At the October 1 Board of Selectmen meeting, First Selectwoman Samantha Nestor described a very preliminary plan to move the Old Post Office and General Store. This is the small circa-1790 building next to Bisceglie Scribner Park, and the plan would put it on the grounds of the Weston History & Culture Center, where an independent operator could run it as a coffee shop, artisan gift shop and gathering place. On paper it looks like one historic building being moved to a campus that already holds several others.
The history says something different. More than six decades ago, an offer of this same building to the town prompted the open meeting that set the Weston Historical Society in motion; the Society was incorporated later that year. The organization's first attempt to give it a permanent home failed over cost. If the 2026 idea goes forward, the building would end up on land owned by the group it helped start, doing roughly the job it was built to do.
What Was Actually Proposed on October 1
Weston Today's recap of the meeting is short. The Friends of the Weston Old Post Office Committee and the Weston History & Culture Center brought in experts, who confirmed that the building is worth saving and could be restored. The paper described the structure as "lately a victim of vandalism."
The same report lists everything that still has to be worked out:
- the legal side of moving a building the town owns
- cost estimates
- funding
- input from the relevant authorities
No operator has been named, and no budget or timeline has been published. Nothing has been approved, and the recap includes no direct quotes from the First Selectwoman, the committee or WHCC leadership. For now this is an idea the town has started discussing in public, and nothing more.
The idea has a long history behind it, though, and that history explains why the WHCC grounds are a natural place for the building.
A General Store Before It Was a Post Office
The Weston History & Culture Center dates the building to about 1790. Its first job was a general store, where farm families bought what they couldn't produce themselves and sat by the pot-bellied stove talking about the weather, farming and local business. A back room and an upstairs were added later, and the postmaster and his family lived in the building while running both the store and the post office.
The postal side of its story came later than the building itself. According to WHCC, several post offices served different parts of Weston between 1750 and 1830. This building was known as the Norfield Post Office until 1846 and became the official Weston Post Office in 1883. The sources reviewed don't say when it stopped handling mail or who built it.
Even its original corner is described two ways. The WHCC site page puts it at Weston Road and Newtown Turnpike. A 1996 history of the Society says it stood at the corner of Newtown Turnpike and Georgetown Road, on property owned by Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Scribner. Both accounts place it in the same part of town, and the difference in road names hasn't been resolved.
The coffee-shop idea matters because of this first chapter. For most of its working life, the building was a store with a stove where people met. A café and gift shop run by an independent operator would be close to that original purpose, after decades as a museum.
1962: The Offer That Sparked an Organization
The 1996 history appeared in the Weston Historical Society's own newsletter, written by Herb Day and Lou Bregy. It describes residents meeting informally for about six years to discuss forming a historical society, while a few collected artifacts sat in people's homes for safekeeping. What finally prompted an open meeting was the Scribners' offer of the old post office to the town.
The founding moved quickly after that:
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| January 13, 1962 | Open meeting at the Weston Library, chaired by Mrs. Hamilton Basso |
| June 7, 1962 | Certificate of Incorporation issued |
| June 22, 1962 | State of Connecticut charter issued |
| August 6, 1962 | First organizational meeting, with Ed Phelps as chairman and Mrs. Suzanne Green as secretary |
The Society set out its purpose in plain terms, and the 1996 newsletter reprinted it:
"The Weston Historical Society is to be a non-profit, tax free organization devoted to the furthering of interest in the history of Weston and to the collection and preservation of those relics and mementos of Weston's history as may survive."
That organization is now the Weston History & Culture Center, one of the two groups behind this fall's relocation idea. The building that prompted its founding is now one of the buildings it is working to save.
The First Move That Didn't Happen
The new Society's first plan was to move the old post office next to the old onion barn and use both buildings together as a museum and meeting space. The town was willing to help. It offered to lease the onion barn and about three-quarters of an acre to the Society for ten years at $1.00 a year. The move itself was the problem. Day and Bregy wrote that "because of cost restraints, the post office was not moved."
Around then, another offer came in. James Coley had stopped farming several years earlier, and he and Mrs. Coley offered their unused barn on Weston Road to the Society as a museum. The Society accepted on April 4, 1966, and dropped the onion barn and post office plans.
The Coley barn then turned into much more. The Coleys had decided to leave the barn, the farmhouse and the surrounding acreage to the Society, and the Society accepted that offer on April 27, 1978. Cleora Coley kept the right to live in the house with her son Jimmy. After she died on February 21, 1983, the Society took possession of the house and every other building on the 3.7 acres. Two more years of conflicts with town boards, neighbors and a developer followed before the Society received permission to operate there as a museum.
That property is 104 Weston Road, the WHCC campus where the October proposal would place the post office. The Society got its museum grounds because the post office move was too expensive in the 1960s. Sixty years later, those grounds are where the post office might end up.
A Few Hundred Feet, and a Restoration
The building stayed where it was. The 1996 account says the Scribners later gave the old post office to the town a second time, and it was moved "a few hundred feet to the north," set on a new foundation and re-sided. The Society maintained it as a museum and opened it at announced times and for school tours.
The Society's June 1987 newsletter covers a restoration and an official opening celebration on May 17. The work included a new porch, replacement window glass, replastered walls and a thorough cleaning. Marylou Perry and Linda Martin co-chaired the restoration committee, Gary Samuelson did the carpentry, and Boy Scouts cleared a path from Bisceglie Park to the building. That same issue said more work and more money were still needed and asked for contributions to the Old Post Office Restoration Committee.
That request from almost 40 years ago sounds a lot like where things stand now. A committee of residents has again taken on the building. Experts have again been brought in to check whether it can be saved. And funding is again one of the open questions.
What the 2026 Idea Would Close
Since 1962, the building has been offered to the town twice, nearly moved once, actually moved once and restored once. Every one of those efforts treated it as a museum piece, something to protect and open by appointment. The October concept is the first in this record to imagine it as a place people would visit on an ordinary morning. It would be run by an independent operator, sell coffee and artisan goods, and serve as a gathering place on the WHCC grounds.
That use fits the building's first job. It began as the store where Weston bought what it couldn't make at home and stayed to talk by the stove. The Coley property already holds seven buildings, which a 1968 endowment from the Forrest estate has helped maintain. Adding the post office would put the building that prompted the organization's founding on the same grounds as everything that came after it.
Every piece of that is still uncertain. The town would have to work out the legal steps for moving a building it owns, along with costs, funding and approvals, before anything changes next to Bisceglie Scribner Park.
Where to Follow It, and Where to Go This Month
Updates will come through the Board of Selectmen. Weston Today's meeting recaps are where this proposal first appeared in public.
The campus that would receive the building has a new program starting this month. The Weston History & Culture Center's Backstories & Breakfast series opens October 28 at 10 a.m. at 104 Weston Road. Rebecca Gavin will speak on Connecticut's witch trials, doors open at 9:30, and admission is $10 for members and $15 for nonmembers. Earlier in the month, on Sunday, October 18 at 3 p.m., the Friends of the Weston Library and WHCC will present author Nona Footz on her biography of Alice DeLamar at the Weston Public Library, 56 Norfield Road.
At Camelot Real Estate, we've watched Weston's historic buildings pass from one family, committee and generation to the next, and the Old Post Office is a good example of how much of this town's character depends on that kind of care. If you have a question about the history of your own property or where it fits in Weston's story, please get in touch with Weston's local experts. We're always happy to talk about the town we call home.
