Colonial Revival

The Philip Cheney house (1900)

The Philip Cheney House, which is currently being restored, is one of the mansions of the Cheney Family of Silk Manufacturers which face Hartford Road across the Great Lawn in Manchester. It was designed by Charles Adams Platt, himself a member of the Cheney Family, who also designed the Frank Cheney, Jr. and Clifford D. Cheney Houses. The house, an H-shaped Colonial Revival building, was finished around 1900 and lies northwest of the adjacent Clifford D. Cheney House. Philip Cheney was a brother of Clifford and Russell Cheney.

The Austin Cheney House (1911)

The Austin Cheney House is one of the Cheney Mansions, built for members of the Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturers of Manchester. Built in 1911 and remodeled in 1921, the pink stuccoed house is one of the mansions which faces Hartford Road across the “Great Lawn.”

The Huntington House (1901)

The Huntington House, located along Windsor’s Broad Street Green, was built in 1901 and was lived in by members of the Huntington family until 1998. It is a Neo-Classical Revival and Colonial Revival style house, modeled on a Newport mansion. In 2001, the house was restored and opened to the public as the Huntington House Museum, but closed in 2005 due to a lack of community support. It now serves as offices.

The Clifford D. Cheney House (1904)

One of the mansions of the Cheney family of silk manufacturers, the Clifford D. Cheney House, on Forest Street in Manchester, faces Hartford Road across the “Great Lawn,” around which the mansions are situated. The house, like a number of the other Cheney mansions, was designed by Charles Adams Platt, an architect, artist and landscape designer, whose mother was Mary Elizabeth Cheney. The house is distinctive with its pink stuccoed exterior.

Windham Town Hall (1896)

The town of Windham held its first public meeting in 1691. As the area of Willimantic grew after the Civil War, various buildings in the borough were used for town meetings. Having utilized a room in the Savings Institute building, in 1880 the town offices were settled in the Hayden Block. Rising rents forced another move to a space above a silk mill. By 1893, when Willimantic became a city, the need for a city hall and county court building was clear, one that would serve all of Windham. There was much dissension in town over the cost and location of the new structure. After some prolonged political battles among various factions, construction began in 1895 and was completed in 1896. The impressive Victorian style building , with its elaborate clock tower, was designed by the noted architect, Warren Richard Briggs, (author of the 1899 book, Modern American School Buildings). A detailed history of the Town Hall‘s construction can be found in four parts (1, 2, 3, 4) at the Thread City website.

Gilbert W. Chapin House (1898)

The 1898 house of Gilbert W. Chapin stands on Farmington Avenue in Hartford, adjacent to the home of Mary Rowell Storrs, widow of Zalmon Storrs who, like Chapin, worked at the Society for Savings. The Chapin House, now used for offices, was designed in the Georgian Revival style by Ernest Flagg. It is less monumental than his plan for the nearby Immanuel Church, built a year later.

Universalist Church of West Hartford (1931)

The First Universalist Society in the City of Hartford was formed in 1821, with its first church building being constructed on Main Street, across from the Old State House, in 1824. The congregation moved to a second building in 1860, located where the Travelers Tower now stands, and to a third building in 1906, in Hartford’s Asylim Hill neighborhood. The fourth and current church, located on Fern Street in West Hartford, was built in 1931 and was designed by Walter Crabtree in the Colonial Revival style. A large addition to the rear was constructed in 1962. Known from 1870 to the early 1960s as the Church of the Redeemer, it is now called the Universalist Church of West Hartford.