Candlewood Lake

Candlewood is not a glacial lake. In 1926 the Connecticut Light & Power Company dammed the Rocky River valley and built the first large pumped-storage plant in the United States: at night, surplus power pushes Housatonic water up into the lake; by day it runs back down through the turbines. When the valley filled in 1928 it took farms, roads and the hamlet of Jerusalem with it, and divers still find the stone walls.

The result was 5,420 acres of water touching five towns — Danbury, Brookfield, New Fairfield, New Milford and Sherman — and, within a decade, the most valuable lakefront in the state. It is an hour and a half from Manhattan, which explains a great deal about its shoreline.

The name comes from Candlewood Mountain on the east shore, itself named for the pitch-pine splints the early settlers burned for light. The lake's long, branching shape, with its coves and the two big islands, is a direct print of the drowned valley.