Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Churches

Universalist Church of West Hartford (1931)

The First Universalist Society in the City of Hartford was formed in 1821, with its first church building being constructed on Main Street, across from the Old State House, in 1824. The congregation moved to a second building in 1860, located where the Travelers Tower now stands, and to a third building in 1906, in Hartford’s Asylim Hill neighborhood. The fourth and current church, located on Fern Street in West Hartford, was built in 1931 and was designed by Walter Crabtree in the Colonial Revival style. A large addition to the rear was constructed in 1962. Known from 1870 to the early 1960s as the Church of the Redeemer, it is now called the Universalist Church of West Hartford.

Northam Memorial Chapel (1882)

Col. Charles H. Northam, a Hartford businessman, was director of the Cedar Hill Cemetery Association and donated funds for the construction of the cemetery’s Northam Memorial Chapel, completed in 1882. It was designed by the important Hartford Architect, George Keller, in what he described as the “Modern Gothic” style, his simplified version of the Gothic Revival style. The chapel was restored in 1999, after being unused for nearly fifty years, and today houses the cemetery’s offices.

All Saints Orthodox Church (1964)

The congregation of All Saints Orthodox Church was founded in Hartford in 1914. The original church building was on Broad Street, near the State Capitol. In 1956, land was purchased on Scarborough Street for a new church, which was not constructed until 1963-1964. Each November, the church has a Russian Tea Room and Bazaar. Today is Christmas, but some Russian-American Orthodox Christians will celebrate Christmas on January 7, the date of Russian Christmas.

S Razhd?stvOm!

Horace Bushnell Congregational Church (1914)

Hartford’s Fourth Congregational Church, modeled on New Haven’s Center Church on the Green, was built downtown on Main Street in 1850. This original building can be seen in a number of historic photographs. In 1913, the Main Street property was sold for commercial development. William F. Brooks, the architect of Hartford’s Municipal Building and the New Britain Public Library, persuaded the congregation to keep the original church’s steeple and portico and use them on the new church, completed in 1914, at the intersection of Albany Avenue and Vine Street. Thanks to this early work of historic preservation, the later building preserves an important part of a demolished historic structure. The Fourth Congregational Church merged in 1953 with Windsor Avenue Congregational Church to form the Horace Bushnell Congregational Church. The church is now home to Liberty Christian Center International. (more…)

Asylum Avenue Baptist Church (1896)

Seven years after the Congregationalists built a church in the expanding Asylum Hill neighborhood of Hartford, the Baptists constructed a Gothic Revival-style sanctuary facing Sigourney Street. Designed by the architect George Keller, this small 1872 structure (which later burned) was joined in 1896 by the main section of the present Asylum Avenue Baptist Church, designed by Hapgood & Hapgood.

Memorial Baptist Church (1931)

Hartford’s Memorial Baptist Church was organized in 1884, with its original building on the corner of Washington and Jefferson Streets. A new church, built in the Colonial Revival style, was begun in 1931, but was not completed until 1949, due to the impact of the Great Depression. The church, on Fairfield Avenue, features semi-circular windows, slender columns and other influences of the refined Federal style.

The Congregational Church in South Glastonbury (1836)

The Congregational Church in South Glastonbury was constructed on High Street in 1836 by 14 members of Glastonbury’s First Church. After the Great Hurricane of 1938, the other two Congregational churches in town had to be rebuilt, so South Church is the oldest surviving Congregational church in town. The building was raised and turned to face Main Street in 1965. (more…)