Community space takes off in Pomfret
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
ABINGTON — On a mission to create more community space, the town is transforming the old concrete pool near Gwyn Careg into an outdoor meeting space.
First Selectman Maureen Nicholson said the town’s DPW crew cleaned out the 50-foot by 100-foot pool recently. There are still some hoops to jump through, including a double check with the town’s insurance, the town’s building inspector and the contractor. In addition, there is still some tree work that needs to be done there.
She said she believes the contractor will have a “window” to do the project within the next couple months. 
Plans call for building a deck in the deep end of the pool so that the whole pool will be about 3 to 4 feet deep. The space can be used for community space, perhaps concerts, community gatherings and more. She added that the concrete will create “great acoustics” for any musical presentations. 
There is a “trough” along the edge of the pool and she believes it can be filled in with plantings. 
“We are hoping to perhaps do a mural around the pool wall,” she said.
In addition, plans call for the construction of a pavilion in the parking lot at the entrance to the area. Nicholson said she hopes that that can be accomplished this summer, also. The pavilion will be 20 feet by 40 feet and will add to the community space efforts in town. It can be used for gatherings and also for the town’s very strong bicycle riding community. 
“This is very exciting,” she said.
The pool was part of the old Gwyn Careg estate. The pool house is gone. 
Years ago the town bought 150 acres of the old estate. According to Wikipedia, Gwyn Careg’s main house on the property is a two-story brick structure built c. 1760, altered in the late 19th century and again in the 1920s, giving it a Colonial Revival appearance. When the property was developed as a country estate in the 1920s by Eleanor Clark Murray (who gave the property its name – “pure stone”), it included significant landscape design by William Jackson, a noted New York City landscape designer. Despite a significant period of neglect in the 20th century, the property has one of the most extensive collections of specimen trees in the state. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. It also included a zoo.
Nicholson said she’d love to take down some of the chain link fencing on the town’s property there — the only remnants of the zoo.
Both the pool project and the pavilion project will be paid for by the town’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allotment. Towns that had not spent all their ARPA funds were against a deadline of Dec. 31, 2024, to “encumber” the funding. Putnam and Pomfret both did that.
Nicholson said ARPA projects must be finished by the end of 2026 but these two will be finished long before that. ARPA funds are intended for outdoor projects, recreation, health and wellness, she said.

caption, page 5:

The old Gwyn Careg pool has been cleaned up, ready for the next steps toward community space.