Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Romanesque Revival

Bill Memorial Library (1890)

The Bill Memorial Library in Groton, adjacent to Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park, was founded by Frederic Bill, a publisher and linen goods manufacturer, who was born in the part of Groton which is now the town of Ledyard and who retired to a farm in Groton on the Thames River. The library, dedicated to the memory of Bill’s sisters, Eliza and Harriet, began in 1888, as a room in Groton’s First District Schoolhouse. The Bill Library building, designed by the Worcester architect, Stephen C. Earle, was dedicated in 1890. Bill expanded the library in 1907, enlarging the main reading room and providing space for a natural history museum. The library was again expanded in 1994. After the death of his first wife, in 1894, Bill married Julia 0. Avery, the libary’s first librarian.

Union Station, New London (1888)

When it was built in 1888, New London’s Union Station made a powerful architectural statement with its strong massing. It was planned to integrate New London transportation, which included service by six railroad companies. Unlike the preceding train dept of 1852, Union Station was on the city side of the railroad tracks and blocked the view of the city’s active harbor and busy rail yards from the commercial district on State and Bank Streets. Commissioned in 1885, the station was designed by H.H. Richardson, but was not completed until after his death in 1886. The building represents a variation of his distinctive Romanesque style in a scheme recalling his plan for Harvard’s Sever Hall (1880). It is therefore referred to as Richardson’s “Last Station.” Saved from demolition and renovated in the 1970s, the station has recently been again restored.

Deep River Town Hall (1893)

Deep River‘s distinctive Town Hall was built in 1893 in a “flatiron” shape to conform to its location, where Elm and Main Streets intersect diagonally. The building originally had businesses and a post office (which moved out in the 1960s) on the first floor, with town offices being on the second floor. The third floor has an auditorium. The building’s granite foundation and the 1905 granite fountain outside were both donated by Samuel F. Snow in memory of his wife.

Judd Carriage House (1887)

The H.L. Judd Mansion was built on South Main Street in Wallingford in 1887, but the elaborate Victorian home was demolished in the 1930s. The mansion’s carriage house, however, survived and was moved to the parking lot at the rear of the Wallingford Town Hall property. According to Everett Gleason Hill’s A Modern History of New Haven and Eastern New Haven County (1918), the Judd Manufacturing Company was organized in New Haven in 1870 and:

“In 1877 the business was removed to Wallingford, where they erected a large plant and began the manufacture of stationers’ and druggists’ hardware. The principal stockholders were Morton Judd and his three sons, Albert D., Hubert L. and Edward M., Hubert L. acting as the company’s selling agent in New York. About 1870 a branch factory was established in Brooklyn, New York, for the manufacture of upholsterers’ hardware, which in 1884 was incorporated under the name of H. L. Judd & Company. In 1886 H. L. Judd & Company of Brooklyn bought the business and plant of the Judd Manufacturing Company of Wallingford and in 1897 discontinued the Brooklyn plant.”

The H.L. Judd company, which also had a curtain pole factory in Chattanooga, TN, produced various products, including mechanical banks and ink wells.

Old Meriden High School (1885)

The former High School in Meriden, which now serves as the Board of Education building, was built in 1885. The building is on Liberty Street, near the Town Hall, and is a good example of the Romanesque style, with a prominent Roman-style rounded arch entrance. The school had actually begun classes in 1881, as the New Central School, which rented the second floor of the German-American School on Liberty Street before the 1885 school building was completed.

Birmingham National Bank (1892)

The old Birmingham National Bank building is on Main Street in the City of Derby, which was once known as Birmingham. The bank was originally chartered in 1848 as the Manufacturers Bank of Birmingham, with Edward N. Shelton as its first president, and in 1865 became a national bank. Constructed in 1892-1893, the building features an elaborately detailed facade with terra cotta molding in the Sullivanesque, Neo-Grec and Richardsonian Romanesque Revival styles. The building is now the Twisted Vine Restaurant.

Fayerweather Gymnasium (1894)

Wesleyan University‘s Fayerweather Gymnasium was built in 1894. Funds for its construction were provided through a bequest from Daniel B. Fayerweather, who was not otherwise connected to Wesleyan, but who was inspired to donate to Methodist institutions. Designed by J. Cleaveland Cady, the Romanesque Revival style building had later additions, including a 1913 east wing, built to accommodate a swimming pool, and a rear addition in 1979. No longer used as a gymnasium, Fayerweather Hall has recently been restored to its 1894 dimensions to complement the adjacent construction of the new Usdan University Center.