Built for Oliver Wolcott, Sr. in 1754 on South Street in Litchfield, this is the town’s oldest surviving Georgian-style house. During the Revolutionary War, Wolcott was a member of the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He later served as Governor of Connecticut (1796-1797). The Colonial Revival wing was added in the 1890s.
Built in 1813 for Aaron Bissell (1758-1831) is the Federal (or Adam) style house at 1891 Main Street in East Windsor Hill (now in South Windsor). A three-story ell was added to the house in 1904. Aaron Bissell owned Bissell ‘s Tavern, as well as a store and post office, and was involved in farming and merchant ventures. Next door, to the north, stands a similar house, built in 1812 for Bissell’s partner and son-in-law, Eli Haskell.
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Built around 1840 for Ellery Hills, a manufacturer of shoes, this Greek Revival house, with an unusual elliptical portico, is a reminder of a time when many other such houses lined Main Street in Hartford in the mid-nineteenth century. Architectural details used on the facade of this house are featured in Chester Hills‘s Builder’s Guide, published in Hartford in 1834.
Noah Webster, the famous lexicographer, was born here in 1758. The house stands on South Main Street in West Hartford (then known as the West Division of Hartford), where Noah Webster grew up on his family’s farm. He would later produce the influential Blue-Backed speller in 1783 and his first dictionary in 1806. The house is a museum open to the public and also houses the West Hartford Historical Society.
Built in Hartford in 1858, this Italian villa is across Wethersfield Avenue from Armsmear. It was first bought by merchant Albert Day. Later owners included Mary Borden Munsill and Edwin Taylor. It had a notable restoration in 1979 and now serves as offices. A recent article discusses this house in relation to the ideas of Andrew Jackson Downing on the benefits of the Italian style.
Built in 1757 for Ebenezer Grant, successful merchant and leading citizen of East Windsor. It stands on Main Street in East Windsor Hill (now part of South Windsor) and is known for its Connecticut River Valley doorway and rich high style detailing, much favored by the wealthy river valley elite in the mid eighteenth century. Ebenezer’s brother Noah was the great-great-grandfather of Ulysses S. Grant.
Built at the corner of Forest and Hawthorn Streets in Hartford for the lawyer, John Hooker and his wife, Isabella Beecher Hooker. The original structure of 1853 was expanded into a Gothic Revival villa by architect Octavius Jordan in 1861. This was the first house built in the notable Hartford neighborhood of Nook Farm. Isabella, an important figure in the Women’s Suffrage Movement, was the sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe. The house was altered in the early twentieth century when part of the roof was raised in 1906 and the porte-cochere added in 1924. Today the house is surrounded by 1950s-era apartment buildings and is itself an apartment building.
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