Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Hartford

Unitarian Meeting House (1964)

Hartford’s Unitarian Congregational Society began in 1844 and their first church building, built in 1846, was located at the corner of Trumbull & Asylum Streets (it was later moved to the site of the current Trinity Episcopal Church). Their second building, constructed on Pratt Street in 1881, was known as Unity Hall and also served as a lecture and concert hall. Their third church was built in 1924 on Pearl Street. In 1962, the congregation sold that building and in 1964 a new meetinghouse was dedicated. Located on Bloomfield Avenue, the Meetinghouse of the Unitarian Society of Hartford was designed by Victor Lundy. It is a very modern and abstract design, whose nonidentical supporting piers rise towards the same point in the sky, represent the Unitarian principle of many paths leading to Truth.

Town and County Club (1895)

In 1895, an imposing Colonial Revival house, built of buff brick and limestone, was constructed on Woodland Street, in Hartford’s Asylum Hill neighborhood. Built for the lawyer Theodore Lyman and his wife Laura Lyman, the house was designed by the architectural firm of Hapgood & Hapgood. With the death of Mrs. Lyman, in 1925, the building was bought by the Town and County Club and has since been preserved by its members.

Keney Memorial Clock Tower (1898)

As we count down the the last hours and minutes of 2007, it seems appropriate to showcase a clock tower. The Keney Memorial Clock Tower, located at the intersection of Albany Avenue, Main and Ely Steets in Hartford, stands on the site of the wholesale grocery business run by the brothers, Henry and Walter Keney, who lived in a house nearby. Henry Keney’s will left funds for both the memorial, which was dedicated to his mother, Rebecca Turner Keney, and for the creation of Hartford’s Keney Park. The Clock Tower, constructed of brownstone in 1898, was designed by Charles C. Haight and was modeled on the Tour Saint-Jacques, a surviving Gothic tower in Paris. The Keney Clock Tower stands 130-feet high and is Hartford’s only free-standing tower.

125 Allen Place, Hartford (1875)

Houses in many of the popular styles of the later nineteenth century were built on Allen Place in Hartford, which was laid out in 1869. The house at 125 Allen Place is an excellent example of the Gothic Revival style, featuring steeply pitched roofs and dormers, and decorated bargeboards.

Northam Memorial Chapel (1882)

Col. Charles H. Northam, a Hartford businessman, was director of the Cedar Hill Cemetery Association and donated funds for the construction of the cemetery’s Northam Memorial Chapel, completed in 1882. It was designed by the important Hartford Architect, George Keller, in what he described as the “Modern Gothic” style, his simplified version of the Gothic Revival style. The chapel was restored in 1999, after being unused for nearly fifty years, and today houses the cemetery’s offices.

All Saints Orthodox Church (1964)

The congregation of All Saints Orthodox Church was founded in Hartford in 1914. The original church building was on Broad Street, near the State Capitol. In 1956, land was purchased on Scarborough Street for a new church, which was not constructed until 1963-1964. Each November, the church has a Russian Tea Room and Bazaar. Today is Christmas, but some Russian-American Orthodox Christians will celebrate Christmas on January 7, the date of Russian Christmas.

S Razhd?stvOm!

Horace Bushnell Congregational Church (1914)

Hartford’s Fourth Congregational Church, modeled on New Haven’s Center Church on the Green, was built downtown on Main Street in 1850. This original building can be seen in a number of historic photographs. In 1913, the Main Street property was sold for commercial development. William F. Brooks, the architect of Hartford’s Municipal Building and the New Britain Public Library, persuaded the congregation to keep the original church’s steeple and portico and use them on the new church, completed in 1914, at the intersection of Albany Avenue and Vine Street. Thanks to this early work of historic preservation, the later building preserves an important part of a demolished historic structure. The Fourth Congregational Church merged in 1953 with Windsor Avenue Congregational Church to form the Horace Bushnell Congregational Church. The church is now home to Liberty Christian Center International. (more…)