At 152 Cornwall Avenue in Cheshire is an 1828 house, built by Amasa Preston. A settler from Wallingford, Preston was on the building committee for the Methodist Church, constructed in 1834. The house had two rooms added to the rear in 1910. Owned by the Preston and Trithall family, the house was the childhood home of architect Alice Washburn. A former high school principal in the 1890s, in 1919 Washburn began designing Colonial Revival houses in Cheshire and surrounding communities. She continued until the Great Depression forced her retirement in 1933. Around 1920, she renovated the Preston House in the Colonial Revival style, creating a beautiful front entry featuring a semicircular fan above the door. Today, the Connecticut chapter of the American Institute of Architects sponsors the annual Alice Washburn Awards for excellence in traditional house design.
