Lilley House (1926)

Lilley House

The Georgian/Colonial Revival mansion at 325 Woodbury Road in Watertown was built in 1926 for Theodore Lilley, son of Connecticut Governor George L. Lilley, who served from January 6 until April 21, 1909, when he died in office. The land for the house was purchased from Dr. Charles W. Jackson, who ran a sanatorium on Hamilton Avenue. Theodore Lilley (1888-1967), a graduate of Yale who became a developer in Waterbury, was married to Sylvia Page Lilley (1890-1970). The house has recently been restored.

First Congregational Church of Watertown (1839)

First Congregational Church of Watertown

The Ecclesiastical Society of Westbury, now Watertown, was established in 1739 and the first Congregational meeting house was built in 1741 on a corner of the Old Watertown Cemetery at French and Main Streets. The second meeting house was constructed in 1772 where the Town Hall of Watertown now stands. The third and current building of the First Congregational Church of Watertown was erected in 1839 on a hill overlooking the town’s Public Green. The building was designed and erected by master builder Steven Baldwin, whose contract called for a structure that would match the size and style of the Plymouth Congregational Church, built the year before. (more…)

Charles Phelps Taft Hall (1929)

Charles Phelps Taft Hall, Taft School, Watertown

Prominent on the campus of the Taft School, a boarding school in Watertown, is Charles Phelps Taft Hall. It was named for Charles Phelps Taft I (1843-1929), a lawyer and U.S. Representative, who was the bother of Taft School founder Horace Dutton Taft and U.S. President William Howard Taft. Built in 1929-1930, Charles Phelps Taft Hall was designed by the firm of James Gamble Rogers. A boys dormitory, the building also contains the Woolworth Faculty Room, which was formerly the school library. Charles Phelps Taft Hall connects seamlessly with other adjacent campus buildings to form a single unified structure with a shared architectural vocabulary and materials. This structure was begun in the early twentieth century with an Arts and Crafts/Gothic building designed by Bertram G. Goodhue. The complex was then expanded by James Gamble Rogers. A recently built section, which connects to Charles Phelps Taft Hall and complements its Collegiate Gothic style, is the John L. Vogelstein ’52 Dormitory, designed by Robert A.M. Stern.

Walker Hall (Former Watertown Library) (1883)

Walker Hall

The Watertown Library Association was established in 1865. First opened in the Academy on The Green and then occupying rented quarters above F.N. Barton’s Store on Woodbury Road, the library moved into its own building in 1883. A Richardsonian Romanesque structure at 50 DeForest Street, it was designed by Robert W. Hill of Waterbury. Dr. John Deforest had given the library $5000 in 1876 for a book fund and his brother, the merchant Benjamin DeForest, helped to fund the construction of the new library with a donation of $15,000 (pdf). The library moved into a modern building on Main Street in 1958. The former library building then became Our Savior Lutheran Church. It has more recently been purchased by the Taft School. Called Walker Hall, it is used as a performing arts space and chapel.