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Latest Construction Photos of the New Y at Mahackeno

Thursday, May 16, 2013 by:Family Y
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Much has changed at the Westport Weston Family Y’s 32-acre Mahackeno campus just north of downtown since Feb. 5, when our Y’s volunteer leaders, staff and construction partners were joined by dozens of Y members and supporters to celebrate the official groundbreaking ceremony for the 54,000 sq. ft. facility that, come late 2014, will serve as the Family Y’s new home.

A chilling breeze through bare trees has been replaced by the warm winds of spring that ripple through the light green of new leaves. Two-story high piles of topsoil, wood chips, and dirt and gravel have grown, shrunk, moved around as heavy-duty machines do the work of sorting and sifting and screening and crushing their way through some 7,300 cubic yards of material.

A view of the southeast corner of the new Y; to the far left and rear is where the Wellness Center will be situated.

A view of the southeast corner of the new Y; to the far left and rear is where the Wellness Center will be situated.

The sloping hillside within which our new Y will be located has been dug out, sculpted and shaped. Thick walls of concrete are rising from the ground, released from their scaffolded forms. A sky-high crane lifts the forms and sets them down again, as workers fashion their bracework of rebar to be encased by yet more wet cement poured from the heavy spindles of the cement trucks.

Three months into the building project directed by Turner Construction, work on our new Y proceeds, its pace quickening as the work list expands. Progress continues every work day; safely, ahead of schedule, and (we’re happy to report) currently under budget.

Some key dates ahead: The masonry that will enclose the exterior walls will be added starting around June 7. A week or so later, around June 16, the steel girders that will form our new, two-level Y will begin to be erected by two very large cranes.

From an overlook along Allen Raymond Lane on the north side of the building site, visitors on our weekly guided tours are now able to truly “imagine the possibilities” — See that crane over there? It’s in the shallow end of our 10-lane lap pool…  See those workers? They’re setting rebar under where Y members and guests will enter the main lobby… See that low wall jutting outward toward the brook, then along it, then back again, like a giant-size bay window? The bare dirt that bay window now encloses will, come late next year, be the carpeted floor of our beautiful new Wellness Center, with its picturesque views of the brook…

Click through the photo gallery above to see more photos, taken Monday, May 13, and read the captions for more details. To see renderings of the interior spaces, please click here for a pdf of images.

Or see for yourself by signing up for a tour, held each Wednesday at 12:15 pm. Groups are limited to 10 people; contact Susie Haydon at shaydon@westporty.org or 203-226-8981, ext. 106. To find out more about Building What Matters, our campaign to fully fund and construct a modern and sustainable new Family Y, please click here.

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To view a brief video about our campaign for a new Y, including an animated, virtual tour of what the inside will look like, please click on the image below.

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Visit the New Y’s Building Site

Monday, May 13, 2013 by:Family Y
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On the right, the eastern wall of the new Y. Just inside it will be the new family/teaching/therapeutic pool. To the left and beyond, the Saugatuck River as it flows into Lees Pond.

On the right, the eastern wall of the new Y. Just inside it will be the new family/teaching/therapeutic pool. To the left and beyond, the Saugatuck River as it flows into Lees Pond.

See for yourself what we’re building … and why it matters at the Family Y’s 32-acre Mahackeno campus, at Route 33 and the Merritt Parkway just north of downtown Westport. We know you’ll be impressed by the work under way in bringing our new Y facility out of the ground — and inspired by what will soon be a new center of community life and activity for the whole family.

The Family Y is conducting tours of the construction site each Wednesday at 12:15 pm. Groups are limited to 10 people per day, so reserve your place by contacting Susie Haydon at shyadon@westporty.org or 203-226-8981, ext. 106. To access the site, turn off Route 33 (Wilton Road) at the Red Barn restaurant and park at the construction trailer.

