Commercial Buildings - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Olympia Diner (1950)

This month’s issue of Connecticut Explored (the magazine formerly known as the Hog River Journal) has an article on the architecture of the Berlin Turnpike, written by Mary M. Donohue. According to the article, the Olympia Diner, on the Turnpike in in Newington, was built around 1950. It was one of many diners made by the Jerry O’Mahoney Company in the 1950s. Diners of the period retained many aspects of the earlier art deco style. The Olympia Diner continues to operate as a popular restaurant and historic landmark.

Carroll Building, Norwich (1887)

Lucius W. Carroll was a leading Norwich merchant and businessman who had a store on Water Street. In 1887, as a real estate venture, he constructed a commercial building to be leased to a variety of businesses. Located at the intersection of Main and Water Streets in Norwich, the Carroll Building is also known as the Flat Iron Building, because its floor plan, accommodating the triangular area where it was built, resembled an iron, like that of the famous Flatiron Building in New York, built in 1902. The building‘s display windows are separated by cast iron columns by A. H. Vaughn & Sons, proprietors of the Norwich Iron Foundry. Below are additional images of the building, which show how the Worcester architect, Stephen C. Earle, had to contend with the site’s uneven ground. (more…)

Wheeler Block, Colchester (1872)

The Wheeler Block (also called the Old Town Hall) in Colchester was built as a commercial building by businessman Joshua B. Wheeler in 1872. Wheeler was a Mason and the third floor meeting room was used as a Masonic Lodge through the 1940s. In 1910, at a time when the town’s schools were overcrowded, the building became the Ransom School and was later used for town offices. At present, the building is vacant.

The Brainerd Store/Russell Inn (1813)

On the east bank of the Connecticut River at Haddam Neck is an impressive building built in 1813 by Dudley Brainerd as a house and store. It was a good location: facing Haddam Neck’s main dock at Rock Landing and with a shipyard to the south, sailing vessels would often stop. According to the chapter on Haddam Neck by Henry M. Selden, in the 1884 History of Middlesex County,

The pioneer merchant was Robert Clark. The next was Dudley Brainerd, who built the house now occupied by Captain Charles S. Russell, in the basement of which he had his store. This store was next managed by Selden Huntington one year, succeeded by Elias Selden and Colonel Theodore H. Arnold, under the firm name of Selden & Arnold, then by a Mr. L’Hommedieu, and in rotation by Lavater R. Selden, James S. Selden, Lucius E. Goff, Captain Charles S. Russell, Albert S. Russell, George E. Russell & Co, and Joseph Griffin.

Charles S. Russell bought the building in 1846 and by the 1870s he had converted it to become an inn, serving the steamboat passengers traveling between Hartford and New York City. It was at this time the building was updated, with a Second Empire-style mansard roof and an impressive ornamented three-level front porch. A later addition onto the first story has a granite foundation featuring round windows resembling portholes.

Harris Building, New London (1885)

On State Street in New London is the Harris Building, built in 1885 for Jonathan Newton Harris, a businessman who used the income from his building’s rents to support philanthropic activities (he also founded the Harris School of Science at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan). The multi-use structure housed offices, apartments and shops, including, for 1885 to 1931, Hislop’s Department Store. The Romanesque Revival building with a Mansard roof was designed by the New York based architect, Leopold Eidlitz. Today, the building is also known as Harris Place.

Hayden Chandlery (1813)

Captain Richard Hayden‘s Chandlery in Essex was built in 1813 and originally stood at the corner of Main Street and Novelty Lane. Constructed in the Federal style, it served as a chandlery (a store selling supplies and equipment for seamen and ships). Built next to Hayden‘s shipyard, the building continued to be used as ship’s store, although by the early twentieth century the upper floor housed a tenement. The first floor windows and the projecting windows on the second floor are later additions. The building was moved to its present location in 1949 by the then owners of the Griswold Inn. The chandlery and nearby steamboat dock warehouse were purchased by the Connecticut River Foundation in 1974, in order to preserve the historic waterfront. Renamed the Connecticut River Museum, the institution restored the chandlery in 1975 to display exhibits. Thomas A. Stevens, a former director of Mystic Seaport, died in 1982 and left his library to the museum. That same year, the warehouse had been converted into a museum building and the chandlery was again renovated, this time to hold the Thomas A. Stevens maritime research library.

Birmingham National Bank (1892)

The old Birmingham National Bank building is on Main Street in the City of Derby, which was once known as Birmingham. The bank was originally chartered in 1848 as the Manufacturers Bank of Birmingham, with Edward N. Shelton as its first president, and in 1865 became a national bank. Constructed in 1892-1893, the building features an elaborately detailed facade with terra cotta molding in the Sullivanesque, Neo-Grec and Richardsonian Romanesque Revival styles. The building is now the Twisted Vine Restaurant.