995 Prospect Avenue, West Hartford (1916)

The house at 995 Prospect Avenue in West Hartford, across from the Governor’s Residence, was built in 1916 for Lewis E. Gordon, resident manager of the American Mutual Liability Insurance Company. From 1926 to 1989, the house was owned by Miss Ethel Frances Donaghue (pdf) (1896-1989). Her father, Patrick Donaghue, an Irish immigrant, became wealthy running a wholesale and retail liquor business and purchasing commercial real estate in downtown Hartford. A wealthy heiress, Ethel Donaghue earned a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an SJD from New York University School of Law. Specializing in real estate and trust law in Hartford, she practiced until 1933, when her mother was ill with cancer. Her father had passed away when she was in High School from heart disease.

Experiencing health problems of her own in her later years, Ethel Donaghue left the bulk of her wealth ($53 million) to the Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research Foundation to “promote medical knowledge which will be of practical benefit to the preservation, maintenance and improvement of human life.” After Donaghue was incapacitated by a series of strokes in 1980, there was a legal battle over control of her financial affairs between the two conservators of her estate, who were both later removed (pdf). The resulting scandal led to the resignation, in 1984, of Probate Judge James H. Kinsella, to avoid an impending impeachment vote in the Connecticut House of Representatives. The house on Prospect Avenue, vacant for a number of years after her death, passed through other owners. In 2011, the house was sold to George Jepsen, who is currently serving as the state’s Attorney General.