In the one-hour tour, you’ll get the latest updates about the work in process from our partners at Turner Construction on a short walk from the main trailer down the pavement of Allen Raymond Lane to a spot overlooking the busy site. Workers are now finishing the foundation and preparing to erect the steel frame of our modern new home.

See where the 10-lane lap pool will be, imagine the views of the Saugatuck River and Lees Pond looking out from the Wellness Center, and visualize how convenient it will be to drive up to our new Y to drop off your kids or park and walk inside for your own workout.

Beyond the scenic little valley that Poplar Plains Brook babbles through, you’ll look out over the rest of the wooded property, to where Mahackeno campers will play in the summer and where Y members can stroll and exercise throughout the year. Seeing is believing!

Picture Mosaic promo poster May 2013 crop webFor more information about how to make a tax-deductible donation or multi-year pledge to help fully fund the new Westport Weston Family Y, please contact Paul Bernetsky, Chief Development Officer, at ext. 115 or pbernetsky@westporty.org.

The Family Y also has launched a new, community-wide fundraising effort called “Picture Yourself at the New Family Y” — instead of the traditional “buy a brick” campaign, we’re creating a large picture mosaic composed of thousands of individual photos of Y members and supporters, which will be permanently displayed in the lobby of our new Y.

To find out more about this innovative, interactive project, visit www.pictureyournewY.org.

Diving Deeper Into Lees Pond History

Tuesday, April 30, 2013 by:Family Y
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Here’s some interesting “who knew?” history about the Westport Weston Family Y and our local community that was recently brought to light first by local historian Brian O’Leary and then expanded upon by Dan Woog and some insightful “alert readers” of his always informative 06880 blog.

The larger subject is the 150th anniversary of key Civil War battles, and Westporters’ involvement in the conflict. That story is intertwined, so to speak, with the history of a prominent local family, the Lees, who founded what is believed to be the oldest twine-making concern in the United States.

Lees Dam on the Saugatuck, just upstream from downtown Westport.

Lees Dam on the Saugatuck, just upstream from downtown Westport.

The Y connection to all this? The Family Y is the owner of Lees Pond and the dam that forms it, a 200-ft. long, 17-ft. high stone masonry structure spanning the Saugatuck River. The dam is just downstream from the Y’s Mahackeno campus, site of the new Y now under construction and home of the Y’s summer day camp, Camp Mahackeno.

Summer campers have been enjoying the 8-acre Lees Pond since the early 1940s, when the Bedford family helped buy the 32-acre Mahackeno property for the Y and its members.

According to research compiled by town historian Allen Raymond, the Y was deeded the dam and the eight acres of Lees Pond in 1975. The current dam dates to 1903, to impound Lees Pond for water supply for a downstream mill. In 1959 sluice gates were installed and the pond was made deeper. In 1961, a fish ladder was constructed by the State of Connecticut.

By the 1980s, the Corps of Engineers inspected the dam and noted a number of concerns, which led the Family Y to obtain a Dam Restoration permit from the state in the early 1990s and to set about raising sufficient funds for its repairs. That process took nearly another decade, but by 2001, the repairs were complete and a ceremony of dedication on October 10 of that year.

While the Y is regarded as the owner of Lees Pond Dam, the local citizens that originally deeded the dam to the Y — Nat Greenberg and Leo Nevas and their trustees, own the rip-rapping and concrete apron, downstream of the south face of the dam. (JoAnn Nevas Price owns the property over which the State Right of Way is secured.)

Long story short(er): The Y ended up paying the cost of the repairs, which were estimated to be nearly $130,000.

Of course, the steady flows of the Saugatuck River have been used to supply power to early industrial factories since 1815, when Lewis Raymond and David Richmond erected an eight-foot tall dam to help turn out cotton yarn. The complex of factory buildings, workers cottages and the owner’s house came to be called Richmondville.

The first dam faltered in 1842, wrote Allen Raymond in a history of Lees Pond Dam, and the factories sat unused until 1844, when John Lees and John Dryden restored the dam and property to establish Lees Manufacturing, which made cording, threads, wicks and twine from southern cotton.

