Oxfordshire (1925)

Stephen Betts Church (1866-1951) was a businessman and land-owner in Oxford who founded the Stephen B. Church Company, which specializes in drilling high capacity artesian wells. In 1925, he expanded his original family homestead at 53 Great Hill Road. The old house, built in 1736, was split in half and the two parts were moved to be on either side of a new section in the center. Church named his thirty-room mansion Oxfordshire. A highlight of the house is the music room, which features an Aeolian Pipe Organ. (more…)

Acton Library (1873)

The original Acton Library building in Old Saybrook was erected in 1873 on land donated by Thomas Acton at the corner of Old Boston Post Road and Pennywise Lane. The Library was dedicated on July 4, 1874. Thomas C. Acton (1823-1898) was a New York City politician and Police Commissioner whose summer home in Old Saybrook was across the street from the library. Begun as a subscription library, it became a public library in 1904. A new Acton Library was constructed in 1967 at 60 Old Boston Post Road. The former library, at 40 Old Boston Post Road, was bought from the town by architect Robert Wendler in 1970. He converted it into a single-family residence.

Wells Hall (1832)

Much altered over the years, the Classical Revival building at 1110-1112 Main Street in East Hartford was erected in 1832-1833. It was known as the Academy and housed the East Hartford Select School, also known as the Classical and English School. The school eventually closed and the building was acquired by Jonathan Tremaine Wells in 1858. It became part of the larger Wells estate to the east, which included the famous Wells Tavern. Upon his death in 1881, Wells willed the Academy to the town for use as a public building to be called Wells Hall. In 1885 it became East Hartford’s town hall and a new front entry tower was added to the structure. In addition to town offices, Wells Hall also housed a library and the police department, including jail cells. On the second floor was a large public hall, used as a ballroom and as a meeting place for the Grange and the Grand Army of the Republic. When the current Town Hall building was erected in 1937, ownership of Wells Hall reverted to the heirs of Jonathan Wells, as per his will. For many years the building was the Old Town Hall Inn and Restaurant. In the 1930s to 1950s, the Inn had a dinner theater that hosted famous performers. In more recent years the building has been restored and expanded and a 1924 addition on the front of the building, which for many years blocked the 1885 entrance, was removed. Wells Hall now houses the offices of the East Hartford Board of Education.

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St. Mark the Evangelist Church (1945)

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church, 467 South Quaker Lane in West Hartford, was dedicated on September 30, 1945. It replaced the original St. Mark Church on the site, which was destroyed by a fire of suspicious origin on June 24, 1944. Due to the scarciry of building materials during World War Two, that building had been a portable church, a narrow structure with a heating grate running through its center. St. Mark’s Parish Center was dedicated in 1971. As part of the Archdiocese of Hartford’s reorganization of parishes earlier this year, St. Mark’s merged with two other West Hartford parishes, St. Brigid and St. Helena, to form the new Saint Gianna Parish.

Mansfield Town Office Building (1935)

For many years, Mansfield’s Old Town Hall (built in 1843) was used to store town records and hold town meetings. Business was conducted at office holders’ homes. Eventually the need to have a central place for town offices led to the construction of the Town Office Building, a WPA project completed in 1935 (the date on the cornerstone), next to the Town Hall. An addition was constructed in 1957 and town offices were moved to another larger building in the late 1970s. In 1980, the Mansfield Historical Society moved into the old Office Building.

St. Rose Church, East Hartford (1924)

St. Rose Catholic Parish, located in the Burnside section of East Hartford, was established in 1920. The parish‘s first church was a Quonset hut on Church Street, situated between the current church (33 Church Street) and Burnside Avenue. A new church was dedicated on June 22, 1924. [see also Mike Sheridan, “St. Rose’s Church Parishioners Pitch In To Renovate Building,” Hartford Courant, July 28, 1974]. (more…)

Choate Rosemary Hall: Memorial House (1921)

Memorial House is a large Georgian Revival dormitory building on the campus of Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford. Completed in 1921, it was dedicated to the memory of the fifteen Choate boys who had fallen in the First World War. In 2014, new stair railings and new balustrade and columns for the entry portico were added in front of the building to mark the centennial of the war’s beginning. Memorial Hall was designed by Francis Waterman to be a mirror image of Hill House, which he had designed for the Choate campus a decade earlier.