Enoch C. Ferre House (1840)

The house at 101 Broad Street in Middletown was built soon after 1839 by Enoch C. Ferre. The house is Greek Revival in style with an Italianate cupola. Later owners of the house included Gaston Tryon Hubbard, who had established himself in the lumber business and in 1878 incorporated the Rogers & Hubbard Company, of which he was president; John L. Smith, a Scottish immigrant who became a jeweler (he was a founder of the Middlesex Mutual Assurance Company, which had its first meetings in the back rooms of his jewelry store) and was on the first Board of Trustees of Wesleyan University; and Dr. Francis D. Edgerton, a founder of the Middlesex County Hospital.

Ansel Bristol House (1810)

The house at 44 Cherry Brook Road in Canton was built c. 1810 by Ansel Bristol, a farmer. It was later home to Anson W. Bristol, Jr. A tradition holds that the carpenters who built the house came from working on the Canton Center Congregational Church, which would date the house to c. 1815. The house is also said to have floors that were reused from one of Canton’s earliest churches, dating to the seventeenth century. There is an ell that may have been added from earlier house, built in the middle of the eighteenth century by Isaac Tuller. The house is also said to have been home to the first telephone in Canton. (more…)

Bushnell Kirtland House (1810)

The house at 110 North Cove Road in Old Saybrook, built c. 1810, has a Federal-style central bay with a Palladian window and an elaborate entry (the elongated doorway surround may represent an early twentieth-century alteration to accommodate a newer fanlight over the door). The house was built by Bushnell Kirtland, a shipbuilder. His brother, Asa Kirtland, built the nearby house at 100 North Cove Road in 1805.

Winthrop House (1848)

The building that is called Winthrop House, at 166 Rowayton Avenue in Rowayton, Norwalk, was built in 1848 by Charles L. Raymond as a a four-story summer hotel. It has had many names, being called the Fairview Hotel by the turn of the century. It was a private home around the time of World War I, but then became a hotel again under various names over the years: Colonial Inn (1926), Pleasant Inn (1930) and Rowayton Inn (1935). During the Second World War it was purchased by the Bassler brothers. At the start of the twenty-first century there were plans to demolish the building, but in 2005 the Norwalk Preservation Trust worked with developer Andrew Glazer, the Rowayton Historical Society, the Rowayton Community Association and the Norwalk Planning and Zoning Office to restore the exterior to its nineteenth-century appearance. The interior was converted into three luxury condominiums.

Crocker House (1872)

Crocker House

The Crocker House is a five-story luxury hotel built at 180 State Street in New London in 1872. The project was inspired by A. N. Ramsdell, president of the New London Railroad and the New London City Bank. The hotel was named for Henry Scudder Crocker, its first proprietor, who who was also the manager of the elite Pequot House summer resort. The Crocker House‘s Mansard-roofed top floor was later destroyed in a fire. An addition to the building, designed by architect James Sweeney, was erected in 1914. Playwright Eugene O’Neill could often be found in the hotel’s bar. Today the former hotel is the Crocker House Apartments. (more…)