In the 1920s he purchased a couple of small farms in Burlington and Farmington and dammed up a small brook to create the lake. He named it after Lake Garda in Italy which was near his childhood home. The “Paradise in the Pines” as Battistoni described his new community was born.
He designed and developed the area to be a summer community of small affordable lots where residents would build small cabins or erect tents for weekend and vacation use. Summer residents would commute to their jobs in surrounding towns.
He built a clubhouse across from what is now Children’s Beach on the Farmington side of the lake where he held social events for the residents and formed an association, which by deed, the people who brought property in his development, were mandated to be a part of. Most of the roads were unpaved. Battistoni collected fees from the property owners for the maintenance of the clubhouse and lake.
In the 1930’s Battistoni sold a large portion of the land to a development company in exchange for paving the roads, marketing the development and to sell the lots. The development company had financial problems and was unable to pave the roads and provide the other contracted services.
Battistoni held the financing note for the development company and when the company filed for bankruptcy, he was able to regain the title to the unsold lots.
Since, Lake Garda straddled two towns, Burlington and Farmington, governing the community was complicated. Property owners decided to form the Lake Garda Improvement Association and advocated to get the association chartered by the State of Connecticut in 1943 as a quasi-municipality for the purpose of providing road construction and improvement, refuse removal, lake and beach maintenance, security, snow plowing and social events.
The Lake Garda Improvement Association was incorporated in 1943 by The State of Connecticut Legislature, Senate and House of Representatives in House Bill No. 992 An Act Incorporating The Lake Garda Improvement Association.
It was Battistoni’s belief, that since he again owned the development company and unsold lots that the Lake Garda Improvement Association would become part of the Association he had formed as part of his original development. The members of the Lake Garda Improvement Association voted to remain a separate entity. This resulted in some litigation with the rights of the Lake Garda Improvement Association being eventually upheld in court. There were negotiations between LGIA and Battistoni to purchase the dam, lake and beaches with no resulting agreement between the parties.
In the 1990’s, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) required that the lake dam be repaired, replaced or removed. After the death of Harry Battistoni, the Battistoni Family had no interest in Lake Garda and with help from the Towns of Burlington and Farmington negotiations resumed to purchase the lake, dam and beaches. LGIA purchased the lake bed, Battistoni Beach and the dam in 1998 and rebuilt the dam with help and funding from the DEP. The eight acre parcel at the end of Rio Road was purchased a few years later from Morton Dunning.
