Gothic

Trinity College Long Walk (1883)

The “Long Walk” at Trinity College in Hartford consists of the two long structures of Seabury Hall and Jarvis Hall (named for the first two Episcopal Bishops of Connecticut), on either side of the central block of Northam Towers, named for Col. Charles H. Northam. In the 1870s, with the new state capitol building being constructed at the location of Trinity’s former campus in downtown Hartford, Trinity moved to its new Gallows Hill campus to the southwest. William Burges, a prominent English architect, created a master plan for the new campus. Burges, based in England, never came to Hartford to view the site. His ambitious plan of interconnected quadrangles, designed in 1873-74, was brought back to Hartford by Francis H. Kimball, who would supervise the actual construction. With available resources being far less than required to realize Burges‘s plan, Kimball adapted elements from it in 1875 for a reduced scheme. That year, construction began on Seabury and Jarvis Halls, completed in 1878. Northam Tower was completed in 1883. These were the only structures from the Burges plan to be built. The Long Walk is a famous example of the High Victorian Collegiate Gothic style, with gothic arches and dormers and polychromatic masonry. Trinity College recently completed a restoration and updating of the Long Walk buildings. A current exhibit, at Trinity’s Watkinson Library, provides a more in-depth look at the original construction and features original plans for the buildings.

Stonington Harbor Lighthouse (1840)

Stonington’s first lighthouse was built in 1824, but after an 1838 inspection, it was found the building was deteriorating and had moved 25 feet due to erosion. Reusing stones from the first building, a new stone lighthouse, with a 35-foot tower, was built in 1840 by John Bishop further up Stonington Borough’s peninsula. This lighthouse served until 1889. By that time, a privately owned signal on Stonington’s newly constructed breakwater had proven to be more effective than the old lighthouse, so a new cast-iron Stonington Breakwater Light (replaced in 1926) was built. The earlier Harbor Light continued to be used as the new lighthouse keeper’s home until a house was built in 1908. In 1925, the old building was sold at auction and then donated to the Stonington Historical Society. Since 1927, the Stonington Harbor Lighthouse has been open to the public as the Old Lighthouse Museum, with exhibits about Stonington’s maritime history.

Pine Grove Schoolhouse (1865)

In Avon, on Route 167 (West Avon Road) is a Gothic Revival-style one room school house which served students from 1865 to 1949. Built in 1865 as Avon‘s School Number 7, it was renamed the Pine Grove School in 1927. After 1949, it served as a branch library and a nursery school, eventually being restored by the Avon Historical Society in 1975 and opened as a museum representing an early twentieth century school.

The Eugene Kenyon Farmhouse (1870)

The first house to be built north of Farmington Avenue, in Hartford’s West End, was an 1870 farmhouse on Kenyon Street. The house was built by the developer Eugene Kenyon, who was laying out streets and planning to construct homes in what was then an area of farmland. Kenyon’s own home was on nearby Farmington Avenue and the farmhouse was soon purchased by its first owner, Maria K. Stanley. An economic downturn in the later 1870s stalled the development of the neighborhood and Kenyon lost his money, but by the 1880s, the pace of house construction in the West End accelerated. Many classic Victorian homes were constructed on Kenyon Street around 1900 and the older farmhouse was embellished over time, combining elements of the Gothic Revival and Italianate styles.

Sterling Memorial Library (1927)

Designed by James Gamble Rogers to resemble a Gothic cathedral, but with a sixteen-story tower of book stacks, Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library is an imposing structure with rich ornamentation. Construction began in 1927 and the building was completed in 1930. There have been various additions made to the library over the years, including the 1968-1971 construction of the underground Cross Campus Library (now renamed the Bass Library). In 1992, the section of High Street in front of the library was closed to vehicles and was landscaped.

Raynham (1804/1856)

Raynham, a mansion on Townsend Avenue in New Haven, was built in 1804, but was completely transformed in 1856. With decorative elements derived from the writings of A.J. Downing, the house was transformed, and is maintained today, as an excellent example of the Gothic Revival villa. The house was built on a hill overlooking New Haven Harbor by the Townsend family of merchants. Originally called Bayridge, the house was later renamed Raynham, after Raynham Hall, the seat of the Townsend family in Norfolk, England. The house is still owned by members of the Townsend family.

The Buell-Cook House (1877)

Built on South Street in Litchfield in 1877, when the Gothic Style was still popular, the Buell-Cook House survived the early twentieth-century Colonial Revival transformation of the town, although the home is now painted a Colonial Revival influenced white, rather than its original dark colors. The house was originally a duplex, but in 1982, it was converted for use by a single family.