Copper Beach Inn (1889)

Now a restaurant and inn, the former residence at 46 Main Street in Ivoryton (one of the three villages in the Town of Essex) was built in 1889 by Archibald Welsh Comstock (1860-1940). His father, Samuel Merritt Comstock (1809-1878), had founded the S.M. Comstock Company, which manufactured ivory products such as piano keys, billiard balls, dominoes and combs (thus giving Ivoryton its name). After Archibald Comstock’s death in 1940, his estate passed to his wife. The house was sold in 1954 and soon became a restaurant called the Johnny Cake Inn. The Inn was forced into foreclosure in 1966, but in 1972 it was acquired by Robert and Jo McKenzie, who reopened it as the Copper Beach Inn, named for the large tree at the entrance to the property. The business has continued under various owners over the years. It closed for a time in 2013 after another foreclosure, but soon reopened under new ownership. Sadly, the Inn lost its namesake tree earlier this year — taken down after it was discovered its center was rotting due to a fungal disease.

Old Congregational Church Parsonage, Coventry (1792)

When the house at 99 High Street in Coventry was built as the Congregational Church‘s parsonage, c. 1792, the church building was located nearby, facing what is now Veterans Memorial Green. By the time the church’s congregation merged with that of the Village Church on Main Street in 1869, the former parsonage had become a private residence. Built as a one-story structure, the house was raised to two stories after the Civil War, with the front porches likely added about the same time. The hexagonal corner porch was probably added c. 1900.

Conference House, Ellington (1835)

At 113-119 Maple Street in Ellington is a house built in 1835 with Italianate decorative features that were added later. A large second-floor room, known as the Conference Room, was used by the local Baptist Church when it was founded in the 1840s. This church appears not to have continued to the present day, as the current Ellington Baptist Church was established in 1993 by members who had been previously attending the Somers Baptist Church.