Trinity Episcopal Church, Torrington (1897)

Trinity Episcopal Church in Torrington has a prominent location at the corner of Water and Prospect Streets. The origins of the parish go back to 1843, when it was a mission of Christ Church in Harwinton. The original church building on the site was built of wood in 1844. The parish grew rapidly in the second half of the nineteenth century as Torrington industrialized. Some of the early members were laborers from England who were brought to work at the Coe Brass Company. The present granite church building was erected in 1897-1898. Adjacent to the church is a is the parish house, built in 1908-1909, which has an upper parish hall with a stage and a lower hall with Sunday school rooms and a chapel. The parish hall and a Tudor Revival-style rectory, built in 1917, surround a distinctive courtyard.

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Lilley Block #3 (1896)

In 1894 a fire destroyed the factory buildings of the Turner and Seymour Manufacturing Company in Torrington. George Lilley, a Waterbury developer who later became governor of Connecticut (serving for a less than four months in office before his death in 1909), bought the company’s land between Water Street and the Naugatuck River. Between 1896 and 1912, he erected several commercial buildings along Main and Water Streets, one of which is the building at 29-57 Water Street, built in 1896. Designed by Theodore S. Peck, the structure consists of five connected Romanesque blocks, each block being slightly taller than its neighbor as the street ascends a hill. The ground floors contain commercial storefronts, which the upper stories are apartments.

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W.H. Morrison Building (1896)

Like Meeker’s Hardware in Danbury, which I featured on this site a few days ago, W. H. Morrison in Torrington was another hardware store that closed in the early twenty-first century after being in business for over a century. The Italianate commercial building at 63 Water Street was erected in 1896 by William H. Morrison to house his plumbing and hardware business. The store finally closed in 2010 after 114 years. The Southern New England Telephone Company rented offices on the second floor until 1930.

Venetian Restaurant (1898)

The Venetian Restaurant has been a landmark at 52 East Main Street in Torrington for nearly a century. The rear wood-frame section of the building dates to 1844 and was erected as a store and residence. The front portion, with its Neoclassical façade, was built in 1898 by two German immigrants, William Witzke and Oscar Stoeckert, who opened a saloon in the building. An Italian restaurant opened in 1921 named Charles and Antoinette for its owners, Charles and Antoinette Finello Giampaolo. In 1925 they renamed it The Venetian. In 1931, the building was remodeled with the addition of a neon sign, art deco glass block windows and interior murals of Venice. In 1970, the Giampaolo family sold the restaurant to Michael and Fiorita DiLullo, who are only the second owners in The Venetian’s ninety-eight-year history.

Torrington Fire Department Headquarters (1901)

The former Torrington Fire Department Headquarters building is a two-story brick structure with a corner bell tower. Located at 117 Water Street, the building was designed by Charles S. Palmer in the Romanesque Revival style and was erected by Hotchkiss Brothers & Company. It was completed in February 1901, with a one-story rear addition, providing work areas for mechanics, constructed about 1905. The building replaced an earlier wood frame firehouse on the site that was moved back to make way for the new structure (it was later removed from the property entirely). Wired for electricity, the building had a number of innovative features, including an alarm system that automatically released the horses from their stalls and lowered a harness suspended from the ceiling. The 1901 building served as a firehouse until 1980. The current Fire Department Headquarters is located just next door, at 111 Water Street.

Milo Burr House (1827)

The house at 41 Burr Mountain Road in Torrington has a sign indicating it was built by Milo Burr in 1827. Milo Burr (1797-1872), is described in the The Torrington Register Souvenir Edition: An Illustrated and Descriptive Exposition of Torrington, Connecticut (1897):

Milo Burr, a native of Torrington and an energetic, hardworking and enterprising man, did a great deal at the time of the building of the Naugatuck Railroad. He also purchased timber lands where Burrville now stands, engaged in the lumber business, cutting pine timber in the vicinity and reducing it to lumber, used two or three sawmills in this business and owned several hundred acres of land. He erected many buildings and built a dam, making a reservoir on the mountain west of Burrville at an elevation of 250 to 300 feet above the residence, and also had large farming interests.

John M. Burr resides in the house his father erected in 1827, and maintains the old family homestead. He has erected and operates a grist mill, and has continued to make improvements in harmony with his father’s spirit and work.

The house, grounds, stables and everything about the place indicate thrift and good keeping, and the recent donation by Mr. Burr of a site for the power and car house of the electric railway, practically making the place a center, shows the public spirit of the man and must lead to an appreciation of property in the vicinity as well as add new life to the place.