Trout Brook Valley Love Story

By Sheri Daley

Once upon a time, Logan Huber and Rebekah Stratton lived in Boston in a charming four-story rowhouse near Fenway Park, the oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball. It was an elegant place to live, an historic neighborhood, but also handy. They didn’t have to own a car. Each of them could walk to work, and there was a T station in front of their house.

 They had met online in 2016. “Rebekah listed her interests on her profile, and I thought we were compatible.” Logan adds, “She was also very pretty!”

They had their first date at the Franklin Café, one of Boston’s most popular South End institutions. Rebekah grew up in Georgia and Virginia; Logan was from Louisiana. Both grad students – Logan studied accounting and finance at Northeastern University; Rebekah studied arts administration at BU – but they found they both loved the out-of-doors which was apparently enough of a start to fall in love.

Which they did. 

After some discussions about their individual dreams and their individual plans, they moved in together in the lovely Kenmore rowhouse. This could easily have been the happily-ever-after part of their love story, except there was another love affair in their future.

“My brother and his partner Jeremy have this house in Easton,” Logan explained over a glass of Cabernet recently, “and Rebekah and I would visit.”

Sipping a similar glass of wine, Rebekah nods. “William and Jeremy took us hiking in this wonderful place. It was so beautiful.”

Logan agrees. “The hike that day was so un-crowded, so that’s always been a huge appeal for Rebekah and me. There’s a very organic feel… nothing commercial about it. The orchard is beautiful. It’s a rewarding escape from the forest at the apex of the hike.” 

“Logan and I loved the place. There’s nothing like it to go hiking in Boston. Connecticut has so much green!”

The wonderful place that Rebekah and Logan fell in love was the Trout Brook Valley Preserve with its 730 acres of apple orchards, blueberry bushes, stunning scenic overlooks, and the shimmering water of the Saugatuck Reservoir.  Rescued from the clutches of developers in 1999 with the concerted effort of thousands of local contributors, garden clubs, and key support from Paul Newman and his daughter Lissy, a member of the land trust board of directors, Trout Brook Valley has become a local treasure.  Logan and Rebekah were enchanted. They fell in love. Again.

It was here, after an early morning snowfall in March of 2018, that Logan asked Rebekah to be his wife. “Nobody had been out walking yet. It was cold and the snow was pure and untouched,” Rebekah remembers now. “No footprints.  Just us.”

Now they’re planning and dreaming together. After a storybook wedding in Umbria, Italy, where they rented a villa for their family, it was an easy decision to move to Connecticut with its shoreline so nearby, kinder winters, and, of course, miles of hiking trails. To do so, they had to find new jobs and haul the rest of their lives down I-95 to Fairfield County where they would settle down near Logan’s brother, near the open land they fell in love with. Logan found a position with Yale as a business analyst. Rebekah went to work with Local Initiatives Support Corporation as a data analyst for national development and fundraising.

On September 13, on the anniversary of their wedding, Rebekah and Logan closed on their house in Fairfield, an historic structure built in 1904 with enough yard to accommodate gardens that attract bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. 

“We want to be part of the Green Corridor,” Rebekah points out. “William and Jeremy were members of the Aspetuck Land Trust and took us to the other preserves where we could hike and explore. So, we became members.”

“We want to get more people our age involved in conserving and protecting open space, ”says Rebekah. Both 32 at the time of this writing, Rebekah and Logan are both contributing and participating members of the trust, looking forward to hiking hundreds of miles, exploring acres of woodland, and picking bushels of apples in Trout Brook Valley Preserve.

 Was it worth it?  Quitting their jobs, finding new ones, searching for the right home in a new town, packing and unpacking … Seems a lot.  Logan sneaks a sideways look at his new wife of only a year.  “No regrets,” he says, and his smile said it all.

And they lived happily ever after.