Built around 1825, the house at 39 Robert Street is Plainville’s best example of a house built in the Federal style. The house was moved from its original location, at the corner of Farmington and New Britain Avenues, to make way for a super market.
The least altered Italianate house on Broad Street in Plainville is the one at #28. It was built in 1871 for Henry A. White, a dealer of sewing machines. Could this be the same Henry A. White from Binghampton, New York, who married Olive Allen in 1871?
The Main Street Diner in Plainville is a late-1950s Master diner, which was originally in Hempstead, Long Island. It’s the third diner on the site on West Main Street.
Sharpenhoe is the name of a house at 132 Red Stone Hill in Plainville. This Colonial Revival home was built in 1921-1922 for Charles Hotchkiss Norton (1851-1942), a mechanical engineer and designer of machine tools. In the 1890s, Norton invented a heavy-duty cylindrical grinding machine capable of supplying machine parts for automobiles. The Charles H. Norton House was designed by Isaac A. Allen, Jr. of Hartford. As described in Modern Connecticut Homes and Homecrafts (1921): “this dwelling of red brick with garage attached is an exceptionally happy conception of the hip roof type of Colonial house with dormer windows. The design everywhere evidences a refinement of taste in the choice of its carefully considered decorative details.” Norton’s family continued to live in the house until about 1958.
Hiram J. Norton (1826-1899) was a machinist. His house, at 31 Maple Street in Plainville, was built around 1860-1865, perhaps at the time of his marriage to Martha Barnes; their son, Raymond D. Norton, was born in 1862. Hiram died in 1899 and is buried in Lake Avenue Cemetery in Bristol.
Built around 1860, the brick house of John H. Woodruff, on Maple Street in Plainville, is a late example of the Greek Revival style. Woodruff was one of the incorporators of Plainville when it became a town in 1869.
A library in Plainville was founded in 1885 and occupied a series of rented rooms in commercial blocks for a number of years. In 1894, citizens voted to establish a free public library, which was at first located in the old town hall. The current library building was built in 1931 and was designed by Walter P. Crabtree. An interesting feature of the building is Colonial Revival the combination of a broken pediment and a semicircular window over the front door. The Plainville Public Library was expanded in 1962 and again in 2001-2004.
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