Wallace Stevens House (1926)

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Wallace Stevens was one of the most important poets of the twentieth century. Originally from Reading, Pennsylvania, he came to Hartford in 1916 , where he worked at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, eventually rising to become a vice-president. In 1932, Stevens purchased a 1926 Colonial Revival style house (designed by William T. Marchant) at 118 Westerly Terrace in Hartford. As he did not drive, Stevens would regularly walk the two miles from his home to his office, often walking through nearby Elizabeth Park as well. He would compose poems in his head during these walks. A non-profit group called the Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens seeks to increase awareness in the Hartford area of Stevens, who died in 1955, and his work. The house is now owned by Christ Church Cathedral.

Connecticut State Capitol (1878)

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From 1701 to 1875, Hartford and New Haven alternated as Connecticut’s state capital. Once Hartford won the designation as sole capital city, plans were made to build a new capitol building to replace the Old State House. The new state house was constructed on a hill at the western end of Bushnell Park, on land that had been the original home of Trinity College. The College’s Greek Revival buildings were demolished and the State Capitol building was completed on the site in 1878. The legislature met there for the first time in 1879. The only High Victorian Gothic-style capitol building in America, it was designed by Richard Michell Upjohn, who won the design competitions. He had to make modifications to his plan in order to please the demanding Board of Capitol Commissioners, who were influenced by the contractor commissioned to construct the building, James G. Batterson. The most notable change was the addition of a domed tower. Upjohn had originally planned a traditional Gothic clock tower, but the Board wanted a dome which, while traditional on NeoClassical-style capitol buildings, is highly unusual for a Gothic building.

Asylum Avenue Baptist Church (1896)

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Seven years after the Congregationalists built a church in the expanding Asylum Hill neighborhood of Hartford, the Baptists constructed a Gothic Revival-style sanctuary facing Sigourney Street. Designed by the architect George Keller, this small 1872 structure (which later burned) was joined in 1896 by the main section of the present Asylum Avenue Baptist Church, designed by Hapgood & Hapgood.

Memorial Baptist Church (1931)

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Hartford’s Memorial Baptist Church was organized in 1884, with its original building on the corner of Washington and Jefferson Streets. A new church, built in the Colonial Revival style, was begun in 1931, but was not completed until 1949, due to the impact of the Great Depression. The church, on Fairfield Avenue, features semi-circular windows, slender columns and other influences of the refined Federal style.

Elisha Wadsworth House (1828)

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Built in 1828, the Elisha Wadsworth House served as an inn for travelers on the Albany Turnpike until 1862. Originally facing north on the Turnpike (now Albany Avenue), it was rotated 90 degrees to face west, on Prospect Avenue, in 1918. Update: After years of neglect (during which original woodwork was destroyed after a water-pipe burst), the house was thoroughly renovated in 2013.

Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford (1892)

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Trinity Parish was established in Hartford’s Asylum Hill neighborhood in 1859. The next year, a brownstone former Unitarian church was moved from downtown Hartford to serve as the parish’s first building. In 1892, it was replaced by a new Gothic Revival-style church, designed by Frederick C. Withers, an architect who had earlier designed the mansion known as Goodwin Castle for Rev. Francis Goodwin, Trinity’s third Rector, in 1873. The tower, designed by LaFarge & Morris, was added in 1912.