of his organization.
Accreditation, too, has upped the game for land trusts.
“The other thing that has shifted is the emphasis on land trust standards and practices,” said HVA’s Abbott. More than half of the state’s 30 or so accredited land trusts are in the Northwest Corner and belong to the Litchfield Hills Greenprint Collaborative.
“Northwest Connecticut land trusts have taken accreditation very seriously. It gives us a common language and helps us feel comfortable that we are all talking about the same things,” added Connie Manes, Greenprint director and executive director of the Kent Land Trust (KLT).
Regional partnerships
As land conservation becomes more urgent, complex and expensive, land trusts are being creative in expanding their leverage and capabilities by forging regional conservation partnerships with entities like the Cornwall-based HVA, Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy and others.
For instance, HVA’s Follow the Forest initiative unites land trusts and communities against the persistent threat of forest fragmentation. Important woodland species need room to roam, and unbroken stretches of forested land act as a “wildlife highway,” providing safe habitat and food.
“None of us lives in isolation, which is quite clear when you look at the extensive wildlife corridor of which we are smack in the middle,” noted KLT’s Manes.
“Animals and birds don’t stop at town lines and people don’t either,” said Manes, who owns a private equity consulting firm and chairs the Kent Conservation Commission.
Manes, like many other land trust members interviewed, wear several “hats” in their capacity as conservationists often serving on town land-use boards in addition to volunteering or directing at various nonprofit groups, or as private consultants.
Community outreach targets students
Maria Grace, executive director of the 300-member Sharon Land Trust (SLT), which boasts nine public preserves with 24 miles of hiking trails and includes Kent and Salisbury in its area of operation, stressed the importance of community outreach programs aimed at adults and children.
SLT is a partner of Follow the Forest, a regional initiative that seeks to protect and connect forests and promote the safe passage of wildlife throughout the Northeast, from the Hudson Valley to Canada.
Grace spoke enthusiastically about recent field trips and outdoor adventures held jointly with the Salisbury Association Land Trust (SALT) and HVA’s Paul Singer.
“We educate people about our forests and how they need to better connect them,” said the SLT executive director. Field trips with students include training on how to access connectors and collect data.
Strength in numbers
Land trusts are finding creative ways to support each other.
For example, Kent and Warren conservationists recently joined forces with the purchases of their adjoining preserves, Kent Land Trust’s East Kent Hamlet Nature Preserve and Warren Land Trust’s soon-to-be-open Cunningham Road Preserve.
SLT’s Grace pointed to the 52-acre Tory Hill property, near the Lakeville/Sharon border, as a prime example of successful collaboration with SALT.
Tory Hill was a joint project involving several landowners, the state of Connecticut, and others to preserve a prime scenic vista obscured by rampant spread of invasive plant species.
Working in tandem, the two land trusts collaborated, raised funds and closed on the open space, which is managed by the Salisbury Association.
Double protection on easements
Holding conservation easements on each other’s preserves is also a way land trusts join forces.
“Sometimes it’s desirable to have double protection on a property, where a land trust owns the property, and another land trust holds the conservation easement on it, so both are monitoring the property and making sure it stays preserved,” explained Shelley Harms, a private land consultant since 2014 who serves as executive director of both the Salisbury and Cornwall land trusts.
Harms also volunteers as co-president of the Norfolk Land Trust (NLT) and has assisted several other groups with acquisition grants and accreditation projects.
Speaking of collaboration, she said, “Norfolk Land Trust owns a property that Winchester Land Trust holds the easement on, and Norfolk Land Trust holds an easement on property owned by Colebrook Land Conservancy, also on property owned by Aton Forest, also on property owned by Great Mountain Forest.”
A regional organization like NCLC, Harms pointed out, also has capacity to work in a town where there isn’t a local land trust. She also credited NCLC for hosting Green Drinks, where land trust officials meet informally to discuss various topics, and by hosting the small area land trust meetings.
Shared mapping, monitoring systems
Several land trust leaders also pointed to NCLC’s technology assistance in the form of its shared LENS aerial photo monitoring system.
