Gothic - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Waterbury (1873)

St. John’s Episcopal Church in Waterbury was established in 1737, with the first church building being constructed in 1743 at West Main and Willow Streets. A new church was built in 1797 at the west end of Waterbury Green, the first of three successive churches at that location. Expanded in 1839, the 1797 church was moved to East Main Street in 1847 to become St. Peter’s Catholic Church (it was torn down in 1888). The second, granite Gothic Revival church was built in 1848. This church’s steeple toppled in a high wind in 1857 and the church itself burned down on Christmas Eve, 1868. It was replaced by the current church, built in 1873 and designed by Henry C. Dudley, an architect known for his Gothic Revival churches. The church features stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Monroe Congregational Church (1847)

In 1762, residents of New Startford, now Monroe, successfully petitioned the State Legislature to establish a new parish. Previously, residents had made the long journey to Huntington (now Shelton) for worship. A meeting house, for use during the winter, had previously been built on Moose Hill Road. Once the New Stratford Ecclesiastical Society was formed, a new meeting house was built in 1766 on what is now Monroe Green. This was replaced by the current Monroe Congregational Church, built just to the north, in 1847. In 1985-1986, the church was expanded and the interior was restored as closely as possible to its nineteenth-century appearance.

Chapin Park (1871)

Chapin Park, which is today a bed and breakfast, is an 1871 Gothic Revival house on Church Street in Pine Meadow in New Hartford. It was the second house on the site built for Edward M. Chapin (the earlier one was moved to make way for the new one). The house has a similar arrangement of interior rooms to that of Edward’s brother, Philip Chapin, nearby. Chapin Park was designed by Robert W. Hill, a Waterbury-based architect who designed buildings throughout Connecticut.

Frederick G. Platt House (1886)

The distinctive home, built in 1886 for Frederick G. Platt, is located at 25 Court Street in New Britain. With its prominent tower decorated with ornamental terra cotta, the house is a striking example of the High Victorian Gothic style. Frederick G. Platt was president of the New Britain Lumber and Coal Company, incorporated in 1871, and secretary-treasurer of the Railroad Block Company. As explained in David N. Camp’s History of New Britain (1889), “The Railroad Block Company, which consisted principally of stockholders of the New Britain Lumber and Coal Company, was organized under the law relating to joint stock corporations, in 1881, with a capital of $24,000, to build a business block. The land purchased for the purpose was on Main Street, north of the railway, and the building erected is known as the Railroad Block. H. P. Strong is president, and F. G. Platt secretary and treasurer of the company.” Platt was also president of the New Britain Machine Company. In 1895, responding to changing tastes in architecture, Platt sold his house and built a new one on Grove Hill in the Colonial Revival style. The next owner of the house on Court Street was Harriet H. Merwin, widow of Charles P. Merwin of the Berlin Steam Brick Works. Attached for many years to a hardware store, the house was restored in 1987 and is now used for offices.

South United Methodist Church, Manchester (1925)

The Methodist Church in Manchester began with a sermon preached in the spring of 1790 by the Rev. George Roberts in the home of Thomas Spencer. Rev. Roberts was an assistant of the Rev. Jesse Lee, who had preached the first Methodist sermon in Connecticut in Norwalk on June 7th, 1789. A Methodist Society in Manchester was soon organized and the first church building was constructed in 1794. In 1822, a new building was built at the corner of Center and Main Streets, now the site of a Masonic Temple. In 1851, the expanding congregation decided to divide into two congregations. The North Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1851 on North Main Street and, after receiving a hundred new members, a new South Church was built in 1854 at the corner of Main Street and Hartford Road. This church was enlarged in 1891 and replaced by the current church in 1925. It was designed in a Tudor Gothic style by architect Arthur Eaton Hill of Providence, Rhode Island, who died before it was completed. In 1958, the church acquired the estate of Frank Cheney, Jr., located across Hartford Road.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Cheshire (1840)

The Episcopal parish in Cheshire was formed in 1751, under the leadership of Rev. Ichabod Camp, an Anglican priest born in Durham, who later traveled to the west. The first Episcopal church was built in 1760, replaced by a new one ten years later. According to Old Historic Homes of Cheshire (1895), compiled by Edwin R. Brown, “This second church building was low between joints. In 1795 a very high steeple was added—much out of proportion to the building. It is stated that when the Bishop of the Diocese first saw this high steeple, he remarked: ‘They had better now build a church for the steeple.'” The oldest part of the current St. Peter’s Church, the Nave, was built in 1840 and the hipped-roofed front section was added to it in 1889.

First Congregational Church, Ansonia (1865)

Ansonia‘s First Congregational Church was founded in 1850 and a wood church was built in 1852. This burned in 1865, when a group of women were cleaning the church and a fire started in the flue of the furnace. It was replaced by the current Gothic church building on South Cliff Street, built of stone quarried in Seymour. Anson G. Phelps, who founded Ansonia, donated the land and funds to build the church, which has stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany.