West Hartford - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

West Hartford Armory (1913)

In 1911 the First Company Governor’s Horse Guards became Troop B Cavalry, Connecticut National Guard. Troop B soon began construction of a privately funded armory (with stables and drill shed) at 836 Farmington Avenue in West Hartford. The plans were provided by architects and troop members A. Raymond Ellis and Francis E. Waterman, who made the building very functional without extra features in order to keep costs down. Built in 1912-1913, the armory was soon officially acquired by the state. The unit served along the Mexican border in 1916 and in World War I as a Machine Gun Battalion. By the late 1930s mechanization was bringing an end to horse cavalry in the US Army. In 1940 the unit became part of the 208th Coastal Artillery Regiment and the Armory was converted to store large vehicles. After the War, the First Company Governor’s Horse Guards was reorganized as a state militia unit and today has a facility in Avon. The Army continued to house various units in the West Hartford Armory until the early 1980s, when the building was decommissioned and sold by the state. It was then extensively altered for use as professional office suites.

Henry Wood Erving House (1880)

At 821 Prospect Avenue, just across the Hartford city line in West Hartford, is the circa 1880 Queen Anne house first owned by Henry Wood Erving (1851-1941). The house is located next to one built in the same style for Erving’s brother, William Augustus Erving. Henry W. Erving, vice president of the Connecticut River Banking Company, was also an author and antiquarian who gathered one of the first great collections of American furniture. (more…)

Mount St. Joseph Academy (1905)

Continuing the theme of the last few days of Catholic institutions in and around West Hartford, today we feature the former Mount St. Joseph Academy at 235 Fern Street (now One Hamilton Heights Drive). It served as a Catholic Girl’s School, run by the Sisters of Mercy, from 1906 to 1978. The Sisters of Mercy also run the nearby St. Mary’s Home for the Aged. The cornerstone of Mount St. Joseph Academy was laid in August 1905 and the school opened for the Fall term in September, 1908. The building was designed in the Georgian Revival style by John J. Dwyer of Hartford and built by William F. O’Neil. In the frieze of the entrance portico are inscribed the words BONATATEM ET DISCIPLINAM ET SCIENTIAH DOCE ME DOMINE (“Teach Me Goodness and Discipline and Knowledge, O Lord”), the school’s motto. When the Sisters of Mercy started St. Joseph’s College in 1932, classes met at the Academy for several years before being transferred to its own campus in West Hartford (now the University of St, Joseph). The former school was renovated in 1996 to become an assisted living facility called Atria Hamilton Heights.

St. Mary’s Home for the Aged (1896)

In 1852 four Sisters of Mercy came to Hartford and opened a school in the basement of St. Patrick’s Church in Hartford. The Sisters of Mercy is a religious order founded in Ireland in 1831 by Catherine McAuley to teach and care for the sick and needy. In 1880, the Sisters purchased the Toohey Farm, formerly the Terry Farm, located between Steele Road, Albany Avenue and Asylum Avenue in West Hartford. The old farmhouse became a home for aged people and the produce of he farm supported the home and the nearby Mount Saint Joseph Convent. The house had earlier been the home of Rose Terry Cooke, a writer and poet known for her humorous fiction dealing primarily with New England village life. Additional facilities were built on the farm over the years, which would develop into the Mercy Community, which is devoted to the health and comfort of its members, focusing especially on the elderly poor. The Community offers adult day care, long-term care, rehab and assisted living.

The Mercy Community campus is dominated by a large building with two towers. Work on this four-story brick structure with brownstone trim, designed by John J. Dwyer in 1893, was begun in 1894-1895 (it opened in 1896). At that time, the central administration building was completed, as well as the chapel and the northern of two planned dormitory wings. A decade later (in 1905), the increasing demand for rooms in the facility prompted the construction of the south wing, which more than doubled the number of residents the Home could accommodate. Additional modern wings have been added to the structure over the years.

Covenant Congregational Church (1960)

Covenant Congregational Church in West Hartford began as the Swedish Zion Congregational Church, established in Hartford’s Frog Hollow neighborhood in 1889. The congregation’s first church building was constructed on Hungerford Street in 1892. Its name was changed to Covenant Congregational Church in 1938. Covenant Congregational Church later moved to West Hartford, laying the cornerstone to its present church on April 24, 1960. Located at the intersection of Sedgwick Road and Westminster Drive, the church was designed by Painchaud and Ryder of Madison, Wisconsin and was built by Bartlett, Brainard & Eacott of West Hartford. The building was dedicated on October 16, 1960. The church, which is Lutheran in theology and Congregational in organization, is affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Edward W. Morley House (1906)

Edward W. Morley (1838-1923) was a famous scientist and a professor of chemistry at Western Reserve College (now Case Western Reserve University) in Ohio from 1869 until his retirement in 1906. He is best known for his work with physicist Albert A. Michelson on the Michelson–Morley experiment (1887), which measured the speed of light, and for his research on the atomic weight of oxygen, which he published in 1895. Upon his retirement, he moved into a house he had had constructed at 26 Westland Avenue in West Hartford, the town in which he had grown up. He built it using dividends on stock he held in the Dow Chemical Corporation. The stock had been payment for his consulting work for the corporation. He continued his scientific research in a laboratory he built in his back yard. He lived in the house until his death in 1923. An elementary school in West Hartford was also named in his honor. (more…)

The Spanish House (1929)

With its white stucco walls, red tile roof and detailed wrought iron work, the house at 46 Fernwood Road in West Hartford is an unusual example in Connecticut of the Spanish Colonial Revival style. Called the Spanish House, it was built for Mrs. Grace M. Spear Lincoln (d. 1971), who had lived for a time in Spain and wanted a house in the Spanish style. She acquired the land in 1927 and worked with architect Lester B. Scheide to design the house, which was built in 1928-1929. N. Ross Parke, an artist, completed the home’s interior decoration, painting the dining room ceiling and several niches inside the house. The building has a U-shaped plan surrounding a central court. The court is paved with cobblestones believed to have come from Asylum Avenue when the old trolley line was torn up. The owners of the house in 2003 received a West Hartford Historic Preservation Award for their work on the house, which included the rebuilding of the original 1929 courtyard fountain that had been almost completely destroyed and buried.