Fairfield Country Day School (1891)

Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) was a Congregational minister, author and educator. Before becoming president of Yale University in 1795, Dwight served as minister of the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church in Fairfield from 1783 to 1795. He also started a well-respected academy in Greenfield Hill in 1783-1784. His 1794 poem, Greenfield Hill, references “Fair Verna,” the name he gave to his house and farm in Greenfield Hill. Isaac Bronson purchased Verna Farm in 1796 and it was later inherited by his son, Frederic Bronson. Dwight’s eighteenth-century house was eventually torn down in 1891 by Frederic’s son, Frederic Bronson, Jr., a wealthy New York City lawyer, who commissioned architect Richard Morris Hunt to design a grand new house on the site. Bronson also had a windmill built on his property in 1893-1894. After his death, Verna was the home of his daughter, Elizabeth Duer Bronson (1877–1914), and her husband, Lloyd Carpenter Griscom (1872-1959), an influential lawyer and diplomat: during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, he served successively as ambassador to Iran, Japan, Brazil and Italy. In 1933, the Bronson estate was acquired by W. A. Morschhauser, who had the house remodeled and made smaller in 1900: the third story was removed and the number of rooms was reduced from 42 to 13. Since 1949, the house, located at 2970 Bronson Road, has been occupied by the Fairfield Country Day School.

Rev. Richard Varick Dey House (1823)

Built about 1823, the Varick Dey House at 39 Meeting House Lane, in the Greenfield Hill section of Fairfield, displays a Dutch Colonial influence combined with elements of the Federal style. The long steep-pitched roof extends to the level of the first floor, which has a recessed veranda. Tradition holds that the house was designed by Lavinia A. Scott, the young bride of Rev. Richard Varick Dey (1801-1837). He was pastor of the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church from 1823 to 1828. As related in Ye Church and Parish of Greenfield: the Story of an Historic Church in an Historic Town, 1725-1913 (1913), by George H. Merwin:

There are very few persons living to-day who can remember Mr. Dey, but he has gone down in history as being a handsome young man of commanding presence and a pastor who at once became a general favorite in the parish. He also became popular outside of his own parish, and multitudes flocked to hear him; in fact it has been said that the old meeting-house was not large enough to accommodate the congregation.

[. . .] Not since the days of Dwight had there been such a flow of eloquence from the Greenfield pulpit, and it is doubtful if any of his successors for many years compared with him as a public speaker. Many of his parishioners who recognized his ability were loath to part with him when the consociation dissolved the pastoral relation in December, 1828. So great was the attendance when he delivered his farewell sermon that the galleries of the old meeting-house were propped to sustain the additional weight.

When Rev. and Mrs. Dey first came to Greenfield they boarded with Captain Nichols, the father of Mrs. Milbank. Later Mr. Dey’s father built for him the house now standing northwest of the present church, and known as the old Samuel Nichols place. Members of the parish assisted in building the house and also furnished much of the lumber. Mrs. Dey drew the plans for the house and planted the shrubbery and trees which still adorn the place.

Rev. Varick Dey was also known to the young P. T. Barnum, and the famous showman relates several stories about the reverend in his autobiography. As related in Funny Stories Told by Phineas T. Barnum (1890):

In my young days the Rev. Richard Varick Dey, of Greenfield, Conn., often came to Bethel to preach or lecture. He was a very able and eloquent, though somewhat eccentric man, popular even with people who did not go to church regularly, but not liked, and perhaps feared, by the too strait-laced; and his lectures and also his sermons were rich in wit as well as pathos. He was very free in saying exactly what he believed and thought, both in and out of the pulpit, and never hesitated to rub against or to knock in the head any particular popular dogma or theological tenet that he himself did not hold. This proclivity now and again brought him into uncomfortably warm water with the church, and he was either suspended or brought to trial for some alleged heresy or breach of ministerial duty. At such times he lectured in different towns, and so supported his family. My grandfather was a Universalist, and “on general principles” was opposed to Presbyterians, though many of them were among his warmest personal friends. He was very much attached to Mr. Dey, and induced him to deliver in Bethel a series of Sunday evening lectures. I remember one of them on “Charity,” which resulted “practically” in a contribution of more than fifty dollars.

636 Old Post Road, Fairfield (1954)

The Georgian Revival-style building at 636 Old Post Road in Fairfield was built in 1954 and housed the Fairfield Historical Society for half a century. In 2007 the Society erected a new building, the Fairfield Museum and History Center, at 370 Beach Road. Their former building is now owned by the neighboring First Congregational Church and houses the administrative offices of Operation Hope.

Hall Block, Southport (1895)

On December 31, 1894, a fire in Southport destroyed the commercial/tenement building at the corner of Main Street and Harbor Road in Southport. Known as the Hall Block (possibly built in 1874), it was soon rebuilt in the Italianate style, with shops on the first floor and apartments above. The building, located at 252 Main Street with a flatiron form, was later altered converted in the Colonial Revival style into condominiums.

Charles M. Gilman House (1873)

Charles M. Gilman was a lawyer and an incorporator of the Southport Trust Company. His large house, located at 139 Main Street in Southport, was designed J. C. Cady. Gilman hired another New York architect, William H. Beers, to design the house’s library addition. Erected in 1900, the addition well matches the architectural style of the earlier section, which combines elements of the Italianate, Gothic and Stick styles of architecture. Original plans for both the house and addition are housed at the Fairfield Museum and History Center Library.