Waveny House (1912)

Waveny House is a Tudor mansion in New Canaan, built in 1912 for Lewis Lapham, one of the founders of Texaco. The Lapham family spent summers at their New Canaan estate, most of which was given to the town by the family in 1967. At that time, Waveny House itself was sold to the town by Mrs. Ruth Lapham Lloyd. The house was designed by W. B. Tubby and the grounds by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.. It was named by Mrs. Lapham after the Waveny River in England where the Lapham ancestors had once lived. Today the house and grounds are a community recreation area called Waveny Park. Waveny House is often rented for weddings and other social functions and cultural activities.

Chase Cottage (Topsmead) (1923)

In 1917, Henry Sabin Chase, president of the Chase Brass and Copper Company in Waterbury, gave his daughter, Edith Morton Chase, sixteen acres on Jefferson Hill in Litchfield. Miss Chase had a rustic cottage built on the property, which she replaced with a larger Tudor Revival-style summer home, built in 1923-1925. Chase named the house “Topsmead,” meaning “top of the meadow,” and shared her home with her close friends, the unmarried sisters, Mary and Lucy Burall. They divided their time between the Chase Cottage at Topsmead and the Burall sister’s house on Church Street in Waterbury. When Miss Chase died in 1972, she bequeathed her property to the state. It is now Topsmead State Forest. (more…)

Highfield (1914)

In 1911, Theodate Pope Riddle, famous for designing Hill-Stead in Farmington, completed plans for another country estate for her friends, Joseph and and Elizabeth Chamberlain. In 1909, the Chamberlins had acquired land in Middlebury, close to Whittemore estate. Their house, called “Highfield,” was constructed in 1911-1914, on a hill above Lake Quassapaug. Theodate’s design for the house was influenced by her recent trip to England, where she had studied traditional village architecture and the work of English Arts and Crafts architects like Edwin Lutyens. Designed to resemble a rustic English cottage, Highfield has a large interior, with the second story cleverly concealed behind the sloping shingled roof. Next to the house is a sunken garden, where Theodate created a sumer house with removable glass walls. Charles Downing Lay made alterations to the back of the house in 1925 and to the attic in 1929. In 1954, the Stillman family, who had suceeded the Chamberlins as owners of the house, sold the property, which became a nine hole golf course. The house is now the clubhouse.

Cortland F. Luce House (1920)

Formerly the estate of Cornelius J. Vanderbilt, Jr., West Hill Drive was one of the earliest planned sub-divisions in West Hartford. Many of the Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival houses constructed there in the 1920s were designed by architect Cortland F. Luce, who also designed his own house at 6 West Hill Drive. Built in 1920, the house combines elements of the two styles which dominated the neighborhood, being a Tudor Revival cottage with a Palladian window typical of the Georgian Colonial Revival. To learn more about Colonial and Tudor Revival houses in West Hartford, check out my article on the subject in the Architecture section of this site!

The Stoner Mansion (1928)

The Stoner Mansion is a Tudor Revival house, on Stoner Drive, off Mountain Road in West Hartford. It was completed in 1928 for Louis Stoner, a manufacturer who became wealthy from the Jacobs Chuck company, which produces holding/clamping devices for stationary equipment and portable power tools. The family hosted famous parties at the mansion, which was situated on an extensive estate on a hillside with views of Hartford and a private golf course. Later, the family faced financial hardship and Louis Stoner committed suicide. In the 1950s, his widow, Clara Stoner, began to sell off lots of the property, with early houses being built down Stoner Drive, near Mountain Road. In the 1970s, homes were being built closer to the mansion itself. The Stoners eventually left the house and their furniture was put on auction in 1973. The mansion then had a number of other occupants: there’s a blog post by one former resident whose parents bought the house in 1974. In the 1980s, the house was owned by a man who was later arrested for tax evasion. Left empty for a decade by later owners who never moved in, the house deteriorated and had to be extensively restored by its most recent owners, one of whom owns an interior design company which, for a time, has been based in the mansion. The house will soon have new owners.