Simsbury’s first meeting house was built in 1683 and was used until 1739. A reproduction of that now lost building was constructed in 1970 to serve as the Simsbury Tercentenary Celebration headquarters. It’s design was based on an earlier 1935 reproduction and it contains some windows and the door used on that building. Today, the reproduction Meeting House is a museum building on the grounds of the Simsbury Historical Society.
In 1705, Thomas Brooks, from Cheshire, England, settled in the area that would later become the town of Cheshire in Connecticut. In 1732-1733, his son Enos Brooks, built a saltbox house on what is now South Brooksvale Road. The house has remained in the same family ever since, with significant additions being made over the years. According to Old Historic Homes of Cheshire, Connecticut (1895), by Edwin R. Brown, Enos’s son, David Brooks, who resided in the house,
was a graduate of Yale College in the year 1765, was ordained to the work of the ministry, occasionally preached, but never was a settled pastor. He was a delegate to the State Convention held in Hartford in January, 1788, to ratify and adopt the Constitution of the United States. He was a soldier in the war of the Revolution. He entered first as a private and was afterwards promoted to the position of quartermaster of his regiment. He prepared and delivered, in Derby, Conn., in the year 1774, a discourse on the religion of the Revolution. This discourse was highly commended, and strongly influenced public opinion in favor of the cause of the struggling colonies.
Rev. Brooks’s son, also named David, enlarged the house in 1841 and his son, Samuel Hull Brooks, added an attic and gables. In 1925, John Van Buren Thayer built a two-story addition to the house. Through the efforts Brooks descendants and the Cheshire Land Trust, 48 acres of the farm land that once belonged to Thomas Brooks has been placed under a conservation restriction to preserve the rural and scenic character of the farm. It is known as the Brooksvale Farm Preserve.
On the west side of Windsor Avenue in Windsor is a brick one-room schoolhouse called Stony Hill School. It was built around 1856 and originally stood across the street, but was moved to its present location in 1899 and rebuilt in the colonial revival style. The current site is on land deeded to the Board of Education by Dr. Erastus E. Case in exchange for land on the other side of Windsor Avenue. After the building ceased being used as a school in 1969, Case’s heirs sued the town, claiming that this violated Case’s deed. The town settled the lawsuit with a payment to the heirs. The school, which was damaged when a pine tree fell on it in 1970, has since been restored as a historic site and educational facility through the efforts of the Friends of Stony Hill School.
Adjacent to the Center Congregational Church in Manchester is the town’s Municipal Building. The brick and limestone building was constructed in 1926 and is typical of the colonial revival civic architecture of its era.
The Georgian-Revival style Cowell-Guilfoile Building is on the corner of Grand and Leavenworth Streets in Waterbury. It was built in 1908 and the architect was Joseph T. Smith. The building is named for two law partners who were involved in its construction: Francis P. Guilfoile, a lawyer, legislator and mayor of Waterbury, and Judge George H. Cowell of the Waterbury district court.
Sharpenhoe is the name of a house at 132 Red Stone Hill in Plainville. This Colonial Revival home was built in 1921-1922 for Charles Hotchkiss Norton (1851-1942), a mechanical engineer and designer of machine tools. In the 1890s, Norton invented a heavy-duty cylindrical grinding machine capable of supplying machine parts for automobiles. The Charles H. Norton House was designed by Isaac A. Allen, Jr. of Hartford. As described in Modern Connecticut Homes and Homecrafts (1921): “this dwelling of red brick with garage attached is an exceptionally happy conception of the hip roof type of Colonial house with dormer windows. The design everywhere evidences a refinement of taste in the choice of its carefully considered decorative details.” Norton’s family continued to live in the house until about 1958.
The house at 86 Buckingham Street in Waterbury was built around the end of the First World War for Alfred Hart, vice-president of the R. F. Griggs Company. The house, which has cedar shake siding, was designed by Davis and Brooks of Hartford.
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