Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Greek Revival

Francis Gillette House (1834)

Francis Gillette was a politician, lecturer and abolitionist. He pursued agriculture in Bloomfield and lived in an unusual 1834 Greek Revival style stone house on Bloomfield Avenue. In 1852, Gillette moved to Hartford, founding the Nook Farm neighborhood with his brother-in-law, John Hooker. Francis Gillette served as a senator and was the father of actor William Gillette. The house, which was used as an overnight stop for fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, was moved to a new location on Bloomfield Avenue in 1990, after being vacant for 17 years.

David Talcott House (1822)

The David Hills House in Wethersfield was built in 1822 and is transitional between the Federal and Greek Revival styles. The house, located on Main Street, was built as a gift for the 1822 wedding of Amelia Talcott and Maj. David Hills. Interestingly, Hills’ second wife was also named Amelia Talcott.

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Samuel Huntington House (1785)

Samuel Huntington, born in Scotland, CT, had a notable career during the Revolutionary War and after. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, he also served as the last President of the Continental Congress (1779-1781) and the first “President of the United States of America in Congress Assembled” under the Articles of Confederation in 1781. He was later the Chief Judge of the Connecticut Superior Court (1784-1785) and Governor of Connecticut (1786-1796). Buried in the Old Norwichtown Cemetery, located behind his Norwich home, Huntington was re-interred in the Samuel Huntington Tomb in 2003. There has been an effort in Norwich to create a Huntington Presidential Library. Huntington’s house, on East Town Street, was built in 1783-1785 and has been extensively modified over the years, with later Greek Revival style additions.

Columbia Congregational Church (1832)

In 1715, settlers in what is now the Town of Columbia successfully petitioned to become a second ecclesiastical society of the Town of Lebanon. Columbia became a town in 1804 and the current Columbia Congregational Church building was erected in 1832.

Barber-Perry House (1843)

Known locally in Canton as the “Stone House,” the Barber-Perry House, 22 Barbourtown Road, was built in 1843 by two brothers, Volney and Linus Barber. They used stone quarried to the north of the property’s barns. The house was bought by George W. Lamphier in 1866 and by Thomas M. Perry in 1944. Perry was a physicist working on gears for naval ordinance during the war. He worked in a shop on his property and soon started the T.M. Perry Company, eventually building a new facility, across the street from the house, in 1955. The Perry property is still a dairy farm, known as Scott Perry or Perrys Dairy, and the house is owned by the Perry Brothers Partnership.

Ocean Bank (1851)

The Ocean Bank was incorporated in Stonington Borough in 1851 with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. The bank building was constructed the same year on the Town Square (known as Cannon Square since the 1870s). Antique Ocean Bank banknote proof sheets from the 1850-60s survive today. Ocean Bank later became the First National Bank of Stonington. In 1942, the building was purchased by the Stonington Historical Society, with the intention of making it the Society’s headquarters and a museum. The circumstances of the war prevented this plan from being carried out and it was instead leased to the American Red Cross during the war. The building, still owned by the society, has since continued to house a bank (currently a Bank of America).

Elias Brown House (1833)

Built in 1833 for the banker, Elias Brown, the bed and breakfast known as the “House of 1833” is a Greek Revival Mansion on North Stonington Road in Old Mystic.