Beacon Mill Village (1853)

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Beacon Mill Village in Beacon Falls is an example of a nineteenth century mill village adapted to new use as an apartment complex (in this it is similar to the mill village established by the Cheney Brothers in Manchester). The eight surviving buildings of the Beacon Mill Village complex were built between 1853 and 1916. The Town of Beacon Falls, incorporated in 1871, grew up alongside the factories. The Village was originally home to the American Hard Rubber Company in the 1850s. By the time of the Civil War, the complex housed the factories of the Home Woolen Company, which produced shawls for Union soldiers. This company went out of business in 1880, but the Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe Company, founded in 1898 by George Lewis, later moved into the complex. His son, Tracy Lewis, later served as the company‘s president until his death in 1921. The company, which grew to have offices in Boston, San Francisco and New York, incorporated in Massachusetts in 1915, while production remained in Beacon Falls. That same year, the company hired the Olmstead Brothers, sons of Frederick Law Olmsted, to design a mill town for plant workers. The mill buildings were restored and transformed into an apartment complex in 1986.

Philip Chapin House (1867)

 

 

On Church Street in the Pine Meadow section of New Hartford is a very impressive Italianate mansion, built in 1867 by William Bushnell as a wedding gift to his daughter Amelia, who in 1866 had married Philip E. Chapin. Philip’s father, Hermon Chapin, gave the land on which the house was built as a gift to his son. Hermon Chapin also donated land for the construction of St. John’s Episcopal Church, located adjacent to his son’s house. Hermon Chapin was a toolmaker who established the Union Factory in Pine Meadow. Philip Chapin and his brothers later established the Chapin Machine Company in 1870. After Amelia died in 1878, Chapin left New Hartford for Ohio, later remarrying and becoming the general manager of the Cambria Iron Company in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The house in New Hartford was rented to various people and then, between 1887 and 1922, it was owned by Hubert P. Richards, who used it on weekends. After Richards died, his grandsons, Ralph and Howell owned the house and rented it out. Howell Richards eventually bought his brother’s interest in the Chapin House and owned it until his death in 1974. The house was recently on sale.

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Albert Sisson House (1867)

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Albert L. Sisson was born in Bloomfield and became successful in Hartford operating a meat market in the Sisson Block, a building which once stood at Main and Sheldon Streets, and as a tobacco trader. In 1867, he built a brick Italianate house on his estate on Hubbard Street, which was renamed Sisson Avenue in his honor in the 1870s. He was also involved at the time in the founding of the Asylum Avenue Baptist Church. Sisson died in 1886 and his wife, Mary Gorton Sisson, died in 1898. The house was used for a time as a hospital for scarlet fever patients and in 1902 was acquired by the cathedral corporation of the Hartford diocese. Bishop Michael Tierney of Hartford gave the property to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd for use as a home for wayward girls. The house was expanded in 1905 and additional buildings, including Marian Hall and Euphrasia Hall, were constructed on the estate in 1920s. The “House of the Good Shepard” complex was sold by the Sisters in 1979 and today serves as subsidized senior housing.

Henry Laurens Kellogg House (1875)

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Henry Laurens Kellogg of Newington gained wealth running a satinet factory, which made uniform fabric during the Civil War. Admiring the architecture he saw while visiting Italy, Kellogg returned home and built his house in 1875 in the style of an Italian villa. The factory, which later burned down, stood between his house and Piper Brook. Once hidden by a row of poplar trees in front, the Kellogg House has a commanding presence on Willard Avenue where Stoddard Avenue ends. The house is now subdivided into condominium units.

Casa Bianca (1848)

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Casa Bianca is an Italianate house in New Haven, built around 1848. It most likely originally stood on Orange Street, but was moved to Bradley Street around 1882. In the early twentieth century, it was the home of George Dudley Seymour, a lawyer and preservationist. Born in Bristol, Seymour specialized in patent law in New Haven and was also dedicated to municipal improvements in the city. He urged the adoption of city planning (in line with the ideas of the City Beautiful Movement) and served as secretary of the city plan commission and the committee planning the construction of a new public library. Seymour also led the campaign to erect a statue of Nathan Hale on Yale’s Old Campus and he later restored the Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry.

The Nehemiah Sperry House (1857)

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The Italianate-style Nehemiah Sperry House was built in 1857 on Orange Street in New Haven. It was the home Nehemiah D. Sperry, a businessman and Republican politician. He was a builder and contractor, who joined his brother-in-law, Willis Smith, in the prominent New Haven firm of Smith & Sperry. Much of the Orange Street neighborhood was developed by the company, which also constructed the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in the city’s East Rock Park. Sperry served as New Haven’s postmaster, Secretary of State of Connecticut and as a U.S. Representative in Congress from 1895 to 1911. A lighthouse in New Haven Harbor, which no longer exists, was named in Sperry’s honor, as he had contributed much to the harbor area’s development. Sperry’s house, which has a design likely attributable to the office of Henry Austin, was originally much lighter in color and resembled the similar Edward Rowland House on Wooster Square.