The house at 360 Maple Street/1331 Forbes Street in East Hartford was built c. 1800. It was erected by Benjamin Roberts, Sr., possibly as a speculation, on land which, until 1818, was owned by the Congreational church. From the mid-nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries the house was owned by the Winslow family.
The building at 163-169 Main Street in Seymour was built in 1921 and was originally called the Donavan Building. Its front marquee was added c. 1941 when the Stand Theater opened. It later became a second-run theater and is one of Connecticut’s few remaining single-screen movie houses. Its Art Deco interior was restored in the 1990s. The building is owned by the Knights of Columbus.
The older section (which has a window in the gable-end) of the building at 104 Baileyville Road in Middlefield was built in 1876 by George W. Miller for his bone and phosphate mill. The building was later vacant for some years until it was acquired by the Lyman Gun Sight Corporation in 1921. The company remodeled the building in 1927 for the making of telescopic scopes for rifles. A dam was built which created a pond, called Scope Shop Pond, to power the factory (it’s now used by the town for fire protection). Additions to the building were constructed in the 1930s and 1940s. The picture above was taken in 2014, when the building was having work done. The current owner hopes to revitalize this and the former Lyman Gun Sight Factory on West Street. (more…)
The house at 23 Baileyville Road in Middlefield has a sign that reads “First Schoolhouse ~1800~.” Town assessor records give the house a date of 1830.
In 1917 Italian immigrants working at the Ensign-Bickford factory and on farms in Avon and surrounding towns formed a social club called the Prince Thomas of Savoy Society. It was named for Prince Tommaso of Savoy, Second Duke of Genoa. During World War One, Prince Thomas was appointed Luogotenente, or lieutenant general, by Victor Emanuel III and served as the king’s second-in-command. Established as a mutual aid society, the Society’s meetings were held in members’ homes and other rented spaces until the group erected the building at 32 Old Farms Road in Avon in 1930-1932. Many Italian immigrants were involved in the building trades and used their expertise to build the clubhouse. Each member of the Society was required to contribute a certain number of hours each week until the project was completed. The clubhouse was officially dedicated in 1932.
A German immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1874, Bernard C. Apel established a furniture and undertaking business at Depot Square in North Manchester. In 1888 he erected the large brick commercial building that stands at the corner of Apel Place and Oakland Street (35 Oakland Street). The basement contained the undertaking establishment and above it was his mercantile showroom, which he had expanded to include a wide variety of products, from carpets, wall paper and curtains, to crockery, lamps, clocks, stoves and pianos. The upper floors of the building housed a large community hall/theater called Apel’s Opera House. A fire gutted the opera house in 1899. Apel rebuilt, but did not reconstruct the original audience gallery. Serving as a warehouse and salesroom in later years, the building was acquired by the Central Connecticut Cooperative Farmers Association in 1977. The Co-op, which had been located on Apel Place since 1942, was a major supplier of livestock feed to farmers and had a retail store and farm stand in the former Opera House. The Co-op closed in the summer of 2016 due to current economic conditions and the decline in the number of farms.
According to a guide to the South Britain Historic District, produced by the Town of Southbury, the house at 32 East Flat Hill Road, called the Downs House, was acquired as a residence by the minister of the South Britain Congregational Church in 1791. Does this relate it to the Moses Downs House at 639 South Britain Road? Further, the guide indicates that it was used in the 1870s for a school for girls and the lower level was once a tavern. The National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination for the South Britain Historic District dates the house to 1750 (based on assessor’s records) and indicates it was once a toll house.
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