Boxwood (1842)

Boxwood
Boxwood

The grand residence known as Boxwood, located at 9 Lyme Street in Old Lyme, was built in 1842 for the merchant Richard Sill Griswold (1809-1849). A third story was later added by Richard Sill Griswold, Jr. (1869-1901). In 1890, his wife opened the Boxwood School for Girls in the house. The building had connections with the Old Lyme art colony. The summer Lyme School of Art held studio classes at Boxwood in 1905 and artists could rent rooms in the house while the boarding school students were not in residence. Among the residents that year were the future president Woodrow Wilson and his wife Ellen Axson Wilson, who was enrolled at the art school. When Mrs. Griswold died in 1907 the boarding school closed, but Boxwood Manor continued as a summer inn with its gardens being a celebrated attraction. On Christmas Eve, 1943, James Streeto, the caretaker of the estate, was murdered on the property. The woman he was involved with at the time, Delphine Bertrand, threatened with the death penalty for the murder, pled guilty to the charge of manslaughter, but the charges were dropped when two men later confessed to the murder and were convicted. The inn closed in 1958 and the property was bought by Dr. Matthew Griswold, who altered it into apartments and a restaurant. The Griswold family sold the building in 1975 and it was converted into condominiums.

Postcard of Boxwood Manor
Boxwood School for Girls

Old Lyme Historical Society (1910)

The building at 55 Lyme Street in Old Lyme originally stood on Maple Lane, near the Lieutenant River, where it was built for the Old Lyme Gun Club. It was erected sometime before 1910 (according to different sources in 1885 or 1906) when it was purchased by the Old Lyme Grange #162, which had been founded in 1905. Women had organized the Grange Aid Society to raise funds to buy the building, but because it was located on leased property they continued to save money while seeking land to purchase. In 1928, when the lot at 55 Lyme Street became available, the women of the Grange Aid Society bought it (against the advice of the men). The building was then moved by a team of oxen to its current location, where it was enlarged and refurbished. The new hall was dedicated in February 1929. For decades it hosted various events for the Grange and for the community. The Old Lyme Historical Society, formed in 2005, purchased the Grange building in 2014 as its headquarters, providing a space for the town’s archives, artifacts and historical exhibits.

J. Elms Building (1887)

The J. Elms Building is located at 60 Lyme Street in Old Lyme. According to the Old Lyme Historical Society Walking Tour brochure, the building dates to 1887. It was built by James Bugbee (possibly James Francis Bugbee?) as a house next to a storage building. In 1889 he converted it into his store, which he later deeded to his daughter and granddaughters, while he resided the rest of his life in a house abutting the store (which was known for many years as “Bugbee’s Store”). The store has had many owners over the years, including Elizabeth Griswold Whitley and her husband, Joseph.

Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library (1898)

The Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library in Old Lyme was established in 1897 as a free public library. It was built on the site of the old Lord family homestead, dating back to 1666, where Phoebe Griffin Lord was born in 1797 and grew up with her sisters and widowed mother. After spending her teenage years with her uncle in New York, she returned to Old Lyme and began a long career as an artist and educator, which she continued after her 1827 marriage to Daniel Noyes, a merchant. In 1831 they purchased the Parsons Tavern , which had been an important meeting place during the Revolutionary War. The tavern’s former ballroom became a classroom. Phoebe Griffin Noyes (1797-1875) contributed a large part to the community’s development as a center of art and culture. To honor her memory, her family decided to erect a library in her honor, which was funded by the gift of her son-in-law, Charles H. Luddington, and opened in 1898. The Evelyn McCurdy-Salisbury wing was added in 1925, and the library was more than doubled in size with an expansion in 1995.

On the site of the old tavern, Ludington built a summer estate in 1893. It was long the home of his daughter, Phoebe’s granddaughter, Katharine Ludington (1869-1953), a notable activist and suffragist.

As Daniel Coit Gilman, president of Johns Hopkins University, said in his address at the opening of the Library

It is fine to see this spontaneous recognition of the obligation which men owe their fellow-men, to contribute their best, whatever that may be, for the promotion of the good of those among whom they have dwelt.

That is what Mr. Ludington has done. He has provided a commodious, spacious, and attractive building to be the literary centre of Lyme. It furnishes a suitable place for the books already brought together by the members of the Library Association. The ample shelves are suggestive of future accessions. The reading room silently invites the neighbors to enjoy their leisure hours in the quiet companionship of the best of contemporary writers and illustrators. Not only the residents of Lyme, but those of the region around, are welcome. Here too is a place for occasional lectures and readings and for exhibitions of historical mementos, or works of art. The building is placed on a beautiful site, and it is associated with the life of a woman whose rare gifts and noble character are to be perpetuated as a memory and an example.

Justin Smith House (1710)

At 54 Lyme Street in Old Lyme is a three-quarter cape with a gambrel roof, called the Justin Smith House, which was built in 1710. In recent years, the house was saved from demolition and completely restored by its current owners, Brad and Gerri Sweet, who discovered that some of the wood rafters had come from an even earlier building. The house had many owners over the years. Samuel Mather sold it to Nathan Tinker in 1784, who himself sold it in 1790. It was then own successively by three brothers, Joseph, Charles and Simon Smith. After World War One, the house was the residence of Matilda Brown, an artist who was part of the Old Lyme art colony.