Italianate - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

The Dr. S. Waldo Hart House (1870)

Dr. Samuel Waldo Hart was a leading citizen of New Britain in the nineteenth century. He was the son and namesake of New Britain’s first physician and, according to his biography in the Official Souvenir and Program of the Dedication of the Soldiers’ Monument (1900) [the construction of which he supported], “His father’s practice, which was large in this city, was carried on to its zenith under him.” Furthermore, “He spent much time in travel in Europe and the West and in Central America, where his cultured mind received a keen enjoyment of varied observations. His letters from abroad were entertaining inasmuch as he was a master of English descriptive style.” He also served as the city’s second mayor, from 1872 to 1876. Perhaps built in the 1870s, Dr. Hart‘s house (which also held his office) is on South High Street.

Buck-Foreman Community Center, Portland (1852)

The Buck-Foreman Community Center in Portland houses the town’s police, parks and recreation, and youth services departments. The central section of the brownstone building dates to 1852 and was built in the Italianate style as the home of Jonathan Fuller, part-owner of the Shaler and Hall brownstone quarry. When he died in 1876, his daughter Jane inherited the house. At that time, the Town of Portland was looking for a new and more solid building to use as a town hall, as their current building, a former Episcopal church at the corner of Bartlet and High Streets, was a wooden structure built in 1790 and considered to be unsafe (part of the floor even caved in during a Republican Party caucus in 1894!). When Jane Fuller died in 1894, the town acquired the Fuller House and hired architect David Russell Brown of New Haven to remodel it in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The wing on the south side of the building was added in 1896 as the Buck Library, donated by Horace Buck, who was originally from Portland and whose three children had died and were buried in town. A matching addition on the north side of the Town Hall was built in 1941. The building continued in use as a Town Hall until 1999.

30 Lewis Street, Hartford (1840)

The former house at 30 Lewis Street in Hartford, like the nearby houses at nos. 24 and 36, was probably constructed by the designer and builder Austin Daniels around 1840. Like the building at 36 Lewis Street, no. 30 was altered to conform to the Italianate style, around 1860. The building became the home of the University Club in 1906 and the front door was then moved to the side of the structure. In 1928, a five-story rear addition was constructed. In more recent years, the building has been converted into office space.

The James E. English House (1845)

Designed by Henry Austin, the James E. English House was built in 1845 on Wooster Square in New Haven. James Edward English, who began as a builder, later became a wealthy lumber dealer and a politician, serving in the US Congress and then as Governor of Connecticut. Austin designed for English an Italianate house with unusual columns on the front porch. In 1876, the house was raised a full story, leading to its present, elongated appearance. Today the house is the Maresca & Sons Funeral Home.

Putnam Building, Hartford (1860)

The Putnam Building is on Central Row in Hartford, sandwiched between two early skyscrapers, the Hartford-Connecticut Trust Company building of 1920, on the right, and the Travelers Insurance Company building of 1928, on the left. Built around 1860, the Putnam Building is typical of the many brownstone commercial buildings, influenced by the style of the Italian Renaissance, that were constructed in downtown Hartford at the time. A historic photo in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society shows the building in 1904, with the two skyscrapers’ predecessors on either side of it: the old Hartford Trust Company building on the right and the Marble Block on the left. Another historic photograph, found in the 1895 book, Hartford and its Points of Interest, shows the building when the Hartford Coffee House Co. was one of its tenants.

The presence of the Putnam Building was acknowledged when the Hartford Trust Company skyscraper was built (to the right) in 1920, as the limestone base section of that later building matches the height of its nineteenth-century neighbor. In turn, the ground floor of the Putnam building was remodeled in granite in the 1920s, reflecting the style of the then recently built adjacent structure.

36 Lewis Street, Hartford (1840)

The house at 36 Lewis Street in Hartford, like that at 24 Lewis Street, was most likely built around 1840 by the builder, Austin Daniels. The houses originally resembled each other, but while no. 24 retains a Greek Revival pediment in the gable end facing the street, no. 36 was altered around 1860 to fit the newly popular Italianate style. The gable roof was replaced with a low-pitched hip roof with overhanging eaves, raised to allow the placement of small windows just below the roof on the two sides. The wide front porch is also an Italianate addition. By the 1950s, the house was the last building on Lewis Street to remain a private residence, but later became a restaurant. The property is currently available for rent.

Charter Oak Bank (1861)

In the nineteenth century, many brownstone-faced commercial buildings were constructed in downtown Hartford. Most of these have since been demolished, but the Italianate building at the northeast corner of Asylum and Trumbull Streets survives. The ground floor has been altered, but the floors above have original brownstone moldings over the regularly-spaced windows, a different design for each floor. The building was constructed in 1861 for the Chater Oak Bank, which occupied it until 1915, being succeeded by City Bank, which closed in 1932.