The house at 245 Main Street in Berlin was built in 1911 by Dominick Venturo, a maker of ice cream and cider. The house’s masonry construction, which contrasts red and yellow brick, and use of segmental-arched windows are features associated with early twentieth century homes built by Italian immigrants.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Town of Berlin had two town halls to serve the two sections of town, Kensington and Worthington. The building at 329 Percival Avenue, built circa 1855, was the Kensington Town Hall until 1907. In that year, the town acquired Brandegee Hall on Worthington Ridge to be a new Town Hall for all of Berlin (it served in that capacity until 1974). The former Kensington Town Hall became Percival School and is now a private residence.
The house at 148 High Road in the Kensington section of Berlin was built by William Hooker in 1771. In its early years it was used as an inn.
The Greek Revival house at 48 Four Rod Road in Berlin was built c. 1847 by Henry Dickinson, a blacksmith. The side ell is a later addition.
The house at 111 High Road in the Kensington section of Berlin was built c. 1769 by Elijah Hooker (1746-1823), a direct descendant of Thomas Hooker, the founder of Hartford. The house was much altered in the mid-nineteenth century by Elijah‘s grandson, Henry Hooker (1809-1873), who added a new bracketed roof with dormer gable, a new entry portico and removed the old center chimney to create a central hall extending to the third floor. Henry Hooker was engaged in the carriage manufacturing business in New Haven, becoming the head of Henry Hooker & Co. in the 1860s.
The house at 14 Robbins Road in the Kensington section of the town of Berlin was perhaps built c. 1860 (it is so listed in Berlin property records). The lot (with no dwelling mentioned) was sold to the Kensington Ecclesiastical Society by Edward Cowles in 1870 and it has since served as the parsonage of the Kensington Congregational Church. A volume released to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the church in 1912 indicates that, instead of a preexisting house,
The present parsonage was built in 1869-70. A debt of $4100, incurred in part on account of the parsonage, was raised by subscription in 1871.
The parsonage is already noted on the map of Berlin in the 1869 Hartford County Atlas by Baker & Tilden.
The Italianate house at 289 Main Street in Kensington (in the town of Berlin) was built c. 1855 for Milo Hotchkiss (1802-1874). At first a painter, Hotchkiss became a wealthy landowner (in 1850 his real estate holdings totaled a substantial $5,000). He also operated a station on the Underground Railroad. Hotchkiss was a descendant of Gideon Hotchkiss, who served in the French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars. The biography of Milo Hotchkiss is given in David N. Camp’s History of New Britain: With Sketches of Farmington and Berlin, Connecticut (1889):
Milo, son of Charles Todd and Leva H. Hotchkiss, was born at Homer, Courtland County, N. Y., Oct. 10, 1802. He married Rhoda Barrett, a native of Kensington, Jan. 22, 1826. Mr. Hotchkiss improved the limited advantages for education which he had in youth, and acquired habits of careful observation and thinking which characterized him through life. He early developed a natural taste for drawing and painting, and devoted several years to portrait painting, which brought him steady employment until other interests required his constant attention. He removed to Kensington in 1831, where he passed the remainder of his life. He had the care of a farm upon which he worked a part of the time, but was largely occupied in the settlement of estates and in public business. He was for many years justice of the peace, and was notary public until his death. For more than forty years he was a member of the board of school visitors, and for much of the time acting visitor. He was untiring in efforts to advance the cause of education, and especially to increase the efficiency and usefulness of public schools. He united with the Congregational Church soon after coming to Connecticut, and was ever a liberal supporter of gospel ordinances. He was an ardent advocate of the temperance and anti-slavery reforms, sometimes suffering in person and property from the attacks of opponents of these causes. He died Oct. 12, 1874.
As a young man, Nelson Augustus Moore, a Kensington-born photographer and painter, was inspired to further his artistic career after assisting Hotchkiss in painting a life study of a child killed in an accident in 1842.
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