Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Architectural Style

Lyme Art Association (1921)

The Lyme artists’ colony that began with visitors to Florence Griswold’s boardinghouse eventually grew and established the Lyme Art Association in 1914. Florence Griswold gave land to the Association, next to her own house on Lyme Street, for a gallery (of which she would be the first manager). The architect of the 1921 Lyme Art Association building was Charles Adams Platt, who also designed the Freer Gallery in Washington and the Lyman Allen Museum, as well as four of the Cheney mansions in Manchester.

Florence Griswold House (1817)

This week we will look at some notable buildings on Lyme Street in Old Lyme. The most famous residence on the street is the Florence Griswold House. Originally built in 1817 for William Noyes, Jr., a son of Judge William Noyes, the house was designed by Hartford builder Samuel Belcher, who was already at work on Old Lyme’s Congregational Church. In 1839, the house was sold to Richard Ely and in 1841 to the sea captain Robert Griswold. His daughter, Florence Griswold, was born in 1850. “Miss Florence” and her sister Adele inherited the house but, left in a precarious financial position, had to take in borders. In 1899, artist Henry Ward Ranger boarded at the house and soon encouraged other artists to stay there. In the following years, a number of notable American Impressionist painters made the home the center of an artist’s colony. The artists included Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, Matilda Browne, William Robinson and many others. Several of the artists painted panels in the house’s dining room.

By the 1930s, Florence Griswold was in debt and her property was sold, although the land’s new owner, Judge Robert McCurdy Marsh, who built a new house, allowed her to live in the old house until her death in 1937. In 1941, the house was purchased by the Florence Griswold Association and opened as a museum in 1947. In recent years, the Florece Griswold Museum has expanded, with the gift of the Hartford Steam Boiler and Inspection Company’s art collection in 2001, the construction of the Krieble Gallery in 2002 and the 2005-2006 restoration of the house, which is furnished as it would have been in 1910 at the height of the art colony. Edit: I’ve replaced my earlier image of the house with a new one!

The Frank D. Cheney House (1902)

The home of Frank D. Cheney, of the Cheney family of silk manufacturers, is a 1902 Colonial Revival building that faces the Great Lawn in Manchester. Frank D. Cheney was the brother of Horace B. Cheney and Howell Cheney, whose houses are on either side of their brother’s mansion on Forest Street.

“Humphrey,” Miss Porter’s School (1800)

Originally a private residence, built around 1800, the dorm of Miss Porter’s School called “Humphrey” is a Federal Style building which is connected to the “Colony” dorm by a “Senior Room” built in 1970.

The Howell Cheney House (1901)

The Howell Cheney House is one of the mansions of the Cheney family of silk manufacturers in Manchester. Built in 1901, the house has a Forest Street address and is visible from both that street and across the Great Lawn from Hartford Road. The red brick Howell Cheney House is a Colonial Revival building, similar to the nearby Philip Cheney House, but not as symmetrical. Howell Cheney, who would serve as secretary and director of the family firm, was strongly interested in education, particularly vocational education. In 1915, he founded the Howell Cheney Technical High School in Manchester. Howell Cheney’s house is near to those of two of his brothers, Frank D Cheney and Horace Cheney. The house is currently for sale and is featured in a video on YouTube.

King Solomon’s Lodge No. 7 Masonic Temple (1838)

The oldest Masonic Temple in continuous use in Connecticut is the Temple of King Solomon’s Lodge No. 7 (originally chartered in 1765), built high on a rocky cliff on Main Street in Woodbury. The front section of the Temple was built in 1838 on land sold to the Lodge by Ashbel Moody. Construction materials had to be hauled from the street over the face of the rock because Moody’s son-in-law, Levi Douglas, an anti-Mason, would not allow transportation across his family’s land, although he later sold an additional 2 foot strip of land when the building was expanded. A set of stairs from the street (no longer in use) were constructed in 1839. The Temple was enlarged in 1866, with further additions in the twentieth century.

Wadsworth Stable (1820)

George Washington slept many places, but where did George Washington’s horse sleep? In the Wadsworth Stable in Hartford, which was on the estate of Jeremiah Wadsworth, in whose house Washington, Rochambeau and Governor Trumbull had their first meeting in 1780. The original stable, built in 1730, later burned down. It was rebuilt around 1820 in the Palladian style, unusual for an outbuilding, to suit the pretensions of the Federal era. The stable was probably designed by Daniel Wadsworth, Jeremiah Wadsworth’s son. In 1842, the Wadsworth House was moved to a new location (it was torn down in 1887) when the Wadsworth Atheneum was constructed. The stable, which was owned for a time by the Hartford Public Library, remained on its original site, adjacent to the Atheneum, until 1954, when it was saved from demolition and moved to Lebanon. Its original location is now the Travelers Tower plaza. The new home of the Wadsworth Stable was provided by the Connecticut DAR and is adjacent to the Governor Jonathan Trumbull House. A plaque on the stable recognizes the generosity of Katharine Seymour Day, who also established what is now the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, for the restoration of the building.