Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Houses

Charles Ives Birthplace (1780)

Historic Buildings of Connecticut’s 850th building is the Charles Ives Birthplace in Danbury. Ives, born in 1874, was an unconventional composer who combined traditional and revolutionary elements. The original timber frame of his childhood home was built in 1780 by Thomas Tucker, but this building burned in the 1820s. The remains of the structure were purchased by Isaac Ives and rebuilt as a Federal-style house. Charles Edward Ives‘ father George Edward Ives, the youngest band master in the Union Army during the Civil War, was a music teacher who taught his son to embrace unusual combinations of sounds. In 1894, the younger Ives left Danbury to attend Yale. He would go on to form a very successful insurance company, while also composing modernist musical works which would not be fully appreciated by the public until later in the twentieth century. Ives married Harmony Twitchell, the daughter of Mark Twain’s friend, Rev. Joseph Twitchell. The house where Charles Ives had been born was moved from its first location, on Main Street, to Chapel Place in 1923 and again to Mountainville Avenue in 1966. It was later restored by the Danbury Museum and opened to the public in 1992.

Curtis Wilcox House (1815)

In 1800 [the sign on the house indicates c. 1815], Capt. Curtis Wilcox built a house on the Boston Post Road in Madison and lived there with his wife, Wealthy Hill, the daughter of Reuben Hill and Hannah Scranton. Wilcox became Madison’s first postmaster and his house was the first post office (see pdf file). In 1823, twelve prominent citizens of Madison (then called East Guilford) gathered at the Wilcox House where, under the leadership of Frederick Lee, they started to remedy the community’s lack of its own wharf by pledging a thousand dollars for the construction of West Wharf, completed in 1824. Curtis Wilcox was appointed the first wharfmaster (see pdf file) and many ships were constructed there.

Sereno H. Scranton House (1833)

When Sereno H. Scranton of Madison married Susan Roxanna Doud in 1833, his father, Jonathan Scranton, presented the couple with a new Greek Revival home on the Boston Post Road. Sereno Scranton was a prominent citizen of Madison, who owned many merchant ships and served as a state representative and senator. He was also president of the Shoreline Railroad. Today, the house is the Scranton Seahorse Inn.

The James A. Norton House (1856)

James A. Norton, a prominent citizen in Guilford, who served on many town committees, built his house in the Italianate style on Fair Street in 1856. A later owner, for over six decades, was John Pitts, who lived to be a hundred. There is a modern addition to the rear which matches the style of the original part of the house. The house is currently for sale.

Haddam Neck Congregational Church Parsonage (1882)

Dating to about 1880, the Haddam Neck Congregational Church Parsonage on Schoolhouse Road in Haddam Neck may have been moved from another location to become the parsonage around 1882. The Church has rented the house since 1941.

The Cook-Dallas House (1832)

In 1832, Joseph K. Selden built a house on Quarry Hill Road in Haddam Neck, although the following year he moved to Ohio. The house was purchased by Harris Cook and was later rented and then purchased by Alexander Dallas, a stonemason born in Scotland. After a fire in 1880 nearly destroyed the house, Dallas rebuilt the originally Federal style house, changing the facade to reflect the Gothic Revival.

Asa Brainerd House (1790)

The Asa Brainerd House sits on land in Haddam which was owned, from 1788 to 1795, by Leveus Eddy, and was built sometime during that period. It was then purchased by Simon and Asa Brainerd, the latter of whom lived there until his death in 1815. The Brainerd family, who operated nearby granite quarries, sold the house out of the Brainerd family for a time, but later in the nineteenth century, the elegant house, which had fallen into disrepair, was acquired and restored by Asa Brainerd’s grandson, William E. Brainerd. It has remained in the Brainerd family ever since. The Greek Revival entryway was added in the 1830s.