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.
