The oldest surviving commercial structure in Litchfield is the Apothecary Shop of Dr. Reuben Smith. Built in 1781, the Apothecary Shop was formerly located next to his house on North Street, but in 1812 was moved to its current location north of the Green, to become Luke Lewis‘s grocery shop. It has served various commercial purposes over the years.
The Ocean Bank was incorporated in Stonington Borough in 1851 with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. The bank building was constructed the same year on the Town Square (known as Cannon Square since the 1870s). Antique Ocean Bank banknote proof sheets from the 1850-60s survive today. Ocean Bank later became the First National Bank of Stonington. In 1942, the building was purchased by the Stonington Historical Society, with the intention of making it the Society’s headquarters and a museum. The circumstances of the war prevented this plan from being carried out and it was instead leased to the American Red Cross during the war. The building, still owned by the society, has since continued to house a bank (currently a Bank of America).
The Collins Axe Company was started in South Canton (which later came to be known as Collinsville) in 1826. The company constructed a village to house and provide services to the workers and their original office building, built in 1830 on Front Street, included a school and space for religious services. In 1867, this structure was moved to the corner of River and North Street and divided into two units for employee housing. The new office building, constructed to replace the old one in 1868, also contained a post office, library, a third-floor hall with a stage, and space for the local DAR to meet. These rooms were eventually used for office space as the company expanded. The building is now used for various businesses, but the snow guards along the roof are still in the shape of the Collins Company trademark of crown, arm, and hammer.
The building which now houses the LaSalle Market, on Main Street in Collinsville (in Canton) is a late nineteenth century commercial building with projecting eaves and brackets in the Italianate style. A picture from the 1890s survives showing various businesses in operation, including a meat market and a boots and shoe store. The LaSalle Market began in the 1970s on LaSalle Road in West Hartford and moved to Collinsville in 1984.
Built in 1803 (or possibly much earlier), the tinsmith shop of Asa Andrews is located next to a small green, off Main Street in Farmington. The tinsmith Andrews, whose house was nearby, specialized in japanned tinware (japanning is a type of varnishing or painting on tin and other materials). He was also “the maker of those chandeliers, compounds of wood and tin, that long hung from the meeting-house ceiling.” The building is now a private residence.
Care Endodontics PC, , a dental practice specializing in root canals, was founded in 2004 by Dr. Christopher Carrington and Dr. Lester Reid. They purchased an old house on Farmington Avenue in Hartford’s West End for their expanded practice, but eventually decided to raze the original structure and replace it with a retro-Victorian house that would fit in with other structures in the neighborhood. The building features Victorian-influenced siding which disguises the fact that it is made of vinyl. The practice opened its new facility in June of 2007.
The Exchange Building, on Church Street across from New Haven Green, was built in 1832 to serve as a commercial structure with a simple repeated Greek Revival window pattern. The builder, Atwater Treat, may have followed a design of Ithiel Town. The Exchange, New Haven’s first building constructed specifically as a commercial one, featured an open ground floor for shops. The building had a number of later changes, including the removal of the original cupola, which was eventually replaced by a billboard. In 1990, the building was restored, with a rebuilt cupola and and stone columned facade on the ground floor.
