Mary Hepburn Smith House (1854)

At the corner of West River and Maple streets (144 West River St.) in Milford is an Italianate mansion built sometime in the 1850s. It was once the home of Mary Augusta Hepburn Smith (1825-1912), born in New York City, who married Edwin Porter Smith (1813-1890) in 1847. Maintaining her summer home in Milford after her husband’s death, she became, in 1896, a founder and the first Regent of the Freelove Baldwin Stowe Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mary A. Hepburn Smith made a lasting impact on Milford when she purchased the commercial and industrial properties (mills, factories and low-rent housing affected by an 1899 fire) across from her home along the Wepawaug River (where Duck Ponds and a Kissing Bridge would be created), which she donated to the city as a park. Earlier this year, Mary Hepburn Smith was formally inducted into the Milford Hall of Fame.

Waveny House (1912)

Waveny House is a Tudor mansion in New Canaan, built in 1912 for Lewis Lapham, one of the founders of Texaco. The Lapham family spent summers at their New Canaan estate, most of which was given to the town by the family in 1967. At that time, Waveny House itself was sold to the town by Mrs. Ruth Lapham Lloyd. The house was designed by W. B. Tubby and the grounds by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.. It was named by Mrs. Lapham after the Waveny River in England where the Lapham ancestors had once lived. Today the house and grounds are a community recreation area called Waveny Park. Waveny House is often rented for weddings and other social functions and cultural activities.

Charles H. Farnam House (1884)

The house of Yale Professor Benjamin Silliman, a chemist and geologist, was built in 1807 and once stood at 28 Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven. In 1871, part of the house was moved to 87 Trumbull Street and other parts were distributed to other locations around the city. In 1884, Charles Henry Farnam, a lawyer, had his house, designed by J. Cleaveland Cady, built on the same site on Hillhouse Avenue. An addition to the house, designed by architect Leoni Robinson, was constructed in 1898. Since 1920, the house has been owned by Yale University and is currently used by the Department of Economics.

Montville Center Congregational Church (1847)

In 1722, the North Parish of New London, later to become the Town of Montville, was established and a meeting house for the congregation was soon built near the center of the parish. In 1772, a new meeting house was constructed at a new location, at the corner of Raymond Hill Road and Meetinghouse Lane. As described in the History of Montville (1896), compiled by Henry A. Baker:

On the 25th day of May, 1823, while the congregation was engaged in worship on the Sabbath, the house was struck by lightning, the fluid entering by the spire on the north porch and following down the posts of the porch and running along the timbers of the house in all directions, shivering timbers and casements, scattering splinters and broken fragments of ceilings throughout the entire building. Two persons were instantly killed, Mrs. Betsey Bradford, wife of Perez Bradford, and a child of John R. Comstock. Many were shocked and a general consternation seized the awe-stricken assembly.

The building being very much damaged, it was soon after repaired, the upper portion of the north porch was taken off and was finished up at the same height with the south porch. This house stood until the year 1847, when it was taken down and the present house of worship erected on the site, at a cost of $2,000. Sherwood Raymond, Esq., gave $500 toward the building of the house, and the balance was made up by subscriptions varying from $200 to $25. Its size is fifty feet in length and thirty-five feet in width, with twenty-feet posts. In the year 1860 the bell was placed in the belfry, it being obtained through the efforts of Rev. Hiram C. Hayan, then acting pastor of the church.

By the 1990s, the congregation had moved to a new church building and sought to sell the old 1847 Montville Center Congregational Church, but it was found that the church‘s deed restricted its sale to a private property owner. The Town of Montville has now sought to purchase the church to turn it into a museum or community center.