Essex Savings Bank (1922)

Essex Savings Bank

The Essex Savings Bank in Essex was founded in 1851. The bank was initially located above a retail business in Essex and in 1873 it moved into an 1849 building previously occupied by the Saybrook Bank. This building was remodeled and expanded into what it is today in 1922. The Essex Savings Bank was originally founded because of the wealth generated by shipbuilding. Unlike many other banks, it has never merged with another institution.

Noyes Memorial Building (1901)

Noyes Memorial Building, home of the Litchfield Historical Museum

Happy New Year!!! We begin the year with the Litchfield Historical Museum. The Noyes Memorial Building was constructed in 1901 (and expanded in 1906-1907) to house the town library and the Litchfield Historical Society, the latter of which had been founded in 1856. The building was built by John A. Vanderpoel in memory of his grandmother, Julia Tallmadge Noyes, a local resident and amateur historian who had led the Historical Society for many years. A granddaughter of Benjamin Tallmadge, she had married New York City attorney William Curtis Noyes in 1857. The couple owned the Benjamin Tallmadge House in Litchfield, which was inherited by their daughter, Emily Noyes Vanderpoel. Also an active member of the Historical Society, Emily Noyes Vanderpoel oversaw the completion of the Noyes Memorial Building after the death of her son, John A. Vanderpoel. She wrote two books about Sarah Pierce’s Litchfield Female Academy, which her mother had attended. The library moved out to a new building in the 1960s and the Historical Society then occupied the entirety of the Noyes Memorial, which was expanded in 1989-1990. (more…)

Leonard Asheim House (1910)

The Colonial Revival-style house at 2345 North Avenue in Bridgeport was built in 1910. It was the home of Leonard Asheim, an architect who designed many prominent religious and municipal buildings in Bridgeport in the 1910s to 1940s, including Achavath Achim Synagogue and the Klein Memorial Auditorium. In front of the house stands a Franklin milestone, inscribed “20 miles to N.H.” It originally stood on the nearby training ground (now part of Clinton Park) and was reset by the D.A.R. in 1913 on the front lawn of 2345 North Avenue. (more…)

C. Gilbert Shepard House (1930)

One of the houses to be featured in The Friends of The Mark Twain House & Museum 32nd Holiday House Tour on Sunday, Dec. 2, is the Colonial Revival residence located at 4 Mohawk Drive in West Hartford. Built in 1930, the house is the work of architect Lester Beach Scheide and builder Louis Slocum. The house won a West Hartford Historic Preservation Award in 2005. The jury marveled at the amount of work done, which was based on extensive research and use of photographic evidence to restore the home’s former grandeur. The original plans for the house are in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society, where it is described as a “House for C. Gilbert Shepard.” C. Gilbert Shepard was the son of Charles E. Shepard, whose own house, built in 1900, is on Prospect Avenue. The younger Shepard served as a lieutenant in France in the First World War. Like his father, he became an insurance agent. The Yale Club of Hartford gives the C. Gilbert Shepard Award each year to freshmen from the area who excel at scholarship and athletics.

Ellington Town Hall (1915)

When Ellington’s Congregational Church burned down in 1914, the town simultaneously lost the selectman’s office, which had been located in the church’s basement since 1867. The town then decided to built a Town Hall, which is located at 55 Main Street. Completed in 1915, it was designed by Ellington-born architect J. Henry McCray. The first floor was used as a school from 1921 to 1949 to help alleviate overcrowding at Center School, located next door. The Town Hall was renovated in 1971.