Hotchkiss-Fyler House (1897)

The Hotchkiss-Fyler House was built in 1897 for Orsamus R. Fyler and his family. Fyler was prominent in Connecticut politics, serving as a reforming State Insurance Commissioner, State Railroad Commissioner and Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee. Fyler occupied the house with his wife, Mary, and their daughter and son-in-law, Gertrude and Edward Hotchkiss, who were married in 1896. When Gertrude Fyler Hotchkiss died in 1956, she bequeathed the Fyler-Hotchkiss Estate to the Torrington Historical Society. The Chateauesque Hotchkiss-Fyler House became a house museum and headquarters of the Society.

87-89 Atwood Street, Hartford (1911)

This month’s issue of Hartford magazine has an article about the restoration of a “Perfect Six” apartment building at 87-89 Atwood Street in Hartford’s Asylum Hill neighborhood. Perfect Sixes, with three floors, double bow-fronts, and six apartments, were very popular in Hartford at the start of the twentieth century. The one on Atwood Street was a particularly stylish one, intended for middle-class residents. Built in 1911 by two Russian immigrants, Louis and Morris Schoolnik, the building had become run down by the 1980s and was shut down by the city in 1997. The Northside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance, which works to revitalize Asylum Hill, sought to acquire and restore the building, a process which took some time, during which the building further deteriorated. The roof collapsed in February 2009, but the reclamation project was able to retain the building’s historic facade facing the street, while the rest was demolished and rebuilt. The converted structure now contains two townhouses.

1144 Prospect Street, Hartford (1912)

This Sunday is the Annual Holiday ouse Tour, held by the Friends of the Mark Twain House & Museum. One of the houses to be featured on the tour is the impressive mansion at 1144 Prospect Avenue. Located near the highest point in the City of Hartford and with views of the Hartford skyline, the house was built in 1912 and designed by Smith and Bassette. Earlier this year, the house’s owners won an award from the Hartford Preservation Alliance for their extensive restoration of the home’s historic facade and entry bridge.

Stillman House I (1950)

In 1949, Rufus and Leslie Stillman became acquainted with the work of modern architect Marcel Breuer when they saw his “demonstration house” on display in the courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The couple hired him to design a modern house for their property at the end of Beecher Lane in Litchfield. The resulting structure, built in 1950 and today known as Stillman House I, brought mid-century modern style to a town town primarily associated with the Colonial Revival. The swimming pool Breuer designed for the house features a mural painted by the architect’s friend, the artist Alexander Calder. The Stillmans later lived in two other houses designed by Breuer, but eventually bought back and again lived in the original Stillman House. The above picture shows the house from the Beecher Lane side, which is not its most dramatic angle. For a more through look at the house, the Smithsonian Archives of American Art have a series of exterior and interior photographs of the house, taken when it was newly built.