In 1893, Levi W. Eaton, president of the Bryant Electric Company, built a house on the southeast corner of Marina Park and Linden Avenue in Bridgeport. Eaton had been invited to build a home there by P.T. Barnum, whose fourth and final mansion was also located on the elliptical Marina Park circle. Eaton’s financial situation led him to sell the house right after completion to William A. Grippin, president of the Bridgeport Malleable Iron Company, Vulcan Ironworks and the North and Judd Manufacturing Company of New Britain. Three years after Grippin‘s first wife died, he married again in 1910, but died at the Grand Canyon in Arizona in 1911, while he was on his wedding trip. The Eaton-Grippin House was acquired by the University of Bridgeport in 1959 and for thirty years it served as a dormitory for law school students. The house, known as Darien Hall, has been unoccupied since the early 1990s and is in currently in disrepair.
I hope this house is saved. It has a rich history from its original occupant Wm A. Grippin that built the famous Blythewood mansion on Gull Bay, designed by Bridgeport architect Joseph W. Northrup. Grippen’s daughter, Edna and Dudley Mixer Morris her husband, built “The Chimneys” and of course inherited Blythewood. Their daughter Margaret “Peggy” Morris Cate recently passed away in 2009 at the age of 97 in Ashville, NC. Peggy did not know her grandfather Grippen, but she enjoyed the beautiful Blythewood mansion.
The house is being restored thanks to a generous donation! Will be new innovation center for the University!