Arrive Magazine - November/December, 2009

Final ;top

The best places to ...

GRAB BREAKFAST

Mamie’s
162 Baker Road; 860-210-
0618 • ”Amazing breakfasts
on the weekends,” she says.
“I don’t eat meat, but my
kids love the bacon and
sausages, and I like the
eggs and all the rest.”

Why I Love ...

Roxbury, Conn.

Where does director and author Rebecca Miller take her kids and her husband, Daniel Day-Lewis, when she wants to escape? She returns to her childhood home in Connecticut, the backdrop of her new film

As a child, Rebecca Miller attended dinner parties at the homes of artist Alexander Calder and novelist William Styron. The photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson read to her by the local pond.

“It all felt pretty normal,” the actress-turned-director says of her childhood in Roxbury, Conn., with her parents, renowned playwright Arthur Miller and artist Inge Morath. Miller was raised on a 350-acre farm, “a typical New England place,” where you picked up the town gossip, as well as The New York Times, at the mom-and-pop pharmacy.

“Roxbury people tend to be pretty open-minded and basically gentle,” Miller says. “When I grew up, it was more of a farming community. There were also quite a few artists. We all just lived together.” It was these years that would spark her creativity. Recalling the gold shag carpeting and pink walls in her first bedroom, she says, “I think my hideous decor definitely influenced my future writing.”

The film of her debut novel, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, opening Nov. 27 in

American theaters, was shot in Roxbury and other towns in the state’s northwestern corner. It features an all-star cast, including Robin Wright Penn, Blake Lively, Keanu Reeves, Alan Arkin and Winona Ryder. Lauded at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, it tells the story of a woman whose seemingly idyllic suburban life is disrupted by memories of her lurid past.

Miller says filming in her hometown was fantastic, and she also got to know the neighboring towns of Southbury and New Milford. “It felt both familiar and so foreign. I feel I never really saw its nooks and cran-nies until we shot there.”

These days, she and her husband, Academy Award–winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis, live in Ireland with their children during the school year. But, in the summer, you can find Miller at the same wooden farmhouse in Roxbury, enjoying the simple life of a town without so much as a stoplight.

“I love the Memorial Day parade. It’s tiny and adorable. I go just about every year with my kids.”—EMILY HAILE

ESCAPE INTO NATURE

Lilly Preserve
East of the Roxbury Green,
near the bridge on Route
317; 860-350-4148 • Man-
aged by the Roxbury Land
Trust, this preserve has
140 acres of trails with old
stone walls, marshes and
grazing cattle.

HAVE A SLICE OF PIE

Maple Bank Farm 57 Church St.; 860-354- 7038 • “They have the best vegetables and blueberry pies.” You can also pick handmade wreaths, fresh cider and baked goods.