Hartford - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Charles F.T. & Mary Hillyer Seaverns House (1917)

This week we’ll focus on some buildings in the West End of Hartford. The Seaverns House, designed by the firm of Goodwin, Bullard & Woolsey, was built in 1917 on a rise at 1265 Asylum Avenue. It was the home of Charles F.T. Seaverns, who taught Greek and Latin at Hartford High School, and his wife Mary Hillyer Seaverns, a granddaughter of Rev. Horace Bushnell. Her mother, Dotha Bushnell Hillyer, founded the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. In 1927 the couple founded the Children’s Museum of Hartford. The property’s original landscape plan was designed by Olmsted Associates. In 1958 the former Seaverns estate became the campus of the Hartford College for Women, which is now part of the University of Hartford. The house is now Butterworth Hall, home of the University’s Entrepreneurial Center. (more…)

First Church of the Nazarene (1913)

The First Church of the Nazarene, located at 932 Capitol Avenue in Hartford, was recently in the news when its pastor, Rev. Dr. Augustus Sealy, was wounded after being shot three times outside the church on May 24. Police have recently arrested a suspect. The Church of the Nazarene is an evangelical Christian denomination. Hartford’s congregation, officially organized in 1914, acquired the church building on Capitol Avenue in 1937. The building was originally constructed for the Olivet Baptist Church. First organized as a Sunday School on New Park Avenue in 1874, a wood-framed chapel was constructed on Park Street in 1888 and the church was officially organized in 1896.

The cornerstone of the new church on Capitol Avenue, designed by Johnson & Burns (a firm in business from 1908 to 1914), was laid on June 8, 1913 and the church was dedicated on February 15, 1914 (“CORNERSTONE LAID OF OLIVET CHURCH: NEW HOUSE OF WORSHIP FOR PARKVILLE Ministers of All Baptist Churches In the City Speak BUILDING TO BE WELL EQUIPPED AND COMMODIOUS,” Hartford Courant, June 9, 1913; “OLIVET CHURCH IS DEDICATED: New Building at Capitol Avenue Extension and Newton Street in Use OTHER CHURCHES TO LEND HELPING HAND All But $890.30 of $4,000 Debt Pledged–Church Mortgaged for $12,500,” Hartford Courant, February 16, 1914).

In 1936 the membership of the Olivet Baptist Church merged with the Memorial Baptist Church on Fairfield Avenue (“Olivet Merges With Memorial Baptist Church: Decision Made at Annual Meeting; Rev. M. L. Johnson Is Pastor,” Hartford Courant, April 4, 1936).

Oak Hill School (1911)

In 1893, Emily Wells Foster, a Sunday school teacher at the Morgan Street Mission School/Morgan Street Chapel in Hartford, started the nation’s first nursery for blind children in a house on Kenyon Street in Hartford. Her efforts began with her interest in a blind baby on Hartford’s East Side who spent his waking hours in a small pen in a dingy room. In 1893 she also became Assistant Secretary of the State Board of Education for the Blind, later serving as Secretary and Treasurer from 1901 to 1905. (“Will Honor Benefactor Of Blind People: Memorial to Be Placed on Grave of Mrs. Foster, Who Started Education Program Here,” Hartford Courant, November 12, 1936) The nursery school soon moved to a larger residence on Asylum Avenue. A grammar school was also added, which moved to a new building at 120 Holcomb Street in Hartford in 1911. A Colonial Revival building, it was designed by Andrews, Jacques & Rantoul, the same firm that designed the Governor’s Mansion and the Hartford Club. The Nursery and Kindergarten for the Blind had moved to Garden Street in Farmington, but later moved to join the grammar school in the building on Holcomb Street after a fire. The school would become known as the Connecticut Institution and Industrial Home for the Blind, then the Connecticut Institute for the Blind. In 1952 it was renamed the Oak Hill School. Today Oak Hill serves children and adults with intellectual, developmental and physical disabilities.

Unity Building (1891)

Happy Fourth of July! As described in my book Vanished Downtown Hartford (pp. 143-144), Hartford’s First Unitarian Society built a church, known as Unity Hall, on Pratt Street in 1881. It functioned as both a church and a public hall and was used by the Unitarians until 1924. They then moved to a new building on Pearl Street, which later became Ados Israel Synagogue, and then to their current building on Bloomfield Avenue. In 1891-1892, when they were still based at Unity Hall, the Unitarians constructed a five-story brick Romanesque Revival commercial building in front of their church. It was no doubt built to provide additional income for the church to add to that gained from renting out Unity Hall. A similar move was made by the Universalist Church of the Redeemer on Main Street, when it constructed a commercial building in front of the church in 1899 (it only stood until 1906 when Travelers acquired the property). Unity Hall was eventually demolished, but the Unity Building survives today. There is an interesting article about trouble early on with the buildings foundation: see “Foundation Stones Tipped: The Pratt Street Building Trouble Laid to a Surface Drain” in the Hartford Courant, April 13, 1892. The Unity Building has a Jacobethan first-floor facade that was added in 1928.

Cook Building (1888)

The Cook Building is a three-story brick commercial building constructed in 1888 at 84-88 (then 36) Pratt Street in Hartford. The building was owned by Charles W. Cook, who may be the same Charles W. Cook (d. 1912) who was the partner of Charles S. Hills in the dry goods firm of Cook & Hills, which became C.S. Hills & Company after Cook’s retirement in 1896. The store was located at the corner of Main and Pratt Streets, not far from the Cook Building.

George W. Flint House (1895)

I will be giving a talk tonight at the Hartford Club. Check it out if you are a member! Here is a Hartford building for today: Designed by Hapgood & Hapgood, the house at 310 Collins Street in Hartford is transitional between the Queen Anne and Tudor Revival styles. Built in 1895, it was the home of George W. Flint, a furniture dealer who partnered with John M. Bruce to form the Flint-Bruce Company on Asylum Street in Hartford. The company later had a building on Trumbull Street. (more…)

Telephone Building (1890)

At the corner of Pearl Street and Ann Uccello Street in Hartford is a brick building that displays the name “——— Building.” The part that has been chiseled out once read “Telephone.” The Telephone Building was built in 1890 and is attributed, based on its style, to architect William D. Johnston. The three-story Renaissance Revival building was constructed for the Southern New England Telephone Company. The company’s growth led it to construct a new building in 1911 at 185 Pearl Street, which was later torn down. Yet another Telephone Building was erected in 1931 at 55 Trumbull Street (later enlarged, it has since been converted into apartments). The original Telephone Building, at 249 Pearl Street, is now used for offices.