Commercial Buildings - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Travelers Insurance Company (1928) and Hartford-Connecticut Trust Company (1920)

Two 1920s Colonial Revival skyscrapers, on Central Row in Hartford, across from the Old State House, exemplify an architectural style based on the classical column, with the upper stories corresponding to a column’s capital. The classical detailing on both buildings link them stylistically to the nearby Old State House.

The Hartford-Connecticut Trust Company Building (on the Right), designed by the firm of Morris & O’Connor, was built in 1920. The company was created in 1919 as a merger of the Connecticut Trust and Safe Deposit Company and the Hartford Trust Company. In 1954, it merged with Phoenix Bank to become Connecticut Bank and Trust Company. The structure on the roof, which looks like a classical building itself, once contained a restaurant. The Travelers Insurance Company Building (on the Left) was built in 1928 along similar lines.

East Windsor Hill Post Office (1757)

In 1757, David Bissell Jr. sold part of his land to Jeremiah Ballard, a barber, who built a shop on Main Street, in East Windsor Hill. The remainder of this shop is the present long ell of the East Windsor Hill Post Office. In 1759, Bissell gave the rest of his land to his son, David Bissell III, who later attached a shop/storehouse to Ballard’s shop. This is the gambrel-roofed warehouse with overhead doorway that now houses the Post Office. Different owners divided the structure for various businesses selling dry goods and groceries over the following years, well into the twentieth century. It also served as a post office, receiving its first government post rider in 1783. It is the oldest continuously operated post office in the country.

Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company Building (1963)

Built as part of Constitution Plaza in Hartford in 1963, the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company building, designed by Max Abramovitz, is the world’s first two-sided building. Often called the “Boat Building” due to its shape, it is considered a notable example of the International Style of modern architecture. Phoenix was originally founded in 1851 as the American Temperance Life Insurance Company. Its name was changed to Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance in 1861.

Aetna Building (1931)

Today’s Aetna, Inc. is the descendant of the Aetna Life Insurance Company, which was incorporated in 1853. In 1931, their corporate headquarters building was constructed on Farmington Avenue in Hartford. Designed by James Gamble Rogers, it is a Colonial Revival building far more monumental than any actually built during the colonial period. In a sense it is like the Old State House on steroids, and shares some stylistic similarities with that historic structure.

Cove Warehouse (1690)

Built around 1690 at Wethersfield, where there was a bend in the Connecticut River in the seventeenth century. At that time, this and other warehouses stored goods like lumber and foodstuffs (including Wethersfield’s famous red onions) before transport as part of the town’s flourishing trade with the West Indies. In exchange, Wethersfield’s merchants and ship captains would import sugar, molasses and rum from the Caribbean. Around 1700, a hurricane changed the course of the river, turning what was once a bend in the river into the present cove. The accompanying flood swept away the other six warehouses, leaving only this one. It was restored in 1934 and is today a museum run by the Wethersfield Historical Society which houses an exhibit on Wethersfield’s maritime history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Hartford Times Building (1920)

Built in 1920 on Prospect Street as headquarters for the Hartford Times, the city’s evening newspaper, which existed from 1817 to 1976. Designed by Donn Barber, the Beaux-Arts building features six green granite Ionic columns salvaged from the Madison Square Presbyterian Church in New York (designed by Stanford White; built in 1906, demolished in 1919 to make way for the Met Life Building’s expansion). The recessed porch also features allegorical scenes. For many years, the building hosted campaign speeches by presidential candidates. Current plans for the building involve its adaptive reuse as an annex of the neighboring Wadsworth Atheneum, as such it will be an important part of the Adriaen’s Landing development.

Cheney Building (1876)

Built in 1876 on Main Street in Hartford for two brothers from the family that owned the Cheney Silk Mills in Manchester. The R. and F. Cheney Building was designed by the famous architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, and represents an early work in his distinctive Richardsonian Romanesque style, later exemplified in the (now gone) Marshall Field’s Wholesale Store, built in Chicago in 1885-1887. The Cheney Block is considered one of Richardson’s greatest buildings and considered by some to be Hartford’s most architecturally significant building. Originally used for retail space on the ground floor, with offices and apartment space above, it later housed Brown Thomson‘s and then G. Fox and Co.‘s Department stores. Today it is known as the Richardson Building and is again used for a mix of office and retail space, including a Residence Inn and the City Steam Brewery Cafe.