Little people’s village may be destroyed

#MiddleburyCT #LittlePeoplesVillage

This 2010 photo shows Zach Marotte, then a Middlebury Historical Society intern, next to a house in the fabled Little People’s Village. Construction of a new Exit 17 interchange will likely destroy the village and its structures. (Robert Rafford photo)

By DR. ROBERT L. RAFFORD

More than any other historical site in Middlebury, one fabled plot of land holds a mysterious landmark. Since my appointment as municipal historian for Middlebury in 2001, I have been asked more questions and have been interviewed and written more about this site than any other. I speak of the Little People’s Village, which is actually in Waterbury, but is referred to as being in Middlebury. Most who grew up in town know its location; because of its celebrity on the internet, many around the world know of it too.

As of March 2024, however, that celebrated village, which stands on state-owned land, is in danger of annihilation. The state has imminent plans to revise the entrance and exit ramps at Interchange 17 from Interstate Highway 84, including one ramp from Chase Parkway to Straits Turnpike opposite the Transfer Station. While the construction plan maps do not show new roads at the precise location of the village, construction vehicles and the construction process will almost certainly destroy all that remains of the legendary village.

What is this little village, and where did it come from? The internet abounds with blogs containing rich fantasies of the origins of the village, but some research discloses a more modest beginning.

The village’s creator was William Joseph Lannen (1886-1958), born in Naugatuck in 1886. William, a master electrician, worked at a rubber company, then Chase Rolling Mills, and later at the Connecticut Light and Power company. In between these positions, he purchased land off Straits Turnpike along the old Waterbury Road in 1925 from Joseph Kukenis, in what was to have been a building development called “West Side Manor,” and established a fueling station there.

The road (now closed) was the major road between Middlebury and Waterbury in 1925. However, a new route was blasted through Pine Rock (you see it each time you enter and exit I-84 at interchange 17) in 1928, bypassing his petrol station. The trolley from Waterbury continued to run along Old Waterbury Road for another two years but was removed by 1930.

For reasons lost to history, Lannen built a series of little structures which have become known as the “Little Peoples Village.” It was early referred to simply as a “village” and a “toytown,” also described as appearing like a “Mediterranean town.” A 1939 Waterbury Republican newspaper article described Lannen’s short-lived gas station and its prospective transformation into a nursery, calling it a “toytown.” But the internet further expanded folklore surrounding its origins and its creator.

A typical Internet opinion posted in 2024 stated, in part, “One of the allegedly creepiest places in Connecticut is Little People’s Village … crumbling doll-sized houses and odd structures next to the remains of a stone house, it’s rumored to be the damned legacy of insanity brought on by the little people … a man and his wife (who may or may not have been a witch) were living peacefully in Middlebury when she started seeing small fairy folk in the woods around their home. To accommodate these pixie-like creatures, she demanded her husband build a tiny village. As the years passed and the village grew, the enchantment faded into madness. The abandoned smurf-scale town is all that’s left to mark the couple’s anguished demise.”

Fashioning them from brick, concrete, ceramic and metal, Lannen crafted small houses, churches and a lighthouse around his property, some illuminated with electrical lights. In addition, he added rainwater-collecting pools surrounded by fern, flights of concrete steps and fireplaces about the site. A bronze plaque (long gone) with “Connecticut Tercentenary 1635-1935” was affixed to one of the rocks.

Lannen married Elizabeth Kennedy of Naugatuck in 1936. Now with greater responsibilities, he abandoned his nursery project and instead went to work for and eventually retired from the Connecticut Light and Power Company. The couple had no children; William died in Waterbury in 1958, as the year was closing, but seven months before his death he sold all his property in the development, after which the property was sold to a relative. Elizabeth died in Waterbury in 1973.

Before abandoning the village, he had posted signs that read “Poison – Keep Out” to ward off juvenile vandals who “have been trying to tear up the landscaping.” His caution proved to be prophetic – in the intervening years, vandals have destroyed most of the creations on the site, but the legends live on. Its popularity today has probably never been more widespread. And, who knows – perhaps the quaint village has indeed become haunted and populated with terrifying presences, more agitated around Halloween, of course.

Waterbury does not appear to have an interest in protecting the village. If you are among those interested in doing something to help, please contact me at president@middleburyhistoricalsociety.org.

You are urged to join the Middlebury Historical Society by going online at MiddleburyHistoricalSociety.org or visiting them on Facebook. Questions about membership can be sent to Bob at president@middleburyhistoricalsociety.org.