By Terry Twigg
The views stated here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors of this newspaper. We welcome supporting or opposing views on any published item. Received March 10, 2024.
June 20, 2035. Busy afternoon here at The Cove. I don’t mean the actual cove, crown jewel of Haddam’s riverfront, but the lively shopping/sports/activity complex that’s connected to it, where the old Rossi property used to be. All the other towns along the river down to the Sound have capitalized on colonial history, but we’ve already lost too much of that to make it our focus. Fortunately, we have what they don’t: our magical cove, and space right next to it, so we could protect the cove’s natural beauty while still making the most of it as an attraction. Once we realized the key to Haddam’s prosperity was leveraging its most precious asset, we were off and running.
The Shops at The Cove are busiest in the summer, selling clothing, jewelry, antiques, cookery—all the wares that sell so well in Mystick Village, Essex, or Chester, plus local crafts and produce. Moms love it because after the kids are tired of swimming, they can be dropped off for supervised play in the fancy playground just to the other side of the HES building. It took a few years, but now the shops do pretty good business in the off-season, too, especially during the holidays and special events like the Fall Foliage Festival, the state-wide high school Crew Regatta we started, Shadbush Days (remember when everybody in town planted them in our front yards, way back in ’25? Can you believe how big they are now, and how glorious they are in bloom?), the Brainerd-guided Booklovers Week, the Tour de Haddam, the town-wide Holiday Decorations Contest, the Mucket Tournament, and the Maple Sugaring Weekends. Oh, and the annual Historic Houses Tours. (Even though so much has been lost, we still have more antique houses than Colonial Williamsburg, after all.) Seems like there’s always something happening! Visits to all Cove vendors increased tremendously once we linked train service to tourists coming across Bridge Street from Gillette’s Castle or the Goodspeed, and extended the steam train all the way up.
Same pattern with the restaurants: at first we had mostly warm-weather options, serving hamburgers and ice cream at outdoor picnic tables, like Higgie’s and the Blue Oar used to do, but now the Cove restaurants are full service and year-round, and the town’s reputation as a foodie destination has grown. The new train service extensions made dinner and a play an easy option, even across the river, and that has paid off in spades. We started by partnering with the community colleges that offer catering courses, building out a restaurant space for the students to offer their creations to the public in a real-life setting. Soon people got used to thinking of Haddam as a destination for good food. Some of those kids went on to open restaurants of their own right here in town, and the other restaurateurs followed them. (But no glaring commercial ugliness, thanks to our architectural review committee. Some folks grumble at their authority, but there’s no arguing with the results.) Now you can find any cuisine you’re hankering for, all along Killingworth Road near the center. Almost all of them feature locally grown produce from our hometown farmers.
Another partnership that’s worked out very well has been our theater initiative. We started modestly, offering university and community theater groups, bands and orchestras a hassle-free opportunity to showcase their productions under the stars. Now we’re attracting some professionals, and plans are in the works for an amphitheater, or even an enclosed performance space. Could be in the old HES building, or in one of the town buildings that was left vacant when some of the offices moved into HES. Or, since so many of us were saddened when the old Vallera barn came down, maybe we’ll ask Haddam native Brendan Matthews’s Barnraisers to build us a replica nearby.
We’ve leveraged the cove and The Cove to establish Haddam as a sports haven, too. You can swim, kayak, canoe, or sail; newbies can take classes and rent equipment here, while experienced people can bring their own. And with more than fifty miles of trails in town, we’ve been building our reputation as a hiking and biking mecca, even cross-country skiing when we’re lucky enough to have some snow. It used to be that even residents had little idea of the wealth of outdoor activities in town, but now you can pick up brochures for all the trails in a centralized spot in The Cove. And I hear there’s going to be a major Orienteering competition launching soon. With the focus on the outdoors, a major sports equipment retailer is looking to set up shop in Haddam.
Before The Cove was developed, water and water treatment in the village was a sticking point, but innovative ideas and determination took care of that, with newer, greener technology. All we had to do was bite the bullet and get it done.
How did all this come about? Maybe the town found a developer willing to work with the town’s welfare in mind. Yes, and maybe pigs fly. Or, maybe the town sold the property to a consortium of Haddam residents. Some could invest many thousands of dollars, some only a few hundred, but all are stakeholders in the future of the town as well as the success of the property. They might have bought the site for only a dollar, but that’s fair enough, as it was their tax dollars that paid for it in the first place. With imagination and community effort, the people of Haddam built a thriving village with a healthy tax base, without having to give up their small-town identity.
In the heart of Higganum, welcome to The Cove!
