SHARON — The Sharon Housing Trust (SHT) has announced plans to build a new home. Trust President Melinda Sweet said it will be a 1,444-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom Cape-style house on two floors. There will be a garage, a walkout basement and a large rear deck overlooking the Twin Oaks field on Low Road.The house is expected to sell for between $150,000 and $175,000. The trust, which completed its first house in 2007, provides affordable home ownership for low- and middle-income Sharon residents.The trust is taking applications from qualified buyers before construction begins, so the buyer can have some input into the design and finishing of the home. And, Sweet said, “By contributing sweat equity toward the building of the house, it is possible the purchase price can be reduced.”The lowest level of the house will have a two-car garage and a basement. The main floor will have a living room, dining room, kitchen, combination full bath and laundry room with a shower and one bedroom. The top floor will have two bedrooms (one with a walk-in closet), plus a full bathroom with tub. The homesite is 4.14 acres; much of it is wetland, but it has been approved for development. And, as Sweet noted, with wetland there is less grass to mow and less snow to plow. The footprint of the house will be 34 feet wide by 24 feet deep.Homes built by the Sharon Housing Trust are available to families who live and/or work in Sharon, with household incomes from about $70,000 to $100,000, depending on household size. Families must also be eligible to obtain a mortgage from the Connecticut Household Finance Authority.“This is a great opportunity to purchase an affordable house,” Sweet said. “It’s a perfect confluence of low price, low interest rates, available grant money, a spectacular site and lovely home design. Financial and real estate experts agree that this is a unique time for home buyers. They also agree that this will not be the case in five years.”The homeowner owns the house itself; the Housing Trust owns the underlying land. The house can be sold at a future date to an income-qualified buyer or left to the owner’s heirs. The house design is by trust board member David Moore.“The future sale price can reflect the original purchase price plus authorized improvements and cumulative inceases in the consumer price index,” Sweet said.Sweet said applications forms are now available at www.sharonhousingtrust.org, or by calling Sue Cummings at 860-364-0276 or Sharon Tingley at 860-364-5321.For general information about the Sharon Housing Trust, call Sweet at 860-364-0028 or email sweetheld@mindspiring.com. Donations are being sought for a $50,000 challenge grant. Send them to the Sharon Housing Trust, PO Box 1168, Sharon, CT 06069.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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