Governor Charles H. Pond House (1845)

Charles Hobby Pond, born in Milford in 1781, served as Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut from 1850 to 1853 and, after the resignation of Governor Thomas H. Seymour, served as Governor for seven months (1853-1854). Pond’s Greek Revival house, on North Broad Street across from Milford Green, was built in 1845. Pond died in 1861 and in 1864 a relative of the same name, who was a New York businessman, began construction nearby of the estate that would later be known as Lauralton Hall. In the twentieth century, the Pond House became home to the Cody-White Funeral Home, begun in the 1930s by S. Harrington White and purchased in 1956 by Thomas J. Cody, Sr.

James Carson House (1880)

Along with the Hotchkiss-Fyler House (1897), another house on the Fyler-Hotchkiss Estate is the Carson House, an Italianate residence. It was built in 1880 for James Carson, treasurer and partner of the Turner and Seymour Manufacturing Company and head of the Torrington Manufacturing Company. It was built on land that Carson had acquired from Orasmus R. Fyler. In 1892, he sold the property back to Fyler. Carson, suffering from Bright’s Disease, had suddenly retired. A few months later, after consulting a doctor in New York, Carson went missing from the train on which he had been returning home to Torrington. After the Fyler’s acquired his house, they rented it out to various tenants. Along with the rest of the estate, the Carson House was bequeathed by Gertrude Fyler Hotchkiss to the Torrington Historical Society. In 1975, the interior of the house was adapted to become museum exhibition space for the Society.

The Benjamin Hanks House (1780)

Benjamin Hanks, a drummer in the Revolutionary War, was a clockmaker and silversmith, known for his church bells, who settled in Litchfield from 1779 to 1790. He had his home and shop in a building at 39 South Street, built in 1780. Hanks later returned to practice his trade in his hometown of Mansfield and also set up a bell-casting foundry with his son in Troy, New York. His former double house in Litchfield served for a time as the Park Hotel.

William F. Baldwin House (1850)

The William F. Baldwin House, at 150 South Street in Litchfield, was built in 1850. In 1886, the house was acquired by Philadelphian F. Ratchford Starr, who ran Echo Farm, a commercial dairy he had begun in Litchfield. Around 1910, when the Colonial Revival influence had come to dominate in Litchfield, the house was altered, probably quite significantly, in that style, most likely by Starr’s daughter, who had inherited the property in 1889.

The Huvelle House (1953)

Next to Stillman House I, at the end of Beecher Lane in Litchfield, is another mid-century modern home called the Huvelle House. It was built in 1953 and designed by John Johansen on land land that had been split off from the neighboring Stillman property. Dr. C.H. Huvelle and his wife were the architect’s clients and a condition of Stillman’s land offer to them was that they build modern. Mrs. Huvelle continued to reside in the house until her death earlier this year.

Hotchkiss-Fyler House (1897)

The Hotchkiss-Fyler House was built in 1897 for Orsamus R. Fyler and his family. Fyler was prominent in Connecticut politics, serving as a reforming State Insurance Commissioner, State Railroad Commissioner and Chairman of the Republican State Central Committee. Fyler occupied the house with his wife, Mary, and their daughter and son-in-law, Gertrude and Edward Hotchkiss, who were married in 1896. When Gertrude Fyler Hotchkiss died in 1956, she bequeathed the Fyler-Hotchkiss Estate to the Torrington Historical Society. The Chateauesque Hotchkiss-Fyler House became a house museum and headquarters of the Society.