Mahackeno campers at play in the waters of Lees Pond.

Mahackeno campers at play in the waters of Lees Pond.

The company continued long after electricity replaced water power, and management passed from son (Thomas) to son (Robert) to John A. Lees. The mill operation closed in the 1950s, leaving this bucolic part of Westport to neighboring homeowners, summer campers, fishermen and, in cold winters past, ice skaters.

As Dan Woog writes in 06880:

Dale Call’s day job is Westport Chief of Police.

In his spare time, he does detective work — on Westport’s history.

Following up on yesterday’s post, referencing the Lees’ twine manufacturing company — and Mary Palmieri Gai’s additional comments, remembering Lees’ Richmondville mill and surrounding real estate — Dale writes that the Leeses were “a fairly large family, and pretty prominent Westporters back in the day.”

They began selling their significant landholdings in the 1920s — but the name survives, thanks to Lees Pond, Lees Dam and Lees Lane, all in the Richmondville area.

And this from Commenter Mary Palmieri Gai:

My parents both works for Mr. Lees making twine in the early 1930s when they came to Westport from Italy. I was surprised to learn not long ago that the last name is Lees not Lee. That whole area of Richmondville Ave was built around the mill which must have been owned by someone else before Lees because my parents remembered him and his daughter who lived a very long life. My cousins own the original Lees mansion (small by today’s standards) where my parents and later my grandparents rented apartments from my uncle. One of my brothers was actually born in that house and my Grandma, who refused to learn one word of English, lived there until she died in 1969. Saugatuck wasn’t the only Italian enclave in Westport. The entire road and surrounding roads on and off main street were all my paisans and I venture to guess most worked for Mr. Lees at one time.

On the right, the eastern wall of the new Y. Just inside it will be the new family/teaching/therapeutic pool. To the left and beyond, the Saugatuck River as it flows into Lees Pond.

On the right, the eastern wall of the new Y. Just inside it will be the new family/teaching/therapeutic pool. To the left and beyond, the Saugatuck River as it flows into Lees Pond.

Amazing to think of all the changes that have happened — and are now happening — to this delightful stretch of scenic waterway. Soon a new facility will rise on the far shore of Lees Dam, and come next year, Mahackeno campers will be back in their canoes on Lees Pond, enjoying another fun-filled summer.

To quote another onetime Westporter, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

With construction of the new Y under way, this summer Mahackeno campers will be part of a joint summer camp, conducted by the Y and Earthplace and hosted at Earthplace’s 62-acre nature sanctuary just aways from Mahackeno on 10 Woodside Lane.

For more information about Earthplace-Mahackeno Summer Camp 2013, please click here.

To learn more about the Family Y’s Building What Matters campaign to fund and construct a new facility at Mahackeno, click here.

Latest Photos from Mahackeno of the New Family Y

Thursday, April 25, 2013 by:Family Y
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Work on our modern new Y facility for the Westport and Weston communities continues safely and ahead of schedule. Most of the photos you see above were taken on Wednesday, Apr. 24, during the weekly group tour of the building site.
Our partners at Turner Construction report that nearly half of the concrete “footing” has been set, with some 15 percent of the foundation walls now in place. More than 8,000 tons of material have been processed onsite. Not only does this minimize the amount of truck traffic to and from the site; it’s also resulted in a savings of $150,000 — money that will be well spent adding additional features and amenities to our new home!
To reserve your spot in one of our guided tours each Wednesday at 12:15 pm, please email Susie Haydon at shaydon@westporty.org.
For more information about the Westport Weston Family Y’s Building What Matters campaign to fund and construct a new home for the Family Y on its 32-acre Mahackeno campus, please click here.
The new Family Y. In this view, looking north from Poplar Plains Brook, the crane is situated on about where the surface of our 10-lane lap pool will be. In the foreground will be the Wellness Center, which will have beautiful views of the Saugatuck River.

