Keith and Edna Warner were collectors of American abstract art. In 1951, Keith and Edna Warner of Ft. Lauderdale, FL, wishing to settle in a New England college town, bought two large parcels on Hopson Road. In 1952 they built their own modernist house, filling it with pieces by Picasso, Rouault, and Alexander Calder. They continued to subdivide the properties and build modernist homes, laying out Pine Tree Road in the process.
The Warner’s house was designed by Fort Lauderdale architect, Charles Foster McKirahan. He designed homes and developments in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Honduras, Ecuador, Dominican Republic including a house for Alexander Calder in the Bahamas. The Warners were close friends with Alexander Calder. Their correspondence is online at the Archives of American Art.
In Norwich the Warners became involved in art exhibitions at Dartmouth and sponsored Haitian artist Roland Dorcely. Diana and Wentworth Eldredge purchased this piece, Mother and Son, now owned by the Hood Museum of Art. Edna Warner also donated pieces by Alfred Stieglitz to the Hood after her husband died in 1959.
Edna Warner sold the property to Nathan and Patricia Bridgman in 1963. Bridgman built a sleekly designed mid-century modern style store in Lebanon on the “miracle mile” in the late 1950s.
