The Colonial Revival-style house at 100 Norwood Road in the Hartford Golf Club Historic District in West Hartford was built in 1930. The house‘s design was modeled on George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon by architect Walter Crabtree. Another home modeled on Mount Vernon is not too far away at 1430 Asylum Avenue in Hartford.
Deepwood Drive, off Whitney Avenue in Hamden and adjacent to the town’s border with New Haven, was developed in the 1920s on on an old estate. Known architecturally for its many modern houses, the street also has older-style homes and was landscaped to have a rural appearance. Many of the homes are oriented away from the street, often obscuring them from the road. One such house, at 50 Deepwood Drive, was built in 1929 by Thornton Wilder, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and novelist. Built as home for himself, his parents and sisters with the royalties from his famous novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), Wilder referred to it as “the house the bridge built.” Wilder had a view of New Haven and East Rock from his English style country home, which sits on the edge of a promontory. He shared the house with his sister, Isabel, until he died in 1975. Thornton Wilder furniture and memorabilia from the house’s study are on display at the Miller Memorial Central Library in Hamden.
Four successive Congregational church buildings have stood on the same spot on Canterbury Green for three hundred years. The church in Canterbury was established in 1711 and work then began on the first meeting house at the Green‘s highest point. The second meeting house was built in 1735 and the third in 1805. When it was destroyed by fire in 1963, the current church was constructed the following year.
Ansonia became a separate town from Derby in 1889 and was incorporated as a city in 1893. The city’s earlier borough court building on Water Street was superseded by a new City Hall on Main Street in 1905, which originally housed the police headquarters and city court as well. There are two monuments in front of City Hall: one honors Ansonia’s war veterans and the other the members of the Ansonia Volunteer Fire Department.
Congregation Tephereth Israel in New Britain was formed in 1925 when orthodox Lithuanian immigrants withdrew from the conservative Temple B’nai Israel. The synagogue on Winter Street, which combines elements of the Romanesque and Colonial Revival styles, was built in 1925 to 1928 and was designed by Adolf Feinberg, an Austrian-born architect who arrived in the United States in 1921. Feinberg also designed Beth David Synagogue in West Hartford. Congregation Tephereth Israel, which today has a small membership, is undertaking a building repair program. For five decades, Rabbi Henry Okolica has been spiritual leader of the Orthodox synagogue, as well as serving as Jewish chaplain at Central Connecticut State University.
In February 1797, a new Episcopal church was organized at a meeting in the home of Dr. Samuel Sanford in Seymour. By spring, the cornerstone for a church building had been laid but, due to a lack of funds, Union Church was only completed in 1816. Rev. Richard Mansfield served as the part-time rector until 1802. The church grew over the years and, in 1853, its name was changed to Trinity Episcopal. In 1857, the church was almost completely rebuilt, starting with only the old framework of the building, under the direction of architect Henry Austin of New Haven. There have been changes to the church over the years. The current spire is not as tall or complex than the one Austin originally built. At one time, the church also had Victorian-style ornamentation inside, but in 1997, when the church celebrated its 200th anniversary, the interior was completely renovated in the Colonial Revival manner.
The Henry Farnam House, on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, is an 1871 building whose style was completely changed in 1934. The house was originally constructed as an impressive High Victorian Gothic mansion, the first on the street in that style, for Henry Farnam, engineer of the Farmington Canal and a railroad president. Designed by Russell Sturgis, it featured extravagant Gothic details, including turrets, gables and lancet windows. These were all removed and the home converted to a Colonial Revival style after the house became the property of Yale University in 1934. Since 1937, the building has been the residence of Yale’s presidents.
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