Wood Memorial Library (1928)

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Donated by William Wood, of South Windsor, in honor of his parents, Dr. William Wood (a distinguished ornithologist) and Mary Ellsworth Wood, the Wood Memorial Library, on Main Street, served as the one of town’s two libraries from its dedication, in 1928, into the 1970s, when a new library building was constructed on Sullivan Avenue. In 1971, the non-profit Friends of Wood Memorial Library was founded to oversee its continued operation, through private funds, as a library, museum and historical archive. The library, built between 1926 and 1928, was designed by the Hartford architect William Marchant in the Colonial Revival style, with features drawn from the Federal period.

Jonathan Camp House (1911)

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The Jonathan Camp House, at 1430 Asylum Avenue in Hartford, may look familiar to those interested in American history. It is a virtual replica of George Washington’s Mount Vernon, in Virginia, but features some grand additions to its model, including a much fancier entry with a semicircular fanlight and side lights, as well as an elaborate balustrade along the roof. Mount Vernon also influenced the design of other Colonial Revival style houses, like the Hill-Stead, but this house, designed by Edward T. Hapgood and built in 1911, follows the first president’s home very closely, with some early twentieth century aggrandizement.

The Philip Cheney house (1900)

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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 Huntington House (1901)

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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)

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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)

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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.