Considering a Move to Simsbury?
This whirlwind guide is intended to familiarize potential new residents with just a few of the wonderful things Simsbury has to offer.
1820 House
The 1820 House is a converted mansion, containing a charming inn and the fine dining Soma Grille restaurant in downtown Simsbury. People assume the name salutes a very old construction date. However, the truth is more mundane. Long ago, when Motel 6 came out with its original six-dollar-per-night pricing, the owners of this inn figured they could charge 18 dollars a night, or 20 if the guest chose the free Belgian waffle package.
Bridge of Flowers
The Bridge of Flowers is a beautiful landmark in the center of town, a labor of love for many green-thumb volunteers and generous supporters. Many years ago, the bridge carried vehicular traffic. It was functionally replaced with a nearby modern structure when engineers realized that a bridge underpinned by only wooden rosebush trellises could not support two Chevy Suburbans carrying a U-12 travel hockey team. The lovely floral bridge is still open to pedestrians and squirrels.
Ethel Walker School
The Ethel Walker School is a great girls’ private school on Bushy Hill Road. The hill and the road still exist, but the bushes were sacrificed long ago to make room for the excellent equestrian program. The school is rumored to be named for the next-to-last Ethel in the United States. (The absolute last was Ethel Mertz of I Love Lucy fame.)
Farmington River
The Farmington River winds its way through much of Simsbury. It isn’t very wide or deep in most places. People visiting from St. Louis might scoff, “You call that a river? Now the mighty Mississippi is a real river!” If so, I suggest responding, “The Farmington provides plenty of activities that larger rivers do, such as fishing, kayaking, and basement flooding.”
Flamig Farm
Flamig Farm is a community-engaged, non-profit farm in West Simsbury. It is famous for its huge backwards EGGS sign. Supposedly, the sign’s unusual lettering was the outcome of a dispute over the town’s code restrictions on signage. Don’t be fooled by social media influencers who claim the backward lettering reflects the farm’s proprietary breed of chickens. These hens absolutely do not pop eggs out of their beaks. The farm also sells mulch in bulk, in case you suddenly need 147 yards to fend off a Japanese knotweed infestation.
Heublein Tower
The Heublein Tower is the most admired landmark in town, other than the Vicente Garcia bicycle sculpture near the Weatogue park-and-ride commuter lot. The tower sits atop Talcott Mountain, so a visit entails a rigorous trek up a steep hill, a long stroll near a sheer cliff face, and finally a challenging climb up the stairs of a 165-foot-tall tower. Or so I’m told. According to Wikipedia, the pronunciation of Heublein was changed to today’s HEW-blyne version by Johnny Carson during Tonight Show ads in the 1980s (you can look it up).
Iron Horse Boulevard playscape
This playscape is the latest and greatest such installation in town, just down the hill from downtown Simsbury. It boasts a wide array of very modern, very safe exercise equipment. Not present are the monkey bars, see-saws, and spinning wooden platforms with metal grip bars of yesteryear, all intended to accelerate the shedding of baby teeth. Local dentists now expect Simsbury’s children to retain their baby teeth well into their 30s, with orthodonture deferred until their 40s. What will become of the Tooth Fairy?
Neckers
Neckers is a brightly colored store at the far northern end of Hopmeadow Street near the Granby line. “Necking” in the 1950s was synonymous with what we call “making out” today. But if you go into Neckers expecting to see 83-year-old couples in the throes of passionate embrace, you will be sorely disappointed. This is actually a very nice, well-stocked toy store, where the customers and staff conduct themselves with appropriate decorum at all times. At least when I’ve been in there.