The new Family Y. In this view, looking north from Poplar Plains Brook, the crane is situated on about where the surface of our 10-lane lap pool will be. In the foreground will be the Wellness Center, which will have beautiful views of the Saugatuck River.

Fitness ‘Boot Camp’ for Families and More at Healthy Kids Day, Saturday, 9-12

Wednesday, April 24, 2013 by:Family Y
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Adventure Gym in the Y's Gymnastic Center is a popular activity on Healthy Kids Day.

Adventure Gym in the Y’s Gymnastic Center is a popular activity on Healthy Kids Day.

Midge’s Membership Blog:

Although my children are now older “kids” (ages 17 and 21 ), they still think like younger kids when it comes to eating healthy – basically “healthy foods” are synonymous with yucky foods; good nutrition is boring.  cheeseburgers and french fries are yummy, broccoli and veggie snacks are not.  The same is true with so-called “healthy activities” that pale in comparison with more daring and perhaps unsafe activities.  Ask any eight-year-old boy if he’d rather learn to swim a butterfly stroke or skateboard down a huge hill and you’ll probably get the answer that would require a safety net.

We are hoping to change this perception on Healthy Kids Day at the Y – Saturday, April 27, from 9 am – 12 noon. Our annual free community event encourages kids in Westport, Weston and surrounding areas to get moving and learning, and families living healthier. Healthy Kids Day, the Y’s national initiative to improve families’ health and well-being, takes place at 1,900 Ys and kick-starts healthier behaviors now and throughout the summer, a critical out-of-school time for children’s health.

Many U.S. children do not get the daily recommended hours of physical activity and reading, and daily amounts of healthy foods. According to the latest findings of the YMCA’s Family Health Snapshot – a survey of parents that gauges their children’s activity levels during the school year – only 19 percent of children get 60 minutes of physical activity, only 17 percent read books for fun, and only 12 percent eat at least eight fruits and vegetables daily.

HKD Flyer for classes 2013We will have a number of activities for children to participate in, from Adventure Gym for toddlers in our Gymnastics Center to a terrific Family Boot Camp class for older children.  While your six-year-old is having her face painted, your three-year-old can get a tour of a Westport fire truck or EMS ambulance van.  We will have everything from water safety class to learning how to plant seeds and garden in conjunction with Earthplace, our summer-camp partner.  Play ring toss and basketball; learn all about what to expect with your child’s first dental exam; explore different ways to be energy efficient with New England Smart Energy and enjoy healthy, non-boring snacks from Whole Foods. (Click on the flyer at right for the complete list of activities and the times they take place.)

Parents, while your children are having a good time, you can talk to NY Life Child about making sure your precious cargo is ID’d in their database.

We will also have streaming photos and pamphlets about our new Y facility that is being built now at our Mahackeno campus, and we will be happy to answer any questions you have about Building What Matters, our campaign to fully finance our modern new home.  This would be a great time to talk to us about including a photo of your family in our photo mosaic that will be on permanent display in the new Y.

Looking forward to seeing you at the Y on Saturday morning! For a glimpse at what’s in store, take a look at the photo gallery below from last year’s Healthy Kids Day…

“First Pour” at Mahackeno — Laying the Foundation of Our New Y (video, photos)

Friday, April 5, 2013 by:Family Y
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Leaders from the Y’s volunteer governing boards, staff and construction partners gathered at the Y’s Mahackeno campus on Friday, Apr. 5, to witness a milestone achievement in the construction of the new Y facility. Shortly after 10 am, the first cement truck arrived at the building site to pour concrete for the foundation of the 54,000 sq. ft. facility soon to rise from its scenic setting overlooking the Saugatuck River as it flows into Lees Pond, just north of downtown Westport.

As the first cement truck delivers its load of concrete, a second arrives to continue pouring the foundation of the new Family Y.

