Elton Hotel (1904)

The Elton Hotel, at Prospect and West Main Streets on the Green (Video link) in Waterbury, was for many years the city’s grandest hotel and a social and businesses center. Built in 1904 and designed by Wilfred Griggs in the style of the French Renaissance, the Elton Hotel featured luxurious amenities, including several restaurants and ballrooms. The hotel was constructed on the site of the colonial-era Scoville Homestead, which was torn down to make way for the new building. The Elton Hotel‘s first manager, Almon C. Judd, developed what became known as the “Ideal Tour,” an automobile route through New England, starting at the Elton and stopping at various hotels and resorts. Over the years, many celebrated people stopped by or stayed at the Hotel Elton. John F. Kennedy made a campaign speech in 1960 from the hotel balcony and the humorist, James Thurber, wrote the story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” (pdf) which features a Waterbury hotel lobby, at the Elton. Today the building serves as an assisted-living facility.

Odd Fellows Hall, Waterbury (1895)

Nosahogan Lodge, No. 21, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was organized in Waterbury in 1845. The Lodge met in various rented halls until 1895, when the Odd Fellows Hall was completed and dedicated on North Main Street. Plans for the building were drawn up by Wilfred E. Griggs, a member of the order who designed many prominent buildings in Waterbury. As described in The Town and City of Waterbury, Vol. 3 (1896),

The hall occupies the ground formerly occupied by the Second Congregational church (the side and rear walls having been left standing), and also the space which lay between it and the street. The new building fronting on the street is forty-three and a half feet deep and six stories high, and contains the Odd Fellows’ parlors and about forty offices. The rear portion is partly three and partly two stories high, and contains the lodge room, various working rooms and the banquet hall. The building is in the Venetian Gothic style, in this respect standing alone among Waterbury edifices. The first two stories are built of Potsdam red sandstone, the stories above of “old gold” Pompeian brick, trimmed with speckled terra cotta. The building is provided with an elevator, is heated throughout with steam, and is more nearly fire-proof than any other office building in Waterbury.

In 1948, the building was sold to the Grieve, Bisset & Holland Department Store. The building‘s original front entrance and decorative roofline crown were later removed.

Apothecaries Hall Building (1894)

Another Waterbury landmark is the Apothecaries Hall Company building, a “flatiron” structure, located at Exchange Place, where several important city thoroughfares intersect. In 1849, Dr. Gideon L. Pratt opened a drugstore at Exchange Place in a Greek Revival-style building that had been built in 1829 by by Benedict and Coe as a general store. Called Apothecaries Hall, the business continued and grew under various owners for many years. In 1892, the original building was torn down and replaced, at the same spot, by the current structure in 1894. Designed by Theodore Peck, the Renaissance Revival building is constructed of marble, granite and Roman brick.

Waterbury Union Station (1909)

This week we look at buildings in Waterbury. Opened in 1909, Waterbury‘s old Union Station building, famous for its striking clock tower, was built by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad and was designed by McKim, Mead and White. The 245 foot campanile, or tower, was added to the building at the request of a railroad executive who wanted a copy of the Torre del Mangia, built in 1325-1344 in Sienna, Italy. The tower’s clock, the largest in New England, was made by the Seth Thomas Company and the bell was installed in 1916. The tower features eight she-wolf gargoyles, reminders of the story of Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. The former station now houses the offices of the Republican-American newspaper.

34 First Avenue, Waterbury (1875)

The house at 34 First Avenue in Waterbury is a Queen Anne-style house with an octagonal turret, built around 1875. The family of Richard Tennant, an immigrant from Scotland, occupied the house from the end of the nineteenth century until 1950. According to the Commemorative Biographical Record of New Haven County, Connecticut (1902):

Richard Tennant spent his boyhood and youth on the Scottish homestead, and availed himself of the opportunities of education presented by the local schools. After attaining his majority he went to Glasgow and served three years as an apprentice to the machinist’s trade, at the Neilson Locomotive Works. Howden & Co., marine engineers, had the young man in their employ for two years, and he was then with the London-Glasgow Engineering Co. one year. By this time Mr. Tennant had become an experienced and thoroughly efficient machinist, and his services were in demand. King & Co., a celebrated engineering house, counted him among their ablest employes. Only the desire to come to this country, where many of his compatriots had already reaped a rich reward for their courage and enterprise, induced him to break away from this firm. In 1871 Mr. Tennant came to the United States, and located in Paterson, N. J., where he was in the employ of the Rogers Locomotive Works until the close of the year 1873, and in the following spring he came to Connecticut, working for three months in Ansonia, and then for a year in Seymour, with the Swan Bit Co. Mr. Tennant then returned to Ansonia and engaged with Wallace & Sons until January, 1888, in which month he came to Waterbury to take a position with the Scovill Manufacturnig Co., where he is still at work. For a year Mr. Tennant was master mechanic for the Aluminum Brass & Bronze Co., at Bridgeport, and with that exception has been with the Scovill Co. since coming to Waterbury.

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Waterbury (1873)

St. John’s Episcopal Church in Waterbury was established in 1737, with the first church building being constructed in 1743 at West Main and Willow Streets. A new church was built in 1797 at the west end of Waterbury Green, the first of three successive churches at that location. Expanded in 1839, the 1797 church was moved to East Main Street in 1847 to become St. Peter’s Catholic Church (it was torn down in 1888). The second, granite Gothic Revival church was built in 1848. This church’s steeple toppled in a high wind in 1857 and the church itself burned down on Christmas Eve, 1868. It was replaced by the current church, built in 1873 and designed by Henry C. Dudley, an architect known for his Gothic Revival churches. The church features stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany.