Gull School (1790)

The Gull School, also known as the Gott School or District Six, is a one-room schoolhouse that once served the southeast section of the Town of Hebron. It was originally located at the northwest intersection of Grayville Road and Old Colchester Road. Built in 1790, it burned down and was rebuilt in 1816, continuing to serve as a school until it closed in 1919. It reopened in 1929 and then continued as a school until 1935. It was sold by the town a decade later and the new owner put it up on blocks. A decade later it was moved to a field where it stood for many years. In 1971 Henrietta Green, who taught at the school from 1930 to 1931, moved the building to the property of the Green family in the Amston section of town, on Church Street, near the intersection with Niles Road. For the next thirty years she welcomed school groups to visit the building, which she had refurnished to appear as it had been during her time teaching at the school. The Green family deeded the school to the town, which then moved it in 2001 to its current address at 8 Marjorie Circle. Three years later the interior of the school was restored for the Hebron Historical Society as an Eagle Scout project by Will Aubin and in 2005 the exterior was restored as an Eagle Scout project by Alex Breiding, both with help from Hebron Troop 28 Boy Scouts.

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Choate Rosemary Hall: Paul Mellon Humanities Center (1938)

One of the many Georgian Revival buildings on the campus of Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford is the Paul Mellon Humanities Center. It was a gift of philanthropist and Choate graduate Paul Mellon, an art collector who also founded the Yale Center for British Art. Built in 1938, the building’s design by architect Charles F. Fuller has strong similarities to the Governor’s Palace at Colonial Williamsburg. The building was renovated in 1989 through another gift from Mellon.

North Branford Hall (1876)

The building that is known today as North Branford Hall was erected c. 1876 as the town’s Center School (District #2). Located at 1675 Foxon Road in North Branford, it replaced an earlier school building on the site that had been moved there from across the street in 1866 when the Soldiers’ Monument was erected. After a new Center School was built in 1920, the 1876 building was acquired by the North Branford Civic Association. The former school, which has lost its original bell tower, would served for many years as Town Hall and later (until 2013) as a senior center. A rear addition was constructed in 1925. Last year, the building was completely renovated to become the new home of Totoket TV’s Community Media Center.

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Locust Avenue School (1896)

The former Locust Avenue School, at 26 Locust Avenue in Danbury, was built in 1896 as an elementary school to serve students in the eastern part of the city. The Romanesque Revival structure was designed by architect Warren R. Briggs of Bridgeport, who featured an illustration and floorplan of the school in his book, Modern American School Buildings (1899), where its referred to as “Center School.” His advanced ideas of school construction involved a ventilation system and high ceilings to keep the classrooms airy and bright with abundant natural light. Briggs had earlier designed a sister school, erected on Morris Street in 1893, that served students in the western part of the city.

In 1905, administration of the school was transferred to the Danbury State Normal School (now Western Connecticut State University), which provided teaching staff until 1965, when control was turned over to the Danbury Board of Education. The building’s last year as an elementary school was 1976. Since then, it has served as a high school for at-risk students and now known as the Alternative Center for Excellence.

Miss Porter’s School Studio (1885)

In 1885, alumnae of Miss Porter’s School in Farmington erected the building at 5 Mountain Road as a tribute to the school’s founder, Miss Sarah Porter. Called the Studio, the Richardsonian Romanesque and Shingle-style building originally contained rooms for drawing, painting and music (It has been used for other purposes over the years). The former students had raised $6,000 through subscription to fund the building, which was dedicated on May 29, 1885. Near the entrance is a dedication plaque with an inscription in Latin honoring Miss Sarah Porter.

White Hall, WCSU (1925)

White Hall, a building on the campus of Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, was erected in 1923-1925 as Danbury High School. By the 1960s, growth in Danbury’s population led to the construction of a new High School on Clapboard Ridge, which was dedicated in 1965. The former High School building was purchased by the university in 1964. Named in honor of Alexander White, the school’s original benefactor, it serves as a multi-purpose academic building.

The Church of Eternal Light (1889)

The Church of Eternal Light is a Pagan Spiritualist church, located at 1199 Hill Street in Bristol. The early history of the building, erected in 1889 is related in Bristol, Connecticut (“in the Olden Time New Cambridge”) which Includes Forestville (1907):

A small Sunday-school was organized in 1884 in the North Chippins Hill district near the Burlington line, by Miss Hattie O. Utter, school teacher in that district. Miss Utter organized the school because the children of her day school were non-attendants of any Sunday-school. She conducted the Sunday-school successfully for a year when her engagement closed and she left the school to return to her home and be married. She was greatly beloved by the people of the district, and only lived about a year after her removal. At her earnest request Mr. William E. Sessions and Mr. B. S. Rideout, who was General Secretary of the Y. M. C. A. in Bristol, continued the school, beginning in June, 1885. The first Sunday only three little girls, sisters, Mary, Sarah and Lizzie Goodsell, were present. Mr. Rideout was only able to continue for a few months. Mr. Sessions conducted the school for four years in the schoolhouse, and has conducted it in the chapel ever since. There was a large and increasing attendance which outgrew the accommodations of the schoolhouse, and in 1889 the Mount Hope Chapel was built by voluntary contributions of the people and friends.

The chapel was dedicated by the Rev. A. C. Eggleston, who had been the pastor of the Prospect Methodist Episcopal Church in Bristol, but was at that time pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Waterbury.

The school was named Mount Hope by Mr. Rideout, who has been for many years a Congregationalist minister at Norway, Maine.

The building continued for many years as a non-denominational Sunday School and chapel. In 1962, it became the First Michel Spiritualist Church. Twenty years later, it was renamed The Church of Eternal Light, which officially became a Pagan Spiritualist church on February 18th, 2001. A new steeple and bell tower were erected in 2000.