The house at 70 Central Avenue in Waterbury was built between 1890 and 1896. It was originally a Queen Anne house, but was converted into the Colonial Revival style by W.S. Rushmore Wake, owner of the Boston Furniture Company. In 1923, the house was bought by Idris Alderson, who founded Alderson Funeral Home. Today it is the McAuliffe Center, opened in 2009 by Connecticut Renaissance.
Rose Hill is a Gothic Revival house at 63 Prospect Street in Waterbury and was home to three of the city’s most prominent manufacturing families. Designed by Henry Austin of New Haven, it was built in 1852 in the “cottage style” popularized by A.J. Downing in such books as The Architecture of Country Houses. It was constructed near the base of a hill that would soon be developed as a neighborhood filled with many other Victorian-era houses. Rose Hill was built for Wlliam H. Scovill, who lived in the house for only six months before his death. The house was then vacant for a decade, until in 1863 it became home to the successful businessman Joseph Chauncey Welton and his wife, Jane Porter Welton. The couple loved to entertain and the house became a center of Waterbury society. Their daughter, Caroline Josephine Welton, was known for her fondness for her black stallion Knight, although the horse had kicked her father in the head and killed him. She never married and after her death in a blizzard on Longs Peak in Colorado in 1884 she left money for a bronze statue of Knight to be placed on a memorial fountain on Waterbury Green. Her relatives contested her will, which also gave $100,000 to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, on the grounds that she was insane, but they failed to stop the bequest. The statue was carved by Karl Gerhardt, whose trip to study in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1881 was financed by Mark Twain. The Rose Hill estate was next purchased by Augustus Sabin Chase. He added porches to the first and second floors. Today the mansion is home to Stepping Stone, the local program of the North American Family Institute (NAFI). It is currently a 22 bed secured residential facility with a treatment program serving delinquent girls committed to the Department of Children and Families. Plans to expand the facility a decade ago met with local resistance.
Waterbury’s first City Hall, located on West Main Street and facing the Green, was destroyed by fire in 1912. The current City Hall, on Grand Street, was begun in July 1914 and opened in 1915. Called the Waterbury Municipal Building, it was unusual in its time for containing not just the mayor and city council, but the Police and Fire Departments as well. It was designed by the famous architect Cass Gilbert of New York, who won a design competition for the proposed structure in 1913. After winning the competition, Gilbert wanted to switch from his original plans for a brick and marble building to one with an all marble facade. Although this request was denied by the city, Gilbert had another opportunity when he designed the Chase Brass & Copper Company Building (across the street) for Henry S. Chase in 1917. The Chase family had also helped to fund the City Hall. In later years, the building‘s maintenance was neglected and it was officially condemned in 2006. Local citizens rallied to save the historic building from demolition. Rehabilitation plans were drawn up and voters approved a bond issue to fund the restoration work, which was carried out in 2009-2010. City Hall was rededicated on January 1, 2011.
The Johnson Building, at 111–115 Bank Street in Waterbury, is a concrete Late Gothic Revival-style commercial building. The 1925 structure has been altered with the addition of a modern storefront.
The Colonial Revival house at 92 Prospect Street in Waterbury was built around 1917 for Martha (b. 1863) and Helen (b. 1878) Driggs, daughters of Theodore Driggs, president of the American Pin Company. The architects were Murphy & Dana of New York.
The original Saint Mary’s Orthodox Church in Waterbury, founded primarily by Ukrainian and Russian immigrants, was built in 1906-1908 on Crown Street. In 1968, the parish purchased 12 acres of land on North Main Street for the future site of a new church. Work began in 1972 and the cornerstone of the Crown Street church was transferred to the newly completed Nativity of the Holy Virgin Mary Church in 1974. Adjacent to the church, a new rectory was built in 1975 and the new Saint Mary’s Orthodox Center in 1980-1981.
Update 2/15/2021: As per the comment below, this building has been demolished: Demolition begins at St. Mary’s Russian Orthodox Church in Waterbury // WITH VIDEO | Republican American Archives (rep-am.com)
The Parish House of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Waterbury stylistically complements the 1873 Gothic-style church. It was built in 1922 and was designed by architect Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
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