Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Colonial Revival

John Booth Burrall House (1916)

The building at 30 Church Street in Waterbury was built as a house for John Booth Burrall (1879-1920), an industrialist, in 1916, the year he married Mrs. Margaret Fallon Barber. It was designed in the Georgian Revival style by Aymar Embury II, the noted New York City architect. A wing was added to the rear of the house in 1919. Burrall died suddenly the following year while spending the winter in Palm Beach, Florida. The house later became Notre Dame Academy, a co-ed Catholic school. A modern brick classroom wing was added in 1965. Today the building is the Enlightenment School, an alternative learning program for Waterbury students with behavioral and truancy problems.

St. Joseph’s Church, Suffield (1952)

Polish immigrants in Suffield organized the St. Joseph Polish Society in 1905 and purchased land for a church. Suffield had been under the care of priests from Windsor Locks, but the town’s Polish Catholics wanted a pastor of their own. St. Joseph’s Parish in Suffield was organized in 1916, the first parish church being the Edwin D. Morgan stable, purchased earlier by the St. Joseph Society. The parish‘s current church was built in 1951-1952.

Fuller Hall, Suffield Academy (1886)

Fuller Hall (185 North Main Street in Suffield) is a dormitory and admissions building at Suffield Academy. It was built in 1886 when the school was still known as the Connecticut Literary Institute (it was renamed the Suffield School in 1916 and Suffield Academy in 1937). Today it remains “the building at the heart of Suffield Academy.”

Clifford B. Wilson House (1915)

The Colonial Revival house at 720 Clinton Avenue in Bridgeport was built in 1915. It was the residence of Clifford Brittin Wilson (1879-1943), a lawyer who served as Mayor of Bridgeport from 1911 to 1921 and simultaneously as the 56th Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut from 1915 to 1921, the same period of time that Marcus H. Holcomb was serving as Governor. According to the History of Bridgeport and Vicinity, Volume II (1917), “there are few interests of public concern in recent years with which he has not been associated, his influence always being given on the side of progress, reform and improvement.”

Anshei Israel Synagogue (1936)

Like Knesseth Israel in Ellington and Agudas Achim in Hebron, Anshei Israel, at 142 Newent Road in Lisbon, is an example of one of Connecticut’s rural synagogues. A Colonial Revival building, it was built in 1936 on land given by Harry Rothenberg, a member of the congregation. The synagogue’s fifteen founding families were Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia who lived in Lisbon and other nearby towns. More immigrants from eastern Europe joined the congregation in the wake of World War II. The building is now maintained by the Lisbon Historical Society.

Christ Church Rectory, Watertown (1846)

The former Rectory of Christ Church in Watertown was built in 1846 at 37 The Green. It was originally an Italianate villa-style structure, but the building was raised to three stories in 1912 and remodeled in the Colonial Revival style with an open two-story porch on the south end. These alterations may have been the work of Waterbury architect Wilfred Griggs.

Bailey-Sibley House (1860)

The former residence at 208 High Street in Middletown was built sometime between 1859 and 1870. Its original appearance was in a different architectural style. It was a cross gabled building with projecting eaves and a Victorian porch. A one-story wing (later raised to two stories) was added to the rear in 1876. The brick house was built on a tract of land developed by Israel Bailey and was a rental property until 1892, when Jennie A. Bailey Sibley and her husband, Howard A. Sibley, acquired title to the property from other heirs of Israel Bailey. The house was altered early in the twentieth century when the current entrance porch and a classical pediment and cornice with modillions were added. The Sibleys occupied the house until 1920. The following year, it was acquired by Wesleyan University for use as housing. It is now Wesleyan’s Office of Public Safety.