Newton E. Marble House (1874)

In 1874, Trinity Church in Newtown built the house at 12 Main Street for its rector, Dr. Newton E. Marble. The Stick and Eastlake-style house, known as “Seven Gables,” was designed by the Bridgeport firm of Palliser and Palliser. The brothers featured the house in their 1878 collection of model homes, writing the following:

This house commands a particularly fine view from both sides and the front, and is situated in one of the pleasantest country towns in New England, the hotels of this town being crowded during the summer months with people from the cities. The exterior design is plain, yet picturesque, and at once gives one an idea of ease and comfort. The roofing over the Hall and Sitting-room is a particularly fine feature […] The corner fire-place between Parlor and Dining-room is a feature we indulge in to a great extent in these days of economy, sliding doors and fire-places, although we sometimes have clients who object to this, thinking it would not look as well as when placed in center of side wall; but when they are asked how this and that can be provided for with the best and most economical results, they readily give in. […] The exterior is painted as follows: Ground, light slate; trimmings, buff, and chamfers, black. Cost, $2,925. The sight of this house in the locality in which it is built is very refreshing, and is greatly in advance of the old styles of rural box architecture to be found there.

The house has recently been for sale.

The Taylor-Wheeler House (1889)

The house at 47 Holmes Avenue in Waterbury was built in 1889 by Alfred F. Taylor, who ran a painting company (see advertisement, pdf, p.11). He and his family only occupied the house for a year before he sold it to John S. Wheeler, a retired painter. Taylor then moved to a similar Queen Anne house he had built next door, at 51 Holmes Avenue. According to the History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley, Vol. III (1918), “the long established business of the A. F. Taylor Company”

was organized in 1880 and was incorporated in 1901 by A. F., Foster B. and Charles I. Taylor. The Taylors sold their interests about 1909 to George Reed, who had formerly been with the Scovill Manufacturing Company. He remained at the head of the business until 1908, when he sold out to W. D. Austin and C. W. Lyons, and in 1914 Mr. Austin purchased the interest of Mr. Lyons. The business was first located on Grand street and thence removed to No. 43 Center street, where the company occupies a building, which has a frontage of twenty-three feet and a depth of one hundred and ten feet. They handle a full line of wall paper, window shades and awnings and in addition do interior decorating in all its branches, taking large contracts for work of this character and employing fifty people in the busy season. The business has reached extensive proportions and has become one of the profitable industries of the city.

Jerome Baldwin House (1885)

Jerome B. Baldwin was a merchant in Willimantic. Born in Mansfield in 1843, he served in the Twenty-First Connecticut Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. Baldwin was partner with Frank F. Webb in the Baldwin & Webb clothing and furniture store in Willimantic and served in the state legislature in 1885. His house, on Prospect Street in Willimantic, was also built in 1885 and is an example of the Stick style.

Joseph Dwight Chaffee House (1889)

In 1889, Joseph Dwight Chaffee bought what was considered to be the most desirable lot in Willimantic and built an impressive Queen Anne house on the property. As stated in The Chaffee Genealogy (1909), Joseph Dwight Chaffee

was born in Mansfield, Conn., August 9, 1846, and married there, September 12, 1867, Martha W., daughter of George P. Armstrong of that place. Mr. Chaffee has served in the Connecticut Legislature as Representative and also as Senator from the Twenty-Fourth District. He has been associated with his father in the business of manufacture of silk under the firm name of O. S. Chaffee & Son, later called the Natchaug Silk Company of Willimantic, Conn. In 1883 he lived in Mansfield, and in 1894 in Willimantic.

He was known as Colonel Chaffee, after serving on Governor Phineas Lounsbury‘s staff from 1887 until 1889. In 1895, a financial scandal led to the liquidation of the Natchaug Silk Company and the arrest and trial of J. D. Chaffee for fraud (the company had been capitalized in a fraudulent manner by the First National Bank of Willimantic, a fact discovered when the bank’s cashier committed suicide and the bank was investigated). Chaffee later operated, with his son, another manufacturing company, known for its Natchaug Silk Braided Fish Lines. He later llived in the factory’s basement, after the company closed in 1927, until his death in 1938 at the age of 92. His former house on Summit Street in Willimantic was restored in the late-1990s.

The James E. English House (1845)

Designed by Henry Austin, the James E. English House was built in 1845 on Wooster Square in New Haven. James Edward English, who began as a builder, later became a wealthy lumber dealer and a politician, serving in the US Congress and then as Governor of Connecticut. Austin designed for English an Italianate house with unusual columns on the front porch. In 1876, the house was raised a full story, leading to its present, elongated appearance. Today the house is the Maresca & Sons Funeral Home.

The Thaddeus Burr Homestead (1790)

The Burr Homestead, on the Old Post Road in Fairfield, is a mansion built in 1790 by Thaddeus Burr (pdf) a wealthy landowner and uncle of Aaron Burr. It replaced the original Burr Mansion, built in 1732, which stood on the same site. In that earlier house, in 1775, Burr‘s friend John Hancock had married Dorothy Quincy, whose father was also an old friend of Thaddeus Burr. The old mansion was burned in the British raid on Fairfield in 1779, in spite of the pleas of Burr’s wife, Eunice, who even had the silver buckles stolen from her shoes by British soldiers. According to A general history of the Burr family in America (1878), by Charles Burr Todd:

A few weeks after the burning, Gov. Hancock paid his old friend a visit, and while they were surveying the ruins, he remarked to Mr. Burr that he must rebuild, and offered to furnish the glass needed, provided he would build a house precisely like his own in Boston—not an inconsiderable gift, as all who have seen the Governor’s unique mansion, fronting on Boston Common, must admit. Mr. Burr accepted the offer, and built a house the exact counterpart of Mr. Hancock’s. The site of the mansion burned in 1779 is now occupied by the residence of Wm. Jones, Esq.

Gen. Gershom Burr inherited the new house, built by architect-builder Daniel Dimon, from his uncle Thaddeus, who died in 1801. The next owner, Obadiah W. Jones, remodeled and enlarged the mansion in the 1840s. As described in An Historic Mansion, Being an Account of the Thaddeus Burr Homestead, Fairfield, Connecticut, 1654-1915 (1915), by Frank S. Child, the alterations included, “taking out the dormer windows and lifting the roof, taking away the porch and building the broad veranda with its lofty massive fluted columns.” The mansion had other owners over the years. Now owned by the Town of Fairfield and managed by the Fairfield Museum and History Center, the Burr Homestead has restored gardens and the house can be rented for events.

Arad Welton House (1850)

The Arad Welton House, at 238 West Main Street in Cheshire, is a Greek Revival house with large wings extending on each side. The front porch was added around 1900. Arad W. Welton was a manufacturer and first president of the Cheshire Manufacturing Company, established in 1850, which produced combs, brass buttons and other stamped goods. In 1901, the company combined with the Ball and Socket Fastener Co. of Portsmouth N.H. and became the Ball and Socket Manufacturing Co., which focused on buttons.