Dime Savings Bank, Waterbury (1927)

The bank building at 60 North Main Street in Waterbury was built for the Dime Savings Bank in 1927. The Dime Savings Bank was incorporated in 1870 and had previously been based in Victorian-era house. The bank’s new building was designed to reflect the architecture of the Spanish Renaissance by the New York the firm of York and Sawyer and features sculpted relief panels of allegorical figures and symbols of the Zodiac. The building, expanded in 1951, is currently available as commercial & office space.

The Philip Johnson Brick House (1949)

When architect Philip Johnson designed his famous Glass House, he simultaneously planned an adjacent structure, known as the Brick House. Completed in 1949, a few months before its counterpart, the Brick House served as a guest house, as well as containing the support systems for both buildings. The Brick House was intended to contrast with its glass neighbor, being enclosed by solid walls, although skylights and porthole windows provide much natural light within. Johnson remodeled the interior with a narrow sky-lit corridor in 1953. The Glass House property has been open for tours since 2007, but recently visitors have not been able to enter the Brick House, which requires $3 million in repairs. (more…)

The Philip Johnson Glass House (1949)

A particularly well-known and well-respected Connecticut modern house is the Philip Johnson Glass House. Designed by the architect Johnson and built on his 47-acre estate in New Canaan, the Glass House is considered a masterpiece in its use of floor-to-ceiling sheets of glass, set between black steel piers. The minimalist structure was planned in 1945 and finished in 1949. Johnson was inspired by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe‘s 1945 design for the Farnsworth House, located in Plano, Illinois, the construction of which was not completed until 1951. While the wealthy Johnson retained a residence in New York City, he would often retreat to his New Canaan estate, where the Glass House was only the first of several structures he would build on the property. After 1960, Johnson lived in company with his longtime companion, David Whitney, an art critic and curator, who helped with landscaping the grounds and collecting art for the estate. In 1986, Johnson had donated the Glass House to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, retaining a life estate lease. Johnson and Whitney died in 2005 and in 2007, the Glass House was opened to the public for tours. While there is an endowment for the property, maintenance and restoration costs for the various buildings remains high. (more…)

First Baptist Church of Stonington Borough (1889)

The First Baptist Church in Stonington was organized in Stonington Borough in 1775. According to the History of the town of Stonington (1900), by Richard Anson Wheeler:

Its first meetinghouse was not built until the close of the Revolutionary war and was a substantial building, some forty feet square. […] The present house of worship was erected [in 1889] during the pastorate of the Rev. Albert G. Palmer, and is a magnificent building of modern architecture, and most admirably arranged. Owing to the want of a proper title to the site of its former meeting-house [built on Water Street in 1794 and replaced in 1835], and the questionable authority of using its funds in the purchase of the site of its present church [on Main Street], and in order to vest the property entirely in the church, independent of trustees or societies, the members of the church were in 1889 constituted and created by the Legislature of Connecticut a body politic and corporate by the name of the First Baptist Church of Stonington Borough, with full power to receive, hold and mortgage any and all, both real and personal, that may be given or descend to said church.

In 1950, the Baptist Church merged with the Second Congregational Church to form the United Church of Stonington. The old Baptist church was sold in 1957 to become a residence for architect Charles Fuller and wife Anne, who crated an art gallery in the building. The building has continued as a private residence.

Ethan Allen Birthplace (1736)

Happy New Year!!! Our first building of 2011 is the birthplace of a hero of the American Revolution. Ethan Allen led the Green Mountain Boys in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and then served in the American military expedition against Canada in 1775. Although famous as a champion of statehood for Vermont, with a Homestead that can be visited in Burlington VT, Allen was born on January 21, 1738 in Litchfield CT. In 1740, his parents Joseph and Mary Allen, moved the family from the Litchfield house, built in 1736, to a new farm in Cornwall. Ethan took over the farm after his father’s death in 1755 and later struck out on his own, establishing a charcoal blast furnace in Salisbury in 1761. He eventually settled in Vermont, having purchased land in the area then known as the New Hampshire Grants. Ethan Allen also wrote a book, Reason: the Only Oracle of Man, first published in 1784.

The Emporium (1859)

The commercial building at 15 Water Street in Mystic was built in 1859 by Isaac Randall and Dwight Ashby, who were both involved in the whaling industry. It has had many owners over the years, housing many different stores and also serving as a boarding house. Since 1965, the building has been known as The Emporium. It has a store on the main floor filled with unique merchandise and an art gallery on the second floor.

Windham Free Library (1832)

Windham Free Library, on the Green in Windham Center, was originally built, on the former site of the county court house, as the Windham Bank in 1832. The bank moved its operations to Willimantic in 1879 and other commercial establishments soon followed, as Windham Center changed from being a business district into a primarily residential area. The Greek Revival building then stood vacant until it was converted into a museum, displaying a temporary “Exhibition of Relics,” on the occasion of Windham’s bi-centennial, celebrated in 1892. Now it serves as Connecticut’s smallest freestanding library. Established in 1897, the Library displays historical artifacts, including the Windham Bacchus, carved out of wood by British prisoners of war, one of whom was a ship’s carpenter, who were being held in the Windham jail in 1776. They carved the Figure of Bacchus as a parting gift, at the time of their escape, for their widowed landlady, who was also a tavern keeper.