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Connecticut Centinal readers will recall the months-long zoning battle in Madison last year involving the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and a large group of angry neighbors. The conflict continues in the Connecticut Superior Court in Meriden on June 16th when three-bundled appeals will be reviewed.
The plan is to situate a kind of amorphous office and event venue on a five-acre historic property, where famous 20th century art collectors Burton and Emily Hall Tremaine resided, in an upscale neighborhood with narrow roads.
This drew fierce and resourced opposition. In parallel, controversy arose when neighbors put forth concern about one of its controversial residents, Emily Hall Tremaine (1908-87). She has an unclear Nazi-interaction past, as described in a 2001 biography. Controversy then exploded when neighbors realized that a promoted feature of the site, a converted barn, was designed by Philip Johnson, an architect and notorious ex-Nazi agent widely known internationally.
The Madison Planning & Zoning Commission approved the special zoning exclusion with conditions, with no mention of the Tremaine and Johnson history controversies in their public deliberations. In contrast, the Architect’s Newspaper ran two articles and listed the Madison Tremaine-Johnson scandal in its annual roundup of top architecture world controversies. This was after a Jeffrey Epstein-related scandal and worker deaths in Saudi Arabia.
Surprisingly, legacy media in Connecticut was also reporting on the controversy.
The zoning battle continues on June 16th
The Madison P&Z decision was not to the satisfaction of some neighbors and even the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation. Three appeals were filed in the Connecticut Superior Court in New Haven from October-December 2024 (Bruce Lockhart and Margaret Cohen; Edward M. Rizzo, Jr., Heather C. Rizzo, Bonnie L. Hiatt, and David D. Yuh). The appeals were then bundled into one case and then the case was moved to the CT Superior Court in Meriden.
“It may sound corny, but I’m glad the case has been brought to Meriden,” says R. J. Preece, a contributor to the Connecticut Centinal and senior arts journalist. “That’s where my interest in the Tremaine Collection began, and it became a research interest. I also used to be very fond of the Johnson façade at the official collection site, at the Miller Company on Center Street, more or less down the road from where I grew up in the 1980s.”
“That however changed completely though after reading the declassified FBI report of Johnson’s pre-WWII, pro-Nazi activity,” explains Preece. “Abstract rumors became a series of concrete facts. There’s no way of denying it. He was in so deep, there’s no way of ever looking past it.”
“Experiencing unearthing the collection and related activity led to finding out about the earlier Nazi interactions of Johnson and also Tremaine before WWII,” continues Preece. “In addition to research, there is an art project, Worlds Collide, talking about the absolutely mind-blowing experience.”
“Yes, Philip Johnson was alleged to have wanted to become the American Hitler, and he showed us that in his subsequent activity in the 1930s,” says Preece. “It’s an awful truth. More and more people in Madison and Meriden are learning about it, with that associated symbol on the nearby landscapes.“
