The house at 70 Central Avenue in Waterbury was built between 1890 and 1896. It was originally a Queen Anne house, but was converted into the Colonial Revival style by W.S. Rushmore Wake, owner of the Boston Furniture Company. In 1923, the house was bought by Idris Alderson, who founded Alderson Funeral Home. Today it is the McAuliffe Center, opened in 2009 by Connecticut Renaissance.
Torrington Savings Bank was established in 1868 and for many years was located in the Granite Block, which once stood on Main Street. Their current building, at 129 Main Street, was built in 1938. It was designed by Torrington architect Carl Victor Johnson, who also designed the Torrington City Hall (1936) across the street.
The Belden is a Colonial Revival/Neoclassical Revival apartment building at 1545-1555 Main Street in Hartford’s Clay/Arsenal neighborhood. designed by the firm of Bayley & Goodrich and built in 1898, it occupies a prominent position at the corner of Main and Belden Streets. A fire destroyed part of the north section of the building, but it was restored and partially rebuilt in 1983.
Thirman Milner, born in 1934, was elected to the State House of Representatives in 1978 and served as Hartford’s first black mayor (and the first popularly elected black mayor in New England) from 1981-1987. During that period, Milner lived in a 1927 brick Colonial Revival-style house (designed by Berenson & Moses) at 19 Colebrook Street.
James E. Mallette came to Torrington as a stable boy and ended up becoming a leading real estate developer and financier. In 1916, he built the structure at 56-66 Main Street (next to the Warner Theatre) for the Chamber of Commerce, of which he was president. Today, the building is home to the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts, which has restored and expanded the building, adding a new facade on the first floor.
While it looks to be of perhaps the same vintage as the neighboring Congregational Church of 1843, the First Church of Christ Scientist at 49 Park Street in New Canaan was actually built in 1953. The New Canaan branch of The Mother Church was established in 1923.
Charles Phelps (1852-1940) of Rockville was a lawyer who served as Tolland County coroner (1883-1904) and state’s attorney for Tolland County (1904-1915). He was also corporation counsel and prosecuting attorney for the city of Rockville. In politics, he served as a state representative and state senator and then as Connecticut’s Secretary of State (1897-1899), resigning to became the state’s first attorney-general. Charles Phelps‘ 1905 Georgian Revival house at 1 Ellington Avenue in Rockville was designed by Hartwell, Richardson & Driver of Boston. While the house has recently been in need of rehabilitation, the carriage barn in the rear has been used for housing.
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