Capitol Building (1926)

The Capitol Building, at 410 Asylum Street in Hartford, was built in 1926 as a retail and office block, a primary tenant being the newly chartered Capitol National Bank and Trust. The neo-Classical Revival structure was built by two partners, Joseph Ferrigno and Thomas Perrone and was designed by Thomas W. Lamb. Left vacant in the fall of 2007, the building was in danger of being demolished for a parking lot. City officials and preservationists successfully worked to have the Capitol Building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Capitol Center, a group headed by Milton and Betty Ruth Hollander of Stamford, then donated the building to Common Ground, a New York-based nonprofit developer. Now known as the Hollander, the building has been converted into mixed-income apartments.

Hotel Bond (1921)

The Hotel Bond reigned as Hartford’s grandest hotels in the 1920s and 1930s. It was built on Asylum Street in Hartford in two sections. The first section, a 6-story block, was completed in 1913, on the site of the former Popular Restaurant. In 1921, there was a grand reopening which unveiled the attached second section, a 12-story block with an elegant 5,000 sq.ft. Grand Ballroom on the top floor. There are many dramatic photographs of the Hotel Bond during the Flood of 1936. During World War II, the Hotel Bond was a hub for servicemen passing through Hartford. By the 1950s, the Bond faced competition from the Statler Hotel, opened in 1954, and the estate of founder Harry S. Bond went into bankruptcy. In 1965, the hotel building was sold to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese, which used it as the Saint Francis Hospital School of Nursing. The renovated Bond Ballroom reopened for receptions in 2001 and the rest of the building became a Homewood Suites by Hilton in 2006. (more…)

Steiger Building (1927)

The Steiger Building is located on the southeast corner of Trumbull and Pratt Streets in Hartford. It was built in 1926-1928 and was the second major Hartford building built by Albert Steiger of Steiger’s Department Stores. The new building was designed by Smith & Bassette to correspond in architecture and building materials with the earlier Steiger Store, built in 1920-1921 on Main Street, at the other end of Pratt Street. That earlier Main Street building has since been replaced by a parking lot, but the one on Trumbull Street survives today.

164 Oxford Street, Hartford (1915)

One of the houses that will be featured in tomorrow’s Mark Twain House & Museum Holiday House Tour is located at 164 Oxford Street in Hartford. It was built for an Allen of Sage Allen Department Stores in 1915. Augusta R. Roemer, a resident of the house, was a department president in the Woman’s Relief Corps in 1940-1941. Its present owners are known for their elaborate Christmas decorations, including over 60 themed Christmas trees.

191 Terry Road, Hartford (1923)

This coming Sunday, December 4, will be the 31st Annual Mark Twain House & Museum Holiday House Tour, presented by the Friends of the Mark Twain House & Museum. One of the houses that will be featured on the tour is a brick Georgian Colonial at 191 Terry Road in Hartford. Built in 1923, it was designed by William T. Marchant, who was also the architect of many other Colonial Revival buildings in the area, including the Alfred C. Fuller and Wallace Stevens Houses in Hartford, the Wood Memorial Library in South Windsor and the old Hall High School, now the Town Hall, in West Hartford.

James B. Cone House (1894)

The house at 127 Oxford Street in Hartford was built in 1894 for James B. Cone, a Director of the Hartford Carpet Comany and of the Aetna National Bank.  The house, designed by Frederick Royal Comstock, was featured in an article, titled “A New England Residence,” in the October 1897 issue of Carpentry and Building.  According to the article:

The treatment of the exterior is such as to give a rich and harmonious effect to the design, while the rooms are arranged with a view to the convenience and comfort of the occupants. A feature which will strike many as all essential in a building of this character is a broad piazza extending across the front of the house.

Some of the house’s exterior decoration has been altered over the years, while inside some of the rooms have been combined to create larger spaces.  The house was also later expanded with an addition to the south with a corresponding extension of the front piazza. The house will be part of this year’s Mark Twain House & Museum Annual Holiday House Tour, on Sunday, December 4th, 2011.

G. Burgess Fisher House (1930)

Built in 1930 for G. Burgess Fisher and his wife, the house at 105 Scarborough Street in Hartford is one of the homes that will be open as part of the Mark Twain House & Museum‘s 31st Annual Holiday House Tour on Sunday, December 4, 2011. Described as “semi-Tudor” and French-Norman Chateau in style, the house was designed by Milton E. Hayman. It features Tudor elements (presented in a more ordered fashion than is typical of the style) and also has examples of classical detailing. The house was featured in an advertisement, headed “Modern De Lux Living” in the Hartford Courant of April 26, 1932. The ad, placed by the Hartford Gas Company, extolled the house’s modern amenities, including the “All-Gas Kitchen.” The original gas stove was later bought by Martha Stewart for one of her own houses.