Seth Low Pierrepont

Seth Low Pierrepont: 

The Man of the Park and Pond 

Seth Low Pierrepont gave much to Ridgefield during his lifetime and even more in his death. One of the town’s wealthiest citizens, he was also among the most generous, and the 314-acre Pierrepont State Park in north-central Ridgefield, part of his large estate, was his bequest. 

Mr. Pierrepont was born in 1884 in Brooklyn, N.Y., a nephew of New York mayor and Columbia University president Seth Low.  He was a Columbia graduate who was in the diplomatic service in Portugal, Italy, France, and Chile before becoming chief of the Latin-American Division of the U.S. State Department from 1911 until 1913. 

Mr. Pierrepont was on domestic duty in the Navy during World War I and, in 1921 and 1922, was assistant secretary general of the Washington Conference on Arms Limitations.

He retired from the diplomatic service in 1913 and came to Ridgefield that year, building Twixthills, his home on Barlow Mountain. He acquired various parcels of farmland, sometimes complete with houses which he provided for his employees, and assembled an estate of more than 600 acres. The property was so extensive that he hired his own private “police force” to patrol it. The house still stands off Old Barlow Mountain Road.

He quickly became active in local government, and represented Ridgefield in the General Assembly from 1921 to 1927, and there, helped create the Connecticut State Police Department. During World War II, he was chairman of the Connecticut Salvage Committee, which collected scrap for the war effort. 

In town, Mr. Pierrepont served on the Board of Finance from its establishment in 1921 until 1951, was a president of the Ridgefield Library, chaired the Ridgefield celebration of the Connecticut Tercentenary in 1936, was first president of the Silver Spring Country Club, and was a leader at St. Stephen’s Church.

It was at the church in 1915 that he figured in the resolution of a scandal: Cyrus A. Cornen Jr., the church’s treasurer, had pocketed some $13,000 — equivalent of more than $300,000 today — that was slated to pay contractors on the new St. Stephen’s Church. Pierrepont took over as parish treasurer and raised the money, probably much of his own, to cover the loss.  

Mr. Pierrepont also built what is today called Pierrepont Pond or Pierrepont Lake. He said in a letter to The Ridgefield Press in April 1938 that the lake was created from “an old impassable swamp” in which woods were cleared in 1936 and 1937 by “quite a number of men.” A. Bacchiochi and Sons built the dam, and it took about six months for the pond to fill up. Water went over the spillway for the first time on March 30, 1938.

“We are calling it Lake Naraneka after one of the Indian chiefs who signed the deed to the town of Ridgefield,” Pierrepont said. He never liked its being called Pierrepont.

In 1955, he reported that some years earlier, when he was having a small pond built near his home up on Old Barlow Mountain Road, the gardener came across a spoon-shaped piece of cedar, bearing marks of all the Indian signers of the deed, and probably used by them to drink spring water. This may have been Pierrepont’s inspiration for the name.

Mr. Pierrepont died in 1956 and is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.  He had hoped what’s now Twixt Hills subdivision would be added to the park after his death, but his widow, Nathalie Chauncey Pierrepont, sold the land to developer Jerry Tuccio instead. 

Charles Cobelle: 

Painting Joy and Happiness

Thousands of people enjoy the art of Charles Cobelle every day without going to a gallery or museum — his colorful murals of French scenes enliven the walls in buildings across the country, and even in ships that sail the seas.

And the scenes are always bright. “He didn’t want a rainy day — he only wanted happy days,” said a Pennsylvania art gallery owner.  “You’ll never see a rainy, dark day in any of his pieces.” 

Born Charles Edelman in Germany in 1902, Cobelle was trained as an architect at the University of Munich. He changed his name to simply “Cobelle” after moving to Paris where he

began studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. More important for his art, however, were the many hours he spent working privately with Marc Chagall and Raoul Dufy.

Even after moving to the United states in the late 1920s, his work was filled with Parisian street scenes, impressions of the Riviera, French race tracks, and casinos — but almost always, showing people having fun.

One writer described Cobelle’s work this way: “The subjects in Cobelle’s paintings were not

of actual locations or events, but they nevertheless convey the excitement of the places that they depict. This imagery, combined with a vibrant palette of expressive colors, creates a world full of verve and wit that effortlessly transcends reality.

“His paintings are characterized by thin, descriptive line-work over broad patches of bold color. First, Cobelle would map out a scene in blocks of bold, expressive color. Then, he would

define the imagery with spontaneous, fluid line work.

“Many of his paintings were painted on canvas with mixed media — oils, acrylics, tempera, conte crayon, ink, whatever was at hand.”

In the United States, Cobelle became a prolific and popular artist and muralist. His murals could be found throughout the country at such places as the Henry Ford Museum, the offices of

Neiman Marcus, Gimbels, and Bloomingdale’s, hotels like The Desert Inn in Las Vegas and Mark Hopkins in San Francisco, and the ships of Holland American Lines.

He also did murals for the 1939 World’s Fair. 

In Ridgefield, his murals can be found at Bernard’s Inn on West Lane and at Boehringer

Ingelheim’s headquarters.

Cobelle did commercial art for the likes of Milton Bradley, Helena Rubenstein, and American Artists Group Greeting Cards, and his paintings appeared on the covers of many

magazines, including Town and Country. He also did pottery designs for such companies as Midwinter Stylecraft, Universal Potteries and Homer Laughlin China.

Cobelle lived in Westport  before moving to Ridgefield where he lived for 32 years, first on

Barlow Mountain Road and then Seth Low Mountain Road .

In 1965, he lost most of his early work as well as records and correspondence when a fire destroyed his studio on Barlow Mountain Road.

Cobelle died in 1994 at the age of 92 and is buried in St. Mary Cemetery.

His love of color and bright city scenes live today in the paintings of his daughter, Christina “Tina” Cobelle-Sturges, who grew up in Ridgefield and whose oils and watercolors,  well-known on the regional art scene, were influenced by her father.

“As Cobelle’s child, I would see him constantly creating and painting everything that would bring joy and happiness to the world around him,” she once said. “The reason for Cobelle’s popular success is the joie de vivre that characterizes all of his work.”