“This has been a very long saga of a wonderful vision and the striving to attain that vision,” said Steve Halstead, a member of the Y’s Construction Committee, the group of community volunteers who are helping guide the construction a modern new home for the Westport Weston Family Y at the Y’s 32-acre Mahackeno property, longtime home of its summer day camp.

“Here we are, on April 5, 2013, 10-plus years on our campaign to build what matters, and we are finally seeing this building coming out of the ground,” said Halstead, a veteran volunteer for a number of community building projects, including Bedford Middle School and the rebuilding of Staples High School.

“This is a real milestone — the real beginning of the fruition of the vision of our Family Y for the next 50, 100 years,” added a beaming Halstead (see below for video).

That future began today, Friday, April 5, 2013, with the first “100 yards” of concrete being poured to form the foundation of the new Westport Weston Family Y.

Since site preparation work began in late January, the building site has been transformed. Work crews first cleared the 6-acre building site of trees and brush. As excavation of the foundation has proceeded, the site has effectively become a materials processing “factory” in which excavated material is turned into separate piles of topsoil, crushed rock and other materials to be re-used on-site. The creation of what Turner Construction calls a “balanced site” means that truck traffic leaving and entering the site is limited, minimizing the impact to local roads.

Foundation work will continue over the coming weeks, after which the steel framework for the full-service Y facility will be erected.

Further details about the construction project and capital campaign to fund it may be found at www.westporty.org. The new Y is scheduled to open in November 2014.

Getting Ready for the ‘Big Pour’ at Mahackeno

Monday, April 1, 2013 by:Family Y
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The work crews at Mahackeno are mobilizing this week on a construction milestone for our new Y: The first pour of concrete for the foundation of the 54,000 sq. ft. facility. We’ll have a further update later in the week about the continuing progress to build what matters: a modern and sustainable new home for the Westport Weston Family Y.

In the meantime, here are the latest photos from the building site, taken last Friday and Monday, Apr. 1. For more information, please visit www.westporty.org.

Guided Tours of the New Y Building Site at Mahackeno

Monday, March 25, 2013 by:Family Y
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Dan Drake of Turner Construction describes the work under way on the new Y at Mahackeno.

Though the weather could have been a touch warmer for the first weekend of spring, the timing couldn’t have been better: A day after the Westport Weston Family Y announced the receipt of two $1 million gifts to its Building What Matters capital campaign, Y board member Rob Bowman and his wife, Jennifer, hosted a large group of neighbors and friends on a guided tour of the new Y’s building site at Mahackeno.

Fresh hot coffee and all manner of doughnuts and pastries took the edge off the Saturday morning chill, as the group was treated to an informative overview by Dan Drake, site supervisor for Turner Construction Co., and his colleague Chad McCullough.

After a quick visit inside the construction trailer (and a close-up look of some of the phone-book thick sheaves of oversize architectural drawings and plans that guide the construction process), Drake described how the work crews have created what amounts to an on-site “factory” that turns the excavated material into topsoil, fill and crushed rock to be re-used later in the building process.

Hard to tell who was more in awe of the mega-sized machines stationed across the site — the kids or their “touch-a-truck” dads!

Capturing memories that will last a lifetime...

The site tour continued down “Allen Raymond Lane” to the overlook above the excavated hillside, from which our new Family Y will soon rise. Using floor plans and renderings of the new facility as guides, Drake helped the site visitors envision exactly where the new 10-lane pool will be located, and where basketballers of all ages will, come late 2014, be able to romp up and down the full-sized basketball court.

“We thank the Bowmans for bringing this group of families together, and our partners at Turner for helping make the experience a very informational and fun one,” said Family Y CEO Rob Reeves.

Guided tours of the building site are being conducted on Wednesdays at 12:15 on through the spring. To schedule a site visit, contact Susie Haydon at shaydon@westporty.org. For more information about the Y’s Building What Matters campaign, click here to visit the section about our new Y at www.westporty.org.

Enjoy these photos from Saturday’s group tour of Mahackeno:

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