New London - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Monte Cristo Cottage (1840)

In 1886, actor James O’Neill purchased an 1840 house at 138 (now 325) Pequot Avenue in New London. O’Neill initially rented out the home, while he and his family spent their summers at a neighboring property that he had acquired two years before. In 1900, the O’Neills began summering in the 1840 house, which James O’Neill named Monte Cristo Cottage in honor of his most popular stage role as the Count Of Monte Cristo. Before moving in, O’Neill made a number of changes to the house, including adding the turret bedroom, the French doors opening onto the front porch, and attaching a one room schoolhouse, moved from elsewhere, to become the living room. Comfort was sacrificed in the family’s section of the house in order to focus funds on the house’s public spaces. The actor’s son, the playwright Eugene O’Neill, spent his boyhood summers at the Cottage from 1900 to 1917. After being struck by a car on Fifth Avenue in New York in 1918, James O’Neill’s health began to deteriorate. He sold the Cottage and his other real estate on Pequot Avenue just before his death in 1920. The house is now a museum, owned by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Restoration began in 1972, with a new restoration in 2005 to reflect the setting of O’Neill’s autobiographical play, Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

First Congregational Church, New London (1850)

UPDATE (1/26/24): Sadly, the towering steeple and roof of the church collapsed on January 25, 2024 causing great damage to the building.

For Christmas we feature a church with a very long history! New London‘s First Congregational Church was originally formed in 1642 in Gloucester, on Cape Ann in Massachusetts, under the leadership of Rev. Richard Blinman. This congregation moved to the new town of Pequot, settled in 1646 and later renamed New London. The first house of worship in New London was a large barn, with a meeting house being constructed around 1655 and replaced by a new church in the early 1680s. The third church, built in 1698, was was struck by lightning in 1735. Building a replacement was considered, but arguments over where to construct it led to the decision to repair and enlarge the existing edifice. A new church was eventually built in 1786 on Zion’s Hill. This was replaced by the current granite church in 1850, designed in the Gothic style by the Prague-born, New York-based architect, Leopold Eidlitz. The bell was installed in 1876. Merry Christmas from Historic Buildings of Connecticut!

The Charles Culver House (1832)

Built on Washington Street in New London in 1832, the Charles Culver House was the first of many to be constructed in its neighborhood by John Bishop. In 1804, Culver had owned a ropewalk adjacent to his home. When this business burned in 1834, he sold the property to a group of investors, led by John Bishop and Jonathan Starr, Jr., who opened a residential street, named Starr Street after the C. Starr and Company Soap and Candle Factory.

Blockhouse at Fort Trumbull (1796)

The oldest surviving structure at Fort Trumbull in New London is a granite blockhouse, built in 1796. It was built after Congress authorized funds for the fortification of American seaports in 1794. The fortifications in New England were under the direction of a French engineer, Stephen Rochefontaine. Designed with tapering walls to resist exploding shells, the blockhouse (also known as a citadel) housed a powder magazine and soldiers’ living quarters. It was also intended to become its own mini-fort, a final stronghold if the main fort fell to an enemy. Of all the buildings constructed in America as part of the 1794 program, the blockhouse at Fort Trumbull is the only one still standing today.

Whale Oil Row (1835)

Whale Oil Row is a row of four similar Greek Revival houses on Huntington Street in New London. They each have a portico with Ionic columns supporting a triangular Greek pediment with a semicircular window. The houses were built between 1835 and 1845 on speculation by Ezra Chappel. The original owners included two whaling ship owners, a merchant and a physician. Because the wealth of three of these owners derived from the whaling industry, the houses became known as “Whale Oil Row.”

See below for images of each of the four houses. (more…)

Mohican Hotel (1896)

Frank Munsey, publisher of Munsey’s Magazine, built what was originally called the Munsey Building at 281 State Street in New London in 1896. In an attempt to avoid problems with unions in New York, Munsey housed his magazine publishing operation in the building, but after just six months, a strike by workers led Munsey to shut down the production in New London and convert the building to other uses. It opened as the Mohican Hotel in 1898 and would become one of the finest hotels in Connecticut. Architect William B. Tuthill, designer of New York’s Carnegie Hall (1891), utilized the same, and at that time still new, technique of steel-skeleton framing to create the tall building. In 1916, Munsey added two floors and a roof garden. In the 1980s, the building was converted into housing for the elderly.

Fort Trumbull (1852)

In 1775, Governor Jonathan Trumbull recommended that a fort be constructed near the mouth of the Thames River to protect the port of New London. The first Fort Trumbull, completed in 1777, was captured by the British during Arnold’s 1781 Raid. The Fort was rebuilt around 1808 as a “second system” fort, a structure that was later replaced by the present fortification, a “third system” fort, constructed between 1839 and 1852. Fort Trumbull is a five-sided, four-bastion coastal defense fort and is unique among American forts because it was built in the Egyptian Revival style, inspired by the Temple of Luxor. During the Civil War, the Fort was an organizational center and the headquarters of Connecticut’s 14th Infantry Regiment. Over the years, Fort Trumbull has also been used as a training facility: it was the site of the the U.S. Revenue Cutter Academy and then the Coast Guard Academy until 1932; the Merchant Marine Officer Training School program from 1939 to 1946; and was used as the Fort Trumbull campus of the University of Connecticut from 1946 to 1950, where it served veterans attending college under the GI Bill. Fort Trumbull next became the Naval Under Water Sound Laboratory. After the Laboratory was closed in the 1990s, the site was redeveloped to become a State Park. Work began in 1999 and in 2001 it was opened to the public for tours.