Greek Revival - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Clark Greenman House (1841)

Three brothers, George, Clark and Thomas Greenman, founded the the George Greenman & Co. shipyard in Mystic. The brothers soon built three adjacent Greek Revival homes along Greenmanville Avenue. The first was constructed by George in 1839 and this was followed by the houses of Clark and Thomas in 1841 and 1842. The Clark Greenman House has a porch and ornate Victorian decoration, which were added in the 1870s. The house was acquired by Mystic Seaport in 1949, initially serving as the museum’s library and now housing its administrative offices.

Selden Brewer House (1833)

Selden Brewer was a successful tobacco grower in East Hartford, who built his impressive house between 1827 and 1833. A tradition about the house states that Selden’s father, Samuel Brewer, transported the bricks used in the house‘s construction from Wethersfield over the frozen Connecticut River in 1827. The house originally stood on Main Street, on the northern end of the Brewer Tobacco Plantation, but in the 1980s, through the efforts of the Historical Society of East Hartford, it was moved to its current location at the intersection of Main and Naubuc Streets. The Historical Society’s offices are on the second floor and the rooms on the first floor can be rented for meetings and small banquets. [It’s interesting to compare images of some of the rooms as they appear today compared with historical photos taken of the furnished rooms over sixty years ago].

Daniel R. Williams House (1834)

Daniel R. Williams was a marine entrepreneur who sold seine fishing nets out of the basement of his house, on Gravel Street in Mystic. The house was built in 1834 and an outbuilding on the property was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Smith-Dickinson House (1842)

In 1841-1842, Charles Whitmore Smith, a merchant, built a Greek Revival house on North Street in Essex. In 1888, the house was purchased by Edward E. Dickinson, whose E.E. Dickinson Company dominated the nation’s production of witch hazel. Dickinson wintered in Florida, where the wealthy community of Palm Beach was being developed at the time. In 1927, Dickinson enlarged and remodeled his house in Essex to resemble Whitehall, Henry Flagler’s famous mansion in Palm Beach.

Chester Meeting House (1793)

The old colony of Saybrook covered a geographic area which was later subdivided into many different towns. As was common in the colonial era, these divisions were centered on the establishment of separate church congregations. The original First Ecclesiastical Society of Saybrook was founded in what is now Old Saybrook in 1646. Second and Third Societies were established at Centerbrook (now in the town of Essex) in 1725 and at Westbrook in 1726. The Fourth Ecclesiastical Society of Saybrook was established in what is now the town of Chester in 1742. The society’s second meeting house was constructed in 1793-1795 and served the congregation until a new church was built (the United Church of Chester now worships in its fourth church building). The old meeting house was then purchased by the town of Chester in 1847 and was used as the Town Hall until 1960, when meetings were moved to a newly constructed elementary school. In addition to town meetings, the building also hosted theatrical productions and other events, facilitated by its remodeling as a theater space in 1876. P.T. Barnum’s star, Tom Thumb, made a notable appearance there and numerous recitals, dances and other events took place over the years. In 1972, the Chester Historical Society, which held its meetings in the building, undertook its restoration. Used again for a variety of meetings and performances, the Chester Meeting House had a new addition constructed in 1985.

Elizabeth Apthorp House (1837)

In 1838, Elizabeth Apthorp moved from her first home on New Haven’s Hillhouse Avenue, which she had been sharing with her half-sister, Abigail Whelpley, to another one nearby, again arranged by James Hillhouse and newly completed the year before. The Apthorp House was designed by A.J. Davis. He described the house as an Etruscan Villa, although its overall shape conformed to the Greek Revival style and the original focus of the facade was an Egyptian Revival porch. The building has been constantly added to over the years with new and reused elements in a variety of styles. In the early twentieth century, the house was occupied by the family of former Yale president Timothy Dwight. It is now owned by Yale and is one of the buildings housing the Yale School of Management. It was renovated in 2001.

Kensington Congregational Church (1774)

The Second Church of Farmington was gathered in 1712, in what is now the Town of Berlin. The first meeting house was located on the road that came to be called “Christian Lane.” The congregation was officially given the name of Kensington in 1722. A new and larger meeting house was built around 1733 a mile south of the first one. The congregational society was divided in 1754 with the creation of new society in New Britain. The original society was again divided between east and west sections in 1772. The west section retained the name Kensington, the east was known as Worthington. Both societies continued to share the old meeting house until the separate Worthington church was completed in 1774. The Kensington Society then built its own new church, over a mile west of the old one, which was dedicated on December 1, 1774. The two communities of Kensington and Worthington later joined in 1785 to form the Town of Berlin (New Britain remained a part of Berlin until 1850). Over the years, the Kensington Congregational Church has been expanded to the rear and adapted in the Greek Revival style.