10/02/2025
Spotlight on Historic Homes: 137 Rockwell Road
Written by Milena Jovanovitch
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/137-Rockwell-Rd_Bethel_CT_06801_M38574-18418
One of the single-family homes currently for sale in Bethel is believed to have been the homestead of one of the town’s earliest settlers, the Dibble family.
The property, an antique Colonial at 137 Rockwell Road, has been expanded and updated over the years, but is thought to have been built in 1760 in an area where the Dibble family owned a large tract of land. It features five original fireplaces and other period details, as well as a newer addition that houses a country kitchen.
The property has a list price of nearly $1.2 million.
Besides its Colonial heritage, the house was also once owned by Mort Lewis, a leading figure in the entertainment industry. He was the manager for musicians Simon & Garfunkel and Dave Brubeck among others. Lewis died in 2016.
It can be difficult to pinpoint the exact date when older properties in Bethel were constructed, experts say. Bethel was part of Danbury until it became incorporated as a separate town in 1855. During the Revolutionary War, British troops invaded Danbury in April 1777 and burned numerous buildings, including a courthouse where land and other records were destroyed.
The Bethel Assessor Office’s records for 137 Rockwell Road list the year it was built as 1760. But Elizabeth Hirt, the town tax assessor, said there isn’t any documentation on file regarding the precise date the house was constructed. She noted that the Assessor’s Office is more focused on the present value of properties.rather than their origin.
One of the earliest Bethel settlers was Lieut. John Dibble, who owned about 150 acres of land in the greater Stony Hill area, according to a 1921 book by Henry B. Betts about Danbury and the vicinity.
John Dibble was a deacon of the First Congregational Church of Bethel and was one of 71 families that made up the first Ecclesiastical Society of Bethel, according to a history of the church by Lewis Goodsell, Sr. Dibble died in 1790 at the age of 82. He is buried at the Congregational Church cemetery along with his wife, Sarah DIbble
Old maps also offer some clues as to where the Dibbles lived in Bethel. A copy of an 1867 landowners’ map of the town created for the “Atlas of New York and Vicinity” indicates two Dibble properties along what appears to be Rockwell Road, although the map doesn’t specifically identify all street names.
In more recent times, a small parcel of land on the corner of Walnut Hill Road and Old Hawleyville Road was donated to the Bethel Land Trust in 1992 by Mary Dibble. The preserve is known as Dibble Pond.
She also donated property to the Bethel Land Trust for another nearby preserve, the Joyce Dixon preserve. It combines two properties along Dibble Brook, which runs in part between Rockwell and Walnut Hill roads, into one 4.5 acre preserve. Kurt Hersher donated the first part in 1987 and Mary Dibble donated the rest in 1992.
