Linked to the Cheney family of silk manufacturers in Manchester, the Willard House is considered one of the Cheney Mansions–it was built for John Davenport Cheney. Located on Hartford Road in Manchester, the house was designed by Charles Adams Platt (himself a member of the Cheney family) and was constructed in 1905. It is currently utilized as the Alison Gill Lodge of the Shelter for Women.
The Seth Cheney House, on Hartford Road in Manchester, was probably built sometime in the mid-nineteenth century and was remodeled in 1910. Located northeast of the Cheney Homestead, it is one of Manchester’s Cheney Mansions. A later owner (in the 1890s) was Mrs. Emeline Cheney (widow of Arthur Cheney), who had an interest in Spiritualism and was a friend and confidant of Isabella Beecher Hooker. Today, the house is a bed-and-breakfast known as the Mansion Inn.
The George W. Cheney House, one of the Cheney mansions in Manchester, is located across Hartford Road from the Frank Cheney, Jr. House. Built around 1860, the house has a distinctive pyramidal roof, with shed dormers, and a shed-roofed front porch.
The Philip Cheney House, which is currently being restored, is one of the mansions of the Cheney Family of Silk Manufacturers which face Hartford Road across the Great Lawn in Manchester. It was designed by Charles Adams Platt, himself a member of the Cheney Family, who also designed the Frank Cheney, Jr. and Clifford D. Cheney Houses. The house, an H-shaped Colonial Revival building, was finished around 1900 and lies northwest of the adjacent Clifford D. Cheney House. Philip Cheney was a brother of Clifford and Russell Cheney.
The Charles Cheney House is one of the Cheney Mansions in Manchester that was constructed across the Great Lawn from Hartford Road. It is southwest of the adjacent Austin Cheney House. The Charles Cheney House was built in the Tudor style. Tax records indicate it was built in 1851, but may have a later date, when the Tudor Revival style was popular. Charles Cheney was one of the Cheney Brothers of silk manufacturers.
The Austin Cheney House is one of the Cheney Mansions, built for members of the Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturers of Manchester. Built in 1911 and remodeled in 1921, the pink stuccoed house is one of the mansions which faces Hartford Road across the “Great Lawn.”
A Second Empire-style house with a mansard roof, originally built in Manchester in 1870 by Frank Cheney, one of the original brothers of the Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturers, was passed in to his daughter, Mary Cheney. She engaged in various philanthropic activities and Manchester’s Public Library is named for her. Located on Hartford Road, the house is now used by the South United Methodist Church as New Hope Manor, a residential school and treatment center for adolescent girls with mental health and substance abuse issues.