“Both HVA Greenprint and the Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy have been helpful to the smaller land trusts,” said Harms. “HVA has a terrific map person, Stacy Deming, who does our conservation maps.”
SLT’s Grace praised the value of a shared satellite monitoring system. “We have about 50 parcels, so it allows us greater flexibility,” particularly when it comes to annual inspections required under the accreditation process, she noted.
“We now have 11 land trusts who use our purchased satellite software to inspect their properties,” reported NCLC’s Rawson.
‘A tightly-knit, collegial group’
The sharing of staff is vital to success, said Manes. Land trusts share not only administrative staff, but also summer interns, bookkeepers, and AmeriCorps teams of service youth.
“We share information about what works in our organizations, examples of policies, procedures and grant applications. We co-sponsor trainings and public educational programs, and we conduct public outreach.”
At one point, she noted, HVA was sharing an administrative person with three different land trusts.
“It may seem byzantine when one first encounters the many organizations working in land conservation in New England, but the people, the countless impassioned volunteers and professionals who work on conservation in our region and throughout Connecticut are a tightly-knit, collegial group.
“We have a head start on collaborative efforts because the trust, relationships and infrastructure for collaboration are already here, built over decades to a place of great strength and opportunity.”
Coming up: Northwest Corner land trusts bear the burden of region’s conservation future.
Cornwall Conservation Trust
(860) 248-3255
cornwallconservationtrust.org
Housatonic Valley Association
Cornwall Bridge
(860) 672-6678
hvatoday.org
Kent Land Trust
(860) 488-9185
ketlandtrust.org
Norfolk Land Trust
(860) 307-8380
norfolklandtrust.org
Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy
Kent – (860) 927-1927
ctland.org
Salisbury Association Land Trust
(860) 435-0566
www.salisburyassociation.org/land-trust/
Sharon Land Trust
(860) 364-5137
www.sharonlandtrust.org
Paul Singer of the Housatonic Valley Association and Diane Fitzmeyer Murphy of the Salisbury Association guided children from Salisbury Central School on a field trip earlier this year focused on habitat connectivity and wildlife corridors. Photo Submitted
FALLS VILLAGE — Housatonic Valley Regional High School varsity baseball won big at home Wednesday, April 16, with a 15-3 win against Terryville High School.
Housatonic performed well on both sides of the ball. Offensively, HVRHS batters combined for 12 RBIs and seven stolen bases.
Defensively, the Mountaineers played a bullpen game and swapped pitchers at the top of each inning. Together. Wes Allyn, Carson Riva, Chris Race, Anthony Foley and Dan Moran threw seven strikeouts to win by mercy rule after five innings.
Anthony Foley logged 2 RBIs against Terryville April 16.Photo by Riley Klein
The game was played during spring break, resulting in limited rosters for both teams. Several HVRHS players went on the school trip to Europe and were touring Siena, Italy at game time.
Conditions back home in Falls Village were chilly. The sun peaked through for a moment or two, but otherwise it was overcast and 46 degrees with high winds.
Allyn pitched the first inning and held Terryville scoreless. In the bottom for the first, Foley singled and Race got walked before Hunter Conklin brought them both home on a 2 RBI double.
Carson Riva threw two strikeouts when he pitched the second inning against Terryville.Photo by Riley Klein
Riva pitched the second inning and let up one run. Offensively, HVRHS loaded the bases early in the bottom of the second and scored four runs before the inning was out.
Race brought the heat in the third inning and put the Terryville batters out in order. HVRHS did not score in the bottom of the third and score remained 6-1.
Foley pitched the fourth inning and threw two strikeouts. A series of errors in the infield loaded the bases, but Foley got out of the inning letting up just one run. HVRHS added to the scoreboard in the bottom of the inning with nine more runs.
Moran stepped to the mound for the fifth inning. One run scored, but a strikeout and two putouts ended the game by mercy rule —up by 10 or more after five innings.
From left, Wes Allyn, Anthony Foley and Dan Moran each pitched one inning in the 15-3 win April 16.Photo by Riley Klein
Offensively, Chris Race led HVRHS with 4 RBIs. Hunter Conklin, Aidan Miller, Logan Labshere and Anthony Foley each had 2 RBIs.
For Terryville, Aiden Legassey led the team on offense with 1 RBI. Jack Rioux batted 2-for-2 and Ethan Bilodeau hit 2-for-3.
Housatonic’s season record improved to 2-3 and Terryville moved to 1-3.
The Mountaineers play the next four games on the road before returning home May 1 at 4 p.m. for a non-league game against O’Brien Technical High School.
Hunter Conklin celebrates on second after hitting a 2 RBI double in the first inning.Photo by Riley Klein
Dancers from Pilobolus will perform at the NWCT Arts Council spring fundraiser on April 26 in Washington Depot, Conn.
On Saturday, April 26, the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council will host a special evening, Arts Connected, their spring fundraiser celebrating the power of creativity and community. Held at the Bryan Memorial Town Hall in Washington Depot from 5 to 8 p.m., this event brings together artists, performers, and neighbors for a magical night filled with inspiration, connection and joy.
Award-winning designer and arts advocate Diane von Furstenberg and her granddaughter Antonia Steinberg are honorary co-chairs of the event. Their shared love of the arts informs the spirit of the evening.
Antonia Steinberg, above, President of Bucks Rock Camp in New Milford that she first attended as a camper when she was ten years old. Antonia is co-chair, with her grandmother Diane Von Furstenberg of the NWCT Arts Council fundraiser.Provided
“As someone whose life was profoundly shaped by the arts — as a child at Buck’s Rock and now as President of its Board — I’ve seen firsthand the transformative power of the arts; how creative spaces can empower young people, build community, and nurture well-rounded problem solvers. That’s why I’m so honored to co-host the Northwest CT Arts Council Gala. Their work in supporting artists and cultural organizations across Connecticut is essential,” said Steinberg.
Von Furstenberg’s influence in fashion and culture, and Steinberg’s leadership at Buck’s Rock reflect the intergenerational impact of the arts,” said NWCT Arts Council board president Sunday Fisher. “Their participation underscores the power of creative expression as a defining force in our community.” Steinberg is the president of Buck’s Rock Camp, a non-profit performing and creative arts camp in New Milford that she first attended as a 10-year-old camper.
Diane Von Furstenberg, co-chair of NWCT Arts Council fundraiser.Provided
Steph Burr, executive director at NWCT Arts Council, added, “Events like Arts Connected are at the heart of what we do — bringing people together, lifting up artists, and reminding us of the essential role creativity plays in our lives. The Council works year-round to ensure the arts not only survive but thrive across our region.”
NWCT Arts Council is a nonprofit that serves as advocates for the arts. Through regranting efforts, public art support, legislative advocacy, and their regional events calendar, they work to ensure the arts are accessible and celebrated in every corner of their 25-town service area.
Burr continued, “The arts in Northwest Connecticut are vibrant, evolving, and deeply rooted in community. There’s a quiet but powerful creative pulse running through these hills — one that reflects the resilience, diversity, and passion of the people who call this region home. Over the past few years, artists and cultural organizations have navigated challenges with heart and determination, despite ongoing funding volatility. Through our advocacy and collaborative programming, we ensure the arts remain essential and accessible in our community.”
Highlights of the April 26 fundraiser include performances by Pilobolus, Sherman Chamber Ensemble, Ysanne Marshall & the Lotus Blues, hand pan musician Jeremy Driscoll, and a curated art exhibition, NW25 Gallery, featuring local artists. Sponsors Litchfield Distillery, Kent Falls Brewing Company, and Executive Cuisine catering will provide the food and drink.
Ticket prices are $125, open to guests 21 and older, available online at givebutter.com/artsconnected.For more information or to ask about sponsorship opportunities, email Katherine Pelletier at katherine@artsnwct.org or visit givebutter.com/artsconnectedsponsorship.
