The George Grannis House (1864)

The house of George Grannis, a photographer, was built sometime around 1864 on Church Street in Waterbury. In the 1870s, the house came to be owned by the Burrall family, being occupied in the early twentieth century by the sisters, Mary and Lucy Burrall, and their lifelong friend, Miss Edith Morton Chase. The daughter of Henry Sabin Chase, first president of the Chase Brass and Copper Company, Edith Chase was a neighbor of the Burrall sisters, who became her companions when she later made the Grand Tour of Europe. In 1917, Chase’s father gave her land in Litchfield, now Topsmead State Forest, where she built a country house. Chase and the Burralls then lived together, dividing their time between summers in Litchfield and winters in Waterbury.

The Amasa Preston House (1828)

At 152 Cornwall Avenue in Cheshire is an 1828 house, built by Amasa Preston. A settler from Wallingford, Preston was on the building committee for the Methodist Church, constructed in 1834. The house had two rooms added to the rear in 1910. Owned by the Preston and Trithall family, the house was the childhood home of architect Alice Washburn. A former high school principal in the 1890s, in 1919 Washburn began designing Colonial Revival houses in Cheshire and surrounding communities. She continued until the Great Depression forced her retirement in 1933. Around 1920, she renovated the Preston House in the Colonial Revival style, creating a beautiful front entry featuring a semicircular fan above the door. Today, the Connecticut chapter of the American Institute of Architects sponsors the annual Alice Washburn Awards for excellence in traditional house design. (more…)

Jonathan Dickerman II House (1792)

In 1792, Jonathan Dickerman II built a farmhouse in Hamden, south of the Sleeping Giant, also known as Mount Carmel. Originally located on the north side of Mount Carmel Avenue, the house was acquired by the state in 1924, serving for a time as a ranger station when the Sleeping Giant State Park was being created. In 1961, when the Avenue was being straightened, the state gave the Dickerman House to the town and, the following year, it was moved across the street to its current location by the Hamden Historical Society. A historic cider mill barn was moved to the property in 1992 and an outhouse in 2002.

Gleason-Harger House (1784)

The Gleason-Harger House, on the Albany Turnpike in Canton, was built around 1784 by Chauncey Gleason, who was involved in the East and West Indies trade, first with Elijah Cowles & Co. of Farmingtion and later in partnership with Matthew Ives, of Westfield, Mass. Around 1835, the house was acquired by John Wesley Harger, a Deacon of the Canton Baptist Church, who replaced the original gambrel roof. The house was also most likely altered around the same time to its current Greek Revival appearance. The house remained in his family well into the twentieth century and is now used as offices.

First Church Parsonage, Farmington (1875)

The Queen Anne style house at 96 Main Street in Farmington was built in 1875 as the Parsonage of the First Congregational Church. The stone store, built by Maj. Timothy Cowles, originally occupied the site, but was destroyed by fire on July 21, 1864. William Gay, a merchant who owned several parcels of real estate in Farmington, bought the lot in 1871 and sold it to the First Ecclesiastical Society.