Where Fall is Blessed
The rural scenery and quaint villages of Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills are dressed and ready for the season.
Imagine a quintessential New England fall in which forests full of birches, oaks, maples and other trees become awash in brilliant colors. Colonial villages, connected to each other by curvy country roads, dot the landscape, and their town centers brim with history and attractions.
This is Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills, a region in the northwestern corner of the state known for its rural scenery. Exploring this area in autumn is a delight to the senses. With no particular agenda in mind, my husband, Paul, and I simply open our atlas or turn on the GPS and wander up and down the back roads. We’ve encountered babbling brooks, quiet ponds, hillsides of color and picturesque farms with well-kept barns and covered bridges. This is autumn in New England at its best—gorgeous and intimate.
SMALL-TOWN CHARM
Typical of New England, village greens, or town commons, are plentiful in the area, along with white-spired church steeples and colonial architecture going back at least 300 years.
Litchfield, incorporated in 1719, has a lot to offer visitors. Stroll along North and South streets and you’ll see stately homes that are National Historic Landmarks and buildings such as the Tapping Reeve House and Law School (the first law school in America). On Torrington Road, the crisp white facade of the First Congregational Church of Litchfield inspires visitors to pause and take a picture: It is one of the most photographed houses of worship in the region.
A little further southwest, Washington has three historic districts among the five villages of Marbledale, New Preston, Woodville, Washington and Washington Depot. Washington’s green is known for its 18th- and 19th-century Georgian and Greek Revival houses. The New Preston Hill National Historic District covers 210 acres, and its buildings give visitors a glimpse of daily life when Connecticut was a colony. The Calhoun Street-Ives Road Historic District in Washington is a nationally designated rural agricultural district, highlighting 18th- and 19th-century farms with houses, outbuildings, fields, orchards and the typical New England stone walls.
To the west of Litchfield, Kent has a quaint town center where you can peruse art galleries and shops, indulge your sweet tooth at Kent Coffee and Chocolate Co., step back in time at the Covered Wagon Country Store, or take a moment to relax at the House of Books, an independently owned bookstore and literary landmark.
LEAF PEEPERS PLAYGROUND
Whether you explore the area on foot, on a bike, in a car or gliding in a canoe, vivid autumn foliage is everywhere, and it is fantastic.
Because the Litchfield Hills are an extension of the Berkshire Mountains to the north, the area’s topography lends itself to leaf peeping, the ultimate fall pastime. Here you’ll find the state’s highest peaks, Bear Mountain and Mount