New Britain National Bank (1927)

The New Britain National Bank building is on on West Main Street, next to the buildings which now serve as New Britain’s City Hall. It was built for the Commercial Trust Company in 1927, which failed during the Great Depression and was bought out by the New Britain National Bank in the 1930s. The building, which is also known as the Anvil Bank for the anvil motif which recurs frequently in its intricate brickwork, was designed in the Romanesque Revival style, with some Gothic elements as well. The bronze doors feature designs of beehives and Mercury and Buffalo coins. The building’s interior is also impressive: the lobby makes use of marble and bronze and has a 30-foot ceiling. The structure has been mostly vacant since 1996 and has suffered from deferred maintenance. After several years of planning to restore and adapt the bank building to new uses, work began a few years ago to covert it for stores and residential units, although progress was later halted by the economic downturn.

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.

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Center Congregational Church, Manchester (1904)

In 1772, the Ecclesiastical Society of Orford was established, in what would later become the town of Manchester. Owing to the unsettled conditions at the time of the Revolutionary War, it took twenty years for a Congregational meeting house to be built, although the congregation used the unfinished building for worship, starting in 1779, before it was finally completed in 1794. This first church building, which stood about 130 feet east of the present Center Church, was replaced by a new structure in 1826 on the same location. The building was raised up in 1840 so that a basement could be added below. The basement was then rented to the town for the transaction of public business. In 1878, the church’s steeple blew off and crashed through the roof. It was then sold to the town and a new church was built the following year in the Gothic style. The current church, now known as Center Congregational Church, was built in 1904 in the Colonial Revival style. The neighboring brick parish house was added in 1930 and the Simpson Educational Wing in 1957.

Monte Cristo Cottage (1840)

In 1886, actor James O’Neill purchased an 1840 house at 138 (now 325) Pequot Avenue in New London. O’Neill initially rented out the home, while he and his family spent their summers at a neighboring property that he had acquired two years before. In 1900, the O’Neills began summering in the 1840 house, which James O’Neill named Monte Cristo Cottage in honor of his most popular stage role as the Count Of Monte Cristo. Before moving in, O’Neill made a number of changes to the house, including adding the turret bedroom, the French doors opening onto the front porch, and attaching a one room schoolhouse, moved from elsewhere, to become the living room. Comfort was sacrificed in the family’s section of the house in order to focus funds on the house’s public spaces. The actor’s son, the playwright Eugene O’Neill, spent his boyhood summers at the Cottage from 1900 to 1917. After being struck by a car on Fifth Avenue in New York in 1918, James O’Neill’s health began to deteriorate. He sold the Cottage and his other real estate on Pequot Avenue just before his death in 1920. The house is now a museum, owned by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Restoration began in 1972, with a new restoration in 2005 to reflect the setting of O’Neill’s autobiographical play, Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

Cortland F. Luce House (1920)

Formerly the estate of Cornelius J. Vanderbilt, Jr., West Hill Drive was one of the earliest planned sub-divisions in West Hartford. Many of the Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival houses constructed there in the 1920s were designed by architect Cortland F. Luce, who also designed his own house at 6 West Hill Drive. Built in 1920, the house combines elements of the two styles which dominated the neighborhood, being a Tudor Revival cottage with a Palladian window typical of the Georgian Colonial Revival. To learn more about Colonial and Tudor Revival houses in West Hartford, check out my article on the subject in the Architecture section of this site!

The Maj. Peter Curtis House (1786)

Maj. Peter Curtis was a blacksmith in Farmington who served as an officer in the army at every battle in which George Washington commanded during the Revolutionary War. In 1769 he had purchased the property formerly owned by Thomas Norton, replacing the earlier house, at the corner of Farmington Avenue and High Street, with his new house, built by Judah Woodruff in 1786. Curtis later served as the first keeper, or warden, of Newgate Prison in East Granby, from 1790 to 1796. His family occupied the house until 1822, when it was sold to William Whitman, who opened it as a tavern, with a ballroom on the second floor. After his death in 1876, the tavern was run by his son Charles L. Whitman, of whom it was said, as related in Farmington, Connecticut, the Village of Beautiful Homes (1906),

He and his father for many years kept a tavern in Farmington. in the days when there was much teaming through this town. The place was famous in all the region, partly on account of Mrs. Whitman’s excellent pies and cake. When one’s ancestors have been among those who serve the public with care and courtesy, it seems to become second nature in the descendants to be very polite. This might explain Mr. Whitman’s genial manners, but I am inclined to believe it was more a special goodness of heart. He was also for many years one of the directors of the bank and an appraiser.

In the 1920s, rooms in the house were rented to two women for use as a tea room and antiques business. In 1938, the house was acquired by Dr. Walls Bunnell, who moved it to its present location at 4 High Street. Where the Whitman Tavern had originally stood, Dr. Bunnell created the shopping complex known as Brick Walk Lane, composed of various historic Farmington buildings he preserved by having them moved to the site.

285 Bolton Center Road, Bolton (1720)

The house at 285 Bolton Center Road in Bolton originally stood at the corner of High and Wadsworth Streets in East Hartford. It was moved to Bolton in the early 1990s by historic home restorers Len and Betty Matyia. The house, which may have been built as early as the late seventeenth century through around 1730, has been linked to the original Hartford proprietor William Hill, who traveled with Rev. Thomas Hooker to found the new settlement in 1636. Hill was captain of Hartford’s first trainband on the east side of the Connecticut River. The discovery of a connection with Hill in 1992 led to some controversy concerning the removal of the historic house from East Hartford. Restored to a post-Medieval appearance, the house is now situated in a rural colonial setting with an adjacent post and beam barn.