Old Lyme is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The Main Street of the town, Lyme Street, is a historic district. The town has long been a popular summer resort and artists' colony. The town is named after Lyme Regis, England.

The US headquarters of Sennheiser is located in Old Lyme, as is Callaway Cars, the Florence Griswold Museum (including the Florence Griswold House), the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, and the Lyme Art Association. Old Lyme and its neighboring town Lyme are the namesake for Lyme disease.

The town of Old Lyme contains several villages, including Black Hall, Laysville, Lyme, Soundview, and South Lyme. The total population of the town was 7,603 at the 2010 census.

Background and history

The Florence Griswold House in Old Lyme housed an art colony for many years in the early 20th century to many prominent American Impressionist painters. The Lyme Art Colony included Childe Hassam, Edward Charles Volkert, Willard Metcalf, Wilson Irvine, and Henry Ward Ranger, among many others. These artists made Old Lyme a thriving art community, which still continues today. The Griswold House was transformed into an art museum, the Florence Griswold Museum, or affectionately called "Flo Gris", by residents of Old Lyme. Many American Impressionist paintings of the era are of subjects in and around the Griswold House and are featured in the museum, along with many other works and personal possessions of the artists who frequented there. The building of the Old Lyme Congregational Church is known for the many paintings that have been made of it, most notably by Childe Hassam.

Notable people, past and present

• Jim Calhoun (1942- ), head coach of the University of Connecticut's men's basketball team, which won three national championships, and who was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005; began his career as a coach in town at Lyme-Old Lyme High School
• Herb Chambers (1941- ), owner and CEO of Herb Chambers Companies auto dealerships
• Elisabeth Gordon Chandler (1913–2006), sculptor, resident, and founder of the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts
• Lois Darling (1917–1989), artist and illustrator
• Albert Einstein, who had a summer home on the Old Lyme shore
• Chris Elliott, actor and screenwriter, known best for his supporting role in the 1998 comedy There's Something About Mary
• Walker Evans, photographer; lived in Old Lyme until his death in 1975
• Elsie Ferguson (1883–1961), actress
• Ella T. Grasso (1919–1981), first female governor of Connecticut, first woman to be elected governor in the United States who was not the wife or widow of a governor, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993
• Childe Hassam (1859–1935), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony
• Wilson Irvine (1869–1936), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony
• Peter Karter, founder of early recycling company
• John McCurdy (b.1724), whose home was the resting place for George Washington on April 10, 1776 while traveling to New York City to take on the British Army and Navy (source: Papers of George Washington, Connecticut State Library); grandfather of Connecticut Supreme Court judge Charles McCurdy
• Willard Metcalf (1858–1925), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony
• Diana Muir, writer and historian
• Roger Tory Peterson (1908–1996), naturalist, ornithologist, artist, and educator
• Henry Ward Ranger (1858–1916), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony
• Sally Jessy Raphael (1935- ), talk show host
• Luanne Rice (1955- ), novelist
• Edward Charles Volkert (1871–1935), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony
• Clark Voorhees (1871–1933), American Impressionist, stayed in the Florence Griswold House as part of the Old Lyme Art Colony
• Ellen Axson Wilson (1860–1914), first wife of president Woodrow Wilson, came as an art student to the Florence Griswold House