Thirty years before building their International Style complex in Bloomfied in 1957, the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company was headquartered in a Renaissance Revival-style building at 55 Elm Street in Hartford. Built in 1926 and designed by James Gamble Rogers, the building was inspired by the Medici-Riccardi Palace in Florence, Italy. Owned by other insurance companies after 1958, the building now houses state offices.
The building (built around 1895) at 109-121 Allyn Street in Hartford is currently home to the Palace night club and Aladdin Halal restaurant. A historic photograph at Connecticut History Online shows the same building in about 1895 when it was the Capitol City Carriage and Harness Repository. The company was established in 1895 by George W. Pomeroy and the building is referred to as “Pom[e]roy’s New Building.” The first two floors have been greatly altered since then, but the rest of the building is still recognizable from the historic photograph. (more…)
The house at 690 Hopmeadow Street in Simsbury was built between 1905 and 1910 for Joseph Ralph Ensign and his wife, Mary Phelps Ensign. Joseph Ensign had succeeded his father, Ralph Hart Ensign, as president of the Ensign-Bickford Company. In 1955, the house became the Parish House for First Church across the street. Today, it is home to a branch of Webster Bank and the Arts Exclusive Gallery.
The corner stone of the former Masonic Temple at 199-203 Ann Street in Hartford was laid on September 22, 1894. The completed building was first opened for lodge meetings in September, 1895 and the building was officially dedicated on July 14, 1896. Displaying a variety of Masonic symbols, it was designed by architect Brooks M. Lincoln of Hartford (1852-1898). No longer used as a Masonic hall, the building was converted into offices in 1982 and its original stained glass windows have been replaced with clear glass.
The Hotel Bond reigned as Hartford’s grandest hotels in the 1920s and 1930s. It was built on Asylum Street in Hartford in two sections. The first section, a 6-story block, was completed in 1913, on the site of the former Popular Restaurant. In 1921, there was a grand reopening which unveiled the attached second section, a 12-story block with an elegant 5,000 sq.ft. Grand Ballroom on the top floor. There are many dramatic photographs of the Hotel Bond during the Flood of 1936. During World War II, the Hotel Bond was a hub for servicemen passing through Hartford. By the 1950s, the Bond faced competition from the Statler Hotel, opened in 1954, and the estate of founder Harry S. Bond went into bankruptcy. In 1965, the hotel building was sold to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese, which used it as the Saint Francis Hospital School of Nursing. The renovated Bond Ballroom reopened for receptions in 2001 and the rest of the building became a Homewood Suites by Hilton in 2006. (more…)
Bacon’s Hotel, started in the 1830s, was an early hotel on Bank Street in New London From the 1840s to 1874, the hotel was run by William Bacon and his brother John. It was expanded from two to three floors and renamed the Bacon House around 1880. After the building burned down in 1897, it was replaced in 1898 by the Gavitt Building, 57 Bank Street, with the upper floors containing the Royal Hotel.
At 22 Court House Square in Norwich is the 1910 building of the Uncas-Merchants National Bank. It is located along what was Norwich’s “Banker’s Row,” with other bank buildings on either side. The building was constructed for the Merchants National Bank, which had been organized in 1823. In 1928, Merchants merged with the Uncas National Bank, which had been organized in 1852 and incorporated in 1855. Before the merger, the Uncas National Bank had been located in a 1913 building on Shetucket Street. The Uncas-Merchants National Bank merged with the Hartford National Bank & Trust in 1955. The bank building is now used as offices.
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