Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Houses

Platt Farmhouse (1769)

The country farmhouse at 189 Platt Road in Watertown was built in 1769. The earliest known owner of the house is Jonas Platt of Newtown, who moved to Watertown around 1800. The house later passed from Jonas’ son Hinman to Hinman’s son Henry, who added the front porch and rear addition in the 1880s. His son Edgar Platt sold the farm to the Hresko family, which owned it until 1977. The farmland was then developed as the Winding Brook subdivision. After several years of corporate ownership, the house again became a private residence. On the property is an English bank barn, built c. 1870.

Lathrop-Mathewson-Ross House (1761)

The Lathrop-Mathewson-Ross House is located on Ross Hill Road in Lisbon. It was built in 1761, possibly by Ezra Lathrop. Jeffery Mathewson acquired the property October 20, 1800. Almira J. Mathewson married George A. Ross, and their descendants owned the property until August 1958. Both Almira and then her daughter, Kate Mathewson Ross, kept diaries with daily entries covering 1873 to 1913. Victorian-era alterations were made to the house, including the addition of a projecting central gable over the front door and a full-length front porch. All of these additions were later removed under the direction of the famed restoration architect, Frederic Palmer. He worked with Edward Peace Friedland and Joan W. Friedland, who bought the Ross Farm in 1958. Edward Peace Friedland was an expert on eighteenth-century architecture and he and his wife were pioneers in historic preservation.

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Hiram Rider House (1820)

The house at 238 Tolland Turnpike in Willington was built c. 1820 for Hiram Rider, who served as a judge, county sheriff, Town Selectman, State Representative and State Treasurer. The house passed to his son and grandson. A later occupant was Jennie Church, who wrote for various Connecticut newspapers, including a series of “Pen Pictures” of Willington for the Stafford Press in the 1930s.

Tomlinson-Boughton-Ward-Cassidy House (1763)

The house at 132 Main Street South in Woodbury sits on a hill just south of School Street. It was built in 1763 by Isaac Tomlinson and was owned early in the nineteenth century by John Boughton, a blacksmith. His blacksmith shop is believed to make up part of the barn on the property. Wallace G. Ward, a builder and president of the Woodbury Savings Bank, later owned and made a number of changes to the house, including replacing the original center chimney and lowering the windows so that his mother could more easily look outside. Since 1916 the house has been owned by the Cassidy family, which undertook restoration work in the mid-twentieth century.

Daniel Mack House (1871)

The house at 6 Poquonock Avenue in Windsor was built around 1871 by Daniel Mack on land he had acquired from Horace Bower. The building has substantial twentieth-century additions and is now used as for apartments and offices. Daniel Mack worked at the Mack Brickyard in Windsor, founded by his father William Mack in 1830. Daniel Mack also owned a house on Mack Street.

John Evarts House (1850)

Not much is known about the origins of the house at 71 Broad Street in Guilford. It dates to c. 1850 and the original owner was John Evarts. It may have been built as a barn and converted to a house later on. Among various other changes over the years, the front entrance was moved from the side to the front and a porch was added to the west side (later removed).

Nathaniel Root House (1809)

Captain Nathaniel Root, Sr. (1757-1840), a farmer, was one of the original seven proprietors who in 1813 agreed to erect a glass factory in Coventry, along the Boston Post Road. The Coventry glassworks would be in operation until 1849. Root built the Federal-style house at 1046 Boston Turnpike in 1809.

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