Around 1845, Elishama Brandegee, Jr., a Berlin merchant with a strong interest in education, built a Greek Revival-style house on Worthington Ridge to serve as housing for the teacher at the Worthington Academy next door. It was later the home of his son, Dr. Elishama Brandegee. The Brandegees contributed to industry, founding East Berlin’s first silk and cotton thread company. Elishama Brandegee’s mother was also fascinated by the silk industry: she planted mulberry trees and raised silkworms.
Around 1799, Simeon Wright made significant changes to a house originally built in the 1760s on Main Street in Wethersfield by his father, Josiah Wright. The alterations, perhaps influenced by the construction of the nearby Robbins and Bunce Houses, updated the home in the Federal style by the addition of semicircular windows. He also added a new gable roof, which allowed a larger attic. The Joseph Wright House, now a business, forms part of a row of three Wright family houses, which includs the David Wright and Ashbel Wright Houses.
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On this Veteran’s Day, I went to see the play at the Hartford Stage, Chick, The Great Osram, about the life of A. Everett Austin, Jr. Known as “Chick,” Austin was the director of the Wadsworth Atheneum from 1927 to 1944 and during his tenure made Hartford a center of the art world. He built up the Atheneum’s collections of both Old Master Paintings and modern art, brining to the first major exhibition of Picasso to the united States. He was also involved with the performing arts, staging the premiere of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson‘s Four Saints in Three Acts, with an all black cast, and bringing George Blanchine to America. It was the biographical play’s last day, but an exhibition called Magic Facade: The Austin House, about the home Chick Austin built on Scarborough Street in Hartford, continues through April 20.
The house, constructed in 1930, was designed by Leigh H. French, Jr., under Austin’s direction. A Palladian Villa, it was modeled on the 1596 Villa Feretti-Angeli in Dolo, Venezia, Italy. The house gives the feeling of a stage set, as it is only one room deep. When I was in high school, I heard one variation of an urban legend about the house, according to which it was a mere facade for a power station! The house was bequeathed by Chick’s widow, Helen Goodwin Austin, to the Atheneum in 1985 and has recently been restored. It is available for tours on request with a donation to the Sarah Goodwin Austin Memorial Fund.
Built by Josiah Wright Jr. for his son, David Wright, on Main Street in Wethersfield around 1791. David Wright was a brother of Capt. Ashbel Wright, whose house had already been built right next door, to the north.
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An excellent example of the Second Empire style, the 1869 Hartford home of Oliver H. Easton, an architect and builder, features a colorful mansard roof and a tower, both with elaborate dormers. The house is located on Fairfield Avenue, where many affluent families built homes in the years after the Civil War.
The oldest house is Rocky Hill is the Philip Goffe House on Old Main Street. It was built in 1655, when Rocky Hill was part of Wethersfield. Philip Goffe was Wethersfield’s first town crier.
Located on Main Street, across from the Timothy Edwards Cemetery, in the East Windsor Hill Historic District of South Windsor, is a small house on a knoll. Its construction was begun by Matthew Sadd Jr. (son of Matthew Sadd the carpenter), who purchased the land in 1781. It was completed by a later owner, Samuel Terry, Jr., a brother of the clockmaker Eli Terry. The house has undergone extensive renovations, including the complete rebuilding of the old center chimney.
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