Frank M. Butler House (1882)

Built in about 1882, the house at 37 Maple Street in Plainville represents the last phase of the nineteenth-century Italianate style. It was the home of Frank M. Butler and his wife, Julia E. Butler. Frank M. Butler was a partner and treasurer in the carriage-making firm, Condell, Martin & Butler Company (a pdf file of the New York Tribune of October 29, 1883 reports a fire the previous day at the company’s factory in Plainville and adds “The fire was of incendiary origin.”). In 1886, Butler sold the house and moved to Holyoke, Mass. Butler’s father was the half-brother of the famous Civil War general and politician, Benjamin F. Butler.

Haley Manors (1898)

In 1981-1982, three nineteenth-century buildings on Capen Street in Hartford, each with 6-units, were converted into cooperatively-owned housing and named “Haley Manors” after Alex Haley, the author of Roots. The property for the project was donated by Rev. Dr. Lincoln J. Davis Sr., founder and President of Lincoln Enterprises, one of the first minority-owned business development corporations in Hartford. Two of the buildings, at 42-44 Capen Street (see image above) and 46-48 Capen Street (see image below), are wood-frame structures that follow the same basic plan with different decorative details on each building. They were built in 1898 by Henry D. Ely. The third building, located at 36-38 Capen Street (see image below), is a brick Italianate, built around 1875. These buildings are mentioned in Tour 8 in my new book, A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut. (more…)

Beacon Falls Congregational Church (1871)

The Beacon Falls Congregational Church was originally a Methodist Episcopal Church, founded in 1846. The first church building was built next to what is now Pines Bridge Cemetery. A small meeting house, it burned in a fire. After 1850, the church moved to another small building on Main Street, near Lebanon Brook. That structure later became an American Legion Hall and is now Beacon Falls Pizza. The current church on Wolfe Avenue, built on land donated by the Home Wollen Mill, was completed in 1871 and dedicated on January 11, 1872. The church became Congregational in 1919. A member of The United Church of Christ from 1957 to 2005, the Beacon Falls Congregational Church is now an independent Congregational Church.

Ansonia Opera House (1870)

Built at 100 Main Street in Ansonia in 1869-1870, the Ansonia Opera House served as the lower Naugatuck Velley’s premier theater and public hall until the Sterling Opera House was built in Derby in 1889. The Ansonia Opera House’s hall is on the third floor of the the building, while stores are located on the first floor. Until 1910, the hall was run by a corporation called the Ansonia Hall Company, in which Jeremiah Bartholomew and his descendants held a controlling interest. Connecticut’s oldest opera house, for sixty years it was the center of Ansonia’s civic and social activity and entertainment, including graduations, dances, recitals, basketball games and boxing matches. Sometime after 1896, additional windows were added to the building‘s second floor. In 1971, the state fire marshal’s office closed the hall to public assemblies. It was later rented out as a gym and then as storage space and is currently in need of restoration.

Samuel T. Camp House (1865)

The Italianate-style house at 180 College Street in Middletown was built in 1865-1866 by Jeremiah Hubbard and sold, shortly thereafter, to Samuel Talcott Camp. In 1858, Camp had started a grocery business on Main Street with B.F. Chaffee. Camp was president of the Farmers & Mechanics Savings Bank, He was also a Trustee of Wesleyan University from 1880 to 1903. In 1905, the Board of Trustees established the Camp Prize in his memory, awarded for excellence in English Literature. After his death, his widow, Martha E. Smith Camp, remained in the house until her own death in 1924. The house was then acquired by Frank A. Smith, who added stucco to the exterior. (more…)