New Haven

The Nelson Hotchkiss House (1850)

Nelson Hotchkiss was a New Haven builder and manufacturer, who also became a real estate developer. He and Henry Austin were involved in the Park Row development in Trenton, New Jersey in the 1840s. Later, Hotchkiss built three Italianate-style houses, most likely designed by Austin, on Chapel Street in New Haven. One was Hotchkiss’s own home, built in 1850. That same year a house was also constructed for his partner, William Lewis. In 1854, Hotchkiss built his second home on Chapel, but only lived there for two years before moving back to his earlier residence.

The Joseph Porter House (1879)

Joseph Porter, who worked for the Sperry & Barnes meat-packing plant (on Long Wharf) and was an original board member of the Free Public Library, lived in an 1879 Italianate house on Wooster Street in New Haven.

The William Lewis House (1850)

William Lewis was the partner of Nelson Hotchkiss in a company which produced sashes and blinds. The partners also developed real estate along Chapel Street in New Haven, each building a house there in 1850. In 1854, Hotchkiss built a second house down the street. The Lewis House, like the two Hotchkiss houses, may be the work of New Haven architect Henry Austin, or at least inspired by his designs.

Horchow Hall (1859)

Yale University’s Horcow Hall, on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, was originally built in 1859 as a house for Pelitiah Perit, a merchant. It was the first home on the street to be painted brown. The architect was Sidney Mason Stone, the father of Margaret Sidney, author of the Five Little Peppers series of children’s books). A third floor was added to the Renaissance-Revival home in the 1860s and a large rear wing was added by Henry L. Hotchkiss, who acquired the house in 1888. In the 1930s, the house was purchased by Yale and became an annex for the Peabody Museum and the Bingham Oceanographic Laboratory. In the 1960s, it became a faculty residence and in 1984, renamed Horchow Hall, it was renovated to become one of the buildings of Yale’s School of Management.

St. Mary’s Church, New Haven (1870)

St. Mary’s Church in New Haven was built by the first Catholic parish in the city and the second in Connecticut, founded in 1832 by the Irish Immigrant community. To express their growing influence, the Gothic Revival style church was constructed in 1870 on Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven’s most privileged neighborhood. The architect was James J. Murphy of Providence. A spire was originally planned, but not completed until just a few years ago. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization founded in 1882 and based in New Haven, originally met in the basement of the church.

First & Summerfield United Methodist Church (1849)

Designed by Henry Austin, the First Methodist Church, on College Street in New Haven, was built in 1849 in the late Federal style in a stylistic link with the nearby Center Church of 1814. In the ensuing years, the church was significantly altered, with many of the Federal features being removed. In 1904, after a fire, the church was repaired with a new portico and steeple, in a Federal Revival mode, designed by Charles C. Haight of New York, who also designed the Keney Memorial Clock Tower in Hartford. In 1981, First Methodist Church merged with Summerfield United Methodist Church, located in the Newhallville neighborhood of New Haven, to form the First & Summerfield United Methodist Church.

Graves-Gilman House (1866)

The Graves-Gilman House, on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, is an Italianate Villa built in 1866. Originally intended for John S. Graves, it was sold before it was completed to Tredwell Ketcham of New York, who gave it to his daughter, Mary Van Winker Ketcham. She was the wife of Daniel Coit Gilman, a Yale professor and librarian, who became the second president of the University of California in 1872 and in 1875 helped establish the Johns Hopkins University as its first president. Gilman also wrote a number of books, including biographies of James Monroe and James Dwight Dana, whose house was also on Hillhouse Avenue. Yale acquired the house in 1921 and it was converted in 1957 to house the Department of Economics.