The Collinsville Savings Society, chartered in 1853 was originally located in the Collins Company office building. The current building was built on Main Street in Collinsville in 1891-2 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style.
The First Presbyterian Church of Hartford was formed in 1851 and had several homes until a chapel, in 1868, and then a sanctuary, in 1870, were built. Located on Capitol Avenue, near the Bushnell Memorial, the First Presbyterian Church was designed by Renwick & Sands (James Renwick, Jr. was architect of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington D.C.). It is a polychromatic stone building in the High Victorian Romanesque style.
In 1842, a group gathered primarily from Norwich’s Second Congregational Church formed a new congregation which met in the town hall until their own church building was constructed on Main Street in 1845. Known as the Main Street Congregational Church, they eventually built a new building on Broadway after the Main Street structure was destroyed by fire in 1854. The Broadway Congregational Church, a much larger building than the first, was built in the Romanesque Revival style between 1855 and 1857. Broadway Congregational later merged with the Second Church congregation and has since been known as the United Congregational Church. The building originally had a spire that was 200 feet high, but it was struck by lightning and removed in 1898.
Connecticut’s first synagogue was built for Congregation Beth Israel, on Charter Oak Avenue in Hartford in 1876. The congregation’s earlier home, a former Baptist church on Main Street, was being razed for the building of the Cheney Block. Departing from his usual Gothic style, the architect of Temple Beth Israel, George Keller, utilized the Romanesque Revival style in his design. In 1898, with the congregation growing, the building was enlarged and renovated. The the width of the nave was altered to match the towers and the interior was elaborately stenciled. In 1936, the congregation moved to a new building in West Hartford. Today, the original Temple Beth Israel has been restored and serves as the non-sectarian Charter Oak Cultural Center.
The town of Windham held its first public meeting in 1691. As the area of Willimantic grew after the Civil War, various buildings in the borough were used for town meetings. Having utilized a room in the Savings Institute building, in 1880 the town offices were settled in the Hayden Block. Rising rents forced another move to a space above a silk mill. By 1893, when Willimantic became a city, the need for a city hall and county court building was clear, one that would serve all of Windham. There was much dissension in town over the cost and location of the new structure. After some prolonged political battles among various factions, construction began in 1895 and was completed in 1896. The impressive Victorian style building , with its elaborate clock tower, was designed by the noted architect, Warren Richard Briggs, (author of the 1899 book, Modern American School Buildings). A detailed history of the Town Hall‘s construction can be found in four parts (1, 2, 3, 4) at the Thread City website.
The carriage house of the Mary Borden Munsill House, on Wethersfield Avenue in Hartford, has much variety, featuring elaborate details in the Queen Anne and Richardsonian Romanesque styles. (more…)
Bristol’s High School building of 1890, at the intersection of Center and Summer Streets, was designed by Bristol-born architect Theodore Peck (who also designed such buildings in Bristol as a house for his brother, Miles Lewis Peck). The school displays the hallmarks of the Richardsonian Romanesque, including the use of stone (here added as trim on a brick building) and semicircular Romanesque arches. The style was named for the influential architect H.H. Richardson, who designed the Cheney Building in Hartford. The High School, which was expanded in 1912, was used as a school until 1922, when a larger building was needed. It has since served various purposes and was named the Messier Building. One notable change to the building since 1890 is a significant shortening of the original chimney. It is currently being renovated as the new home of the Bristol Historical Society.
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