House and Studio Tour to Benefit Kent Memorial Library

The Kent Memorial Library will host its first annual tour of distinguished contemporary and historic houses on Saturday, June 15. This unusual hometown tour in one of northwest Connecticut's best-known small towns will take visitors to five historic and contemporary houses, as well as to the book-lined "ivory tower" of a much-published writer and to the working studio of one of the region's most sought-after contemporary sculptors.

Structures dating from as early as 1740 to as recent as 2001, and architectural conceits as fanciful as a live-in stone silo and a contemporary house built upon Renaissance design principals are just some of the delights offered. One house, a charming assemblage of 19th century barns, represents a particularly felicitous blend of antique and modern design nestled along a babbling brook in Kent’s historic Flanders district. Another house commands a prominence high atop Geer Mountain Valley with extraordinary western views reaching all the way to New York State; its beautifully finished oak flooring and massive beams were all harvested and milled right on the property, as were the stones that make up the many fireplaces and walls.

Still another unique residence, notable for its extensive and eclectic art collection as well as its soaring butterfly roofs, is situated in 60 acres of woods and mountain laurel; virtually every room overlooks the owners’ 7 10-acre pond, where wide-mouthed bass and beaver cavort. Other houses on the tour date their beginnings to a time before the American Revolution when founding families Spooner and Fuller first came to farm the Kent wilderness; each represents a beautiful example of ongoing adaptation to different families and times.

The self-guided tour will run from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance, or $25 on the day of the tour; catered picnic box lunches can be ordered ahead at $10 each. Tickets and lunches, along with maps and information of each of the sites, may be picked up on the day of the tour at the Community House on Kent's Main Street. All proceeds will go to support the operating budget of Kent Memorial Library. For more info call 860-927-4949.