Romanesque Revival - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

New Britain Armory (1886)

At the corner of Arch Street and Grand Street in New Britain stands the old New Britain Armory, built in 1886 and designed by Robert Wakeman Hill of Waterbury. He used the same design for the armory in Norwalk. By 1986, when a notice in the New London Day announced that this former state armory was for sale by public bid, the building had left in a state of disrepair for a number of years. Most noticeably, it had lost its original domed top above the central tower. In 1992, the Greater Hartford Architecture Conservancy took control of the building and renovated it to become Armory Court (10 Grand Street), which contains low income housing.

Chittenden Hall, Yale University (1889)

Yesterday I featured Linsly Hall at Yale University in New Haven. The other half of what is now known as Linsly-Chittenden Hall was built in 1888-1890 in the Romanesque style. Chittenden Hall was designed by J. Cleveland Cady and was originally intended to be the first part of a grand new university library as envisaged by Yale president Timothy Dwight V. The plan called for the demolition of the Old College Library (now Dwight Hall), but opposition saved the building and ended the original expansion planned for Chittenden. Eventually, Linsly Hall was built to fill the gap between Chittenden and the Old Library. Chittenden’s main reading room features Education, a Tiffany stained glass window. The building was restored in the late 1990s.

Slater Library (1884)

The Slater Library, at 26 Main Street in Jewett City, serves the towns of Griswold and Lisbon. The library was the gift of industrialist and philanthropist John Fox Slater, who owned the Slater Mills in Jewett City. It had not been completed at the time of his death in 1884. His son, William Albert Slater, oversaw its completion and the library was dedicated in 1885. William A. Slater also donated the Slater Memorial Museum in Norwich in honor of his farther. The Slater Library was designed by Stephen C. Earle of Worcester. It was constructed of granite, brought from Milford, Mass., and brownstone. The library‘s size was doubled in 1930 with the building of an addition (the Fanning Annex), designed by Cudworth and Thompson of Norwich.

Walker Hall (Former Watertown Library) (1883)

The Watertown Library Association was established in 1865. First opened in the Academy on The Green and then occupying rented quarters above F.N. Barton’s Store on Woodbury Road, the library moved into its own building in 1883. A Richardsonian Romanesque structure at 50 DeForest Street, it was designed by Robert W. Hill of Waterbury. Dr. John Deforest had given the library $5000 in 1876 for a book fund and his brother, the merchant Benjamin DeForest, helped to fund the construction of the new library with a donation of $15,000 (pdf). The library moved into a modern building on Main Street in 1958. The former library building then became Our Savior Lutheran Church. It has more recently been purchased by the Taft School. Called Walker Hall, it is used as a performing arts space and chapel.

Asbury United Methodist Church (1900)

A Methodist church in the Forestville section of Bristol was established in 1855. The Forestville Methodist Church purchased a former Episcopal church building on Maple Street in 1864 and moved it to Forestville. This building was later enlarged to make room for an organ. On May 3, 1900, the church was struck by lightning during a severe thunderstorm and destroyed in the ensuing fire. The corner stone for a new church was laid on September 12, 1900 and it was dedicated on December 27, 1900. The church, designed by George W. Kramer of New York, is a brick edifice with a brownstone foundation. The name of the church, which is located at 90 Church Avenue in Forestville, was later changed to Asbury United Methodist Church.

United Methodist Church of Hartford (1905)

Pages 138 to 139 of my new book, Vanished Downtown Hartford, describe the first two church buildings used by Hartford’s First Methodist Church. The first, at the corner of Chapel and Trumbull Streets, was built in 1821. After the church moved further west in 1860, the former church was used for businesses (including as the office of local architect John C. Mead from 1879 to 1889). The second building, on Asylum Street, was used by the church until 1905. Its tower and Romanesque Revival front facade were removed in 1911, when the building was converted to commercial purposes. The current church edifice was built in 1904 to 1905 on Farmington Avenue, near the West Hartford line. The church is now called the United Methodist Church of Hartford. It merged with St. Paul’s Methodist Church in 1974 and with the South Park Methodist Church in 1982.

Prospect United Methodist Church (1894)

Prospect United Methodist Church, Bristol

The Methodist Episcopal Society of Bristol was formed in 1834 and a church on West Street was completed not long after. As related in Bristol, Connecticut (“In the Olden Time “New Cambridge”) (1907):

The young society was served in turn by noble and faithful ministers. The church multiplied and prospered. During the years 1857-8 the pastor was Rev. John W. Simpson. During this period a revival commenced on Chippins Hill, extended to Polkville (Edgewood) and other places. Conversions were many. On New Year’s Day, 1858, Mr. Simpson preached in the schoolhouse at Polkville. John Humphrey Sessions, who had previously “professed religion” attended the service, and before the meeting closed he was so impressed by a divine power that he here made a complete consecration of himself to God and precious results soon followed. That fact, simple in itself, has meant much to the town of Bristol and to the Methodist Church in particular. Mr. Sessions was an able, vigorous and successful business man. As he prospered the Methodist Church prospered.

In 1880, the congregation grew and moved to a new church, closer to the center of town, at the corner of the corner of Center and Summer Streets. This building was enlarged in 1888 and then replaced by a new edifice, which was dedicated in 1894. By then, the church was known as the Prospect Methodist Episcopal Church (now it is the Prospect United Methodist Church at 99 Summer Street). The church‘s construction was funded by John Humphrey Sessions.