Pinchot Sycamore (PIN-show)
This centuries-old sycamore is the largest tree in the state, based on a waistline measurement first thing in the morning. It spreads its massive canopy near the northern end of Nod Road. The backstory: England established Connecticut as a colony in 1636. A few years later, the greedy royal governor decided to launch a fraudulent lottery called Pinch-o (“pinch” being British slang for petty theft). After 100 years with zero prize winners, the populace caught on and threatened to hang the current governor from the largest tree in the colony. The chastened governor refunded current ticketholders, and that tree became known as the Pinch-o Sycamore. To hide the scandal from impressionable schoolchildren, the tree was conveniently renamed the Pinchot Sycamore to honor Gifford Pinchot, a Simsbury-born, famous conservationist and, ironically, the future governor of Pennsylvania.
Red Stone Pub
The Red Stone is a friendly, authentic English-style pub in the center of town, and a hangout for Liverpool football fans. It hosts two weekly events. Tuesday evenings feature Team Trivia Night. Watch out for trick questions like “Which character in Game of Thrones never did anything disgusting?" Thursday evenings feature insult battles in the parking lot against Manchester United fans. “Your father drinks his Guinness on the rocks.”
Simsbury United Methodist Church (SUM)
SUM worships in a beautiful stone sanctuary in the heart of downtown. The congregation is known to be friendly, inclusive, and dedicated to a number of worthy missions. Methodists are also dedicated to eating and sharing food. Historians tell us that during pioneer times, Lutherans traveled west with covered wagons. Methodists traveled west with covered dishes.
Tariffville
Tariffville is a pleasant, cohesive village of friendly people in the northeastern part of Simsbury. It’s isolated by being perched on a hill, surrounded by woods and a river, and sheltered by low speed limits intolerable to the lead-foot residents of central and western Simsbury. Some Tariffville citizens have had it kind of rough lately. Say you’re cooking supper with the 6:00 news on in the background. You hear the syllables “tariff” out of the corner of one ear. You rush to the TV expecting that somebody has finally found that missing one-eyed cat posted on a Hayes Road telephone pole. But no such luck today, again.
Tariffville Gorge
The Tariffville Gorge sounds like an annual hot dog-eating contest, but it is actually a swift-flowing part of the Farmington River.
Tootin’ Hills School
Tootin’ Hills School in West Simsbury boasts the highest academic achievement of any school named Tootin’ Hills in the nation. The school is mellow about people who ignorantly replace the name’s apostrophe with a “g”. Whether this is a stroke of compassion is moot. A public school has to take everybody.
Town Highway Department
The Town of Simsbury has a highway department facility on Town Forest Road. Occasionally, the town holds a hazardous waste disposal day there. Residents create long lines as they wait to get rid of dead batteries, old paint cans, and other items that shouldn’t go in the regular garbage bins. This year, the process went much faster, as the town wisely opened a dedicated line just for contaminated sourdough starter cultures.
UConn Health Medical Services
UConn Health has consolidated a wide variety of services into beautiful modern quarters in downtown Simsbury. The location conveniently offers everything from internal medicine to cardiology to vascular surgery to laboratory services. Spend over $5,000 in any one year and UConn throws in free toe rotation.
Volunteer Fire Department Main Station
The Main Station downtown is the base for many brave and well-trained volunteers dedicated to protecting their neighbors. This modern structure and expansive parking lot allow drive-through capability for the big firetrucks. When duty suddenly calls, an aide slides open the drive-through window and passes hoses, helmets, boots, and Dalmatians to the firefighters in the truck being dispatched.
Weatogue (WEE-tog)
Weatogue, where I live, is a figment of the U.S. Postal Service’s imagination, found in the southeastern part of Simsbury. Nobody knows where the boundaries are. The name derives from the Algonquin word for “lawn sprinkler.” The beautiful charm of this neighborhood almost compensates for the extremely long red light at the intersection of Routes 10 and 44 in nearby Avon. News flash: The local bears have adjusted well to the recent change in garbage pickup day.
Westminster School
Westminster is a top-notch private boarding school just north of the center of town. Caution: Pronounce “Westminster” just once as a four-syllable word (Westminister), and your progeny for five generations will never get in.
-Bruce Hale