Arts Connected is made possible thanks to the generous support of sponsors; Antonia Steinberg is sponsoring all the artists for the event and Valiant Energy and Torrington Savings Bank are presenting the event.Additional sponsors include William Raveis Lifestyle Realty, Litchfield Magazine, Housatonic Heritage, Art Bank 7, Harney & Sons Teas, Aquarion Water, The Lost Fox Inn, George Home, NKYV Rituals, and Litchfield Distillery.
Lily Al-Nemri, founder and owner, and artistic director and painter Rudy Vavra at Tyte medispa and gallery in Millbrook.
The painter Rudy Vavra once created floor collages in Texas. You could, in theory, lie on them. Now, years later and much farther north, his work graces the walls of a medispa in Millbrook, New York where he also serves as the artistic director. You can still lie down, just not on the art. Instead, you might be undergoing an EmFace non-surgical facelift while surrounded by twenty-two of Vavra’s paintings.
The space, Tyte Medispa in Millbrook, is equal parts gallery and treatment center, the brainchild of Lily Al-Nemri, a medical aesthetician and now gallery owner. She also owns the nail salon, Bryte, down the street on Franklin Avenue. A few years ago, feeling she was outgrowing that space, she looked to expand and, just a few blocks away, found this rather sprawling maze of rooms with the gallery that now inhabits the grand central ballroom. “This used to be a gym,” she said. “It was way more than I was looking for, but I went for it.”
Vavra, a self-professed “painter’s painter,” has spent decades layering pigment in his barn-turned-studio in Milan, New York. “I find paintings as much as I make them,” he mused. “Some happen quickly, others are slow.” Of this latest collection, he said, “Some people call them busy. I think they’re slow.” His marks accumulate with a kind of devotional persistence, like petals left at a shrine. “A while ago, I saw a photographic image of a shrine,” Vavra said. “I don’t know if it was a Buddhist shrine or what, but there were colors on the ground all around it, and I realized they were the stains of flowers left in the worship. That’s very similar to the way I paint.”
The collection of paintings on view at Tyte — some as large as a shrine — are meditations on color, inviting the viewer to slow down. Or speed up. Whether viewers are activated or soothed by the images is neither Vavra’s intention nor within his control. Still, he said that watching people interact with the work has been a real treat. “Now that I have my paintings here, I get to see them all together,” he said. “It’s only when they’re all together that I see how they talk to each other. It’s interesting to see people come in and go to have a treatment and come out. It’s a very interesting connection.”
And what is the connection? What could be a disjointed pairing — aesthetics and aesthetic medicine — has become, improbably, a perfectly logical continuum. “They’re related in a sense,” Vavra said.
Aly Morrissey
Al-Nemri, a former radiologist who taught for over a decade at Westchester Community College, is no stranger to layering, precision, or the quiet rigor of care. Her incredible menu of services — Botox, body contouring, pelvic floor therapies — are the cutting edge of the industry. Of Vavra, Al-Nemri said, “I fell in love with his work, and we just hit it off.” It’s a kind of kismet that seems to hover over the place. Pilates mat classes take place twice a week in the main gallery space and both Al-Nemri and Vavra have loved watching clients pause, eyes caught by a stripe of cerulean or a vibrating cluster of brushstrokes. “Something will catch their eye,” said Vavra. “They’re looking for something in it.”
So, this gallery-meets-spa (or is it the other way around?) has plans. Vavra will be curating six shows a year. Laurie Adams’s photographs will be hung in June, a group show of local artists will share the space in July and August, and a Fall show will feature twenty women artists, which Vavra is eager to anchor with a piece by Judy Pfaff. “There’s nothing like this on this side of the county,” he said of the light drenched space. “It’s been a bit sleepier here. We want to wake it up.”
He means it kindly; sleep certainly has its place. But here in Millbrook, amid the low drone of machines designed to rejuvenate, something unexpected has emerged. Perhaps that’s what both Al-Nemri and Vavra are really after — not the quick fix or the final image, but the suspended moment, the long look. A face seen anew. A painting revealed slowly, in silence.
As for Vavra’s curatorial process? “I just unpack the paintings, lean them against the wall, and look,” he said. “Eighty percent of the time, they’re already where they’re supposed to be.”