Historic Buildings of Connecticut - Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

George W. Mitchell House (1873)

The front of the 1873 George W. Mitchell House at 35 Bellevue Avenue in Bristol was greatly altered after it became a funeral home in the twentieth century. The house was built for the owner of J.R. Mitchell & Sons clothing store. The son of Julius R. Mitchell, George W. Mitchell married Eva L. Dunbar. The Funk Funeral Home was started as furniture and undertaking business in 1865 by Christian Funk, a German immigrant. In 1940 Emil Funk moved the business to the Mitchell House. The rectangular block in the front of the house was built in 1960 as a 100-seat chapel. (more…)

Butler-Simpson House (1838)

Middle Haddam in East Hampton was a shipbuilding center in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and Samuel B. Butler made pulleys and other hardware for the shipbuilding industry. He built a Greek Revival house at 30 Knowles Road in 1838. It was purchased by Captain Edward M. Simpson in 1855. He was a steamboat pilot on the Connecticut River and was captain of the famous steamboat City of Hartford. His daughter later had a house nearby.

Central Fire Station, Middletown (1899)

The Central Fire Station, later called the Main Street Fire House, at 533 Main Street in Middletown, was built in 1899 during the era of horse drawn fire coaches. There is a hosedrying tower on the building’s northwest corner. It has been continuously used by the Middletown Fire Department ever since and its Renaissance Revival design has made it a notable landmark of the north section of Main Street. (more…)

Medad Stone Tavern (1803)

Medad Stone was born in Guilford in 1754 and later inherited his father’s tavern on the northwest corner of the Green. Stone was also part-owner of a stage company that carried public mail. Road conditions at the time were bad and in 1803 Stone and his partners petitioned the General Assembly to reroute the Boston Post Road. Confident that the alterations would be made, Stone built a large new tavern of Dutch Colonial design along the proposed route. Located in the West Side of Guilford (modern address 197 Three Mile Course), the tavern had fourteen rooms and ten fireplaces. Although Medad Stone battled for ten years to get his turnpike proposal accepted, the change was never made and the new tavern never opened. Stone, who died in 1815, began farming activities there, which were continued by Joel Davis, who bought the property from Stone’s daughter in 1843. His great-grandson Leonard Davis Hubbard (1909-2001) bequeathed the Tavern to the Guilford Keeping Society in 2001. It was restored to its 1803 appearance and was opened as a museum by the GKS, which also owns the Thomas Griswold House.

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Community Baptist Church (1937)

The Community Baptist Church in Norwalk began as the South Norwalk Baptist Church in 1859. As described in Norwalk After Two Hundred & Fifty Years (1901):

The church was organized on May 5th, 1859, at the residence of John L. Burbank, on South Main street. Mr. and Mrs. Burbank were deeply interested in their church, and their home was bequeathed by them for a Baptist parsonage, nearly forty years after the church was organized within its walls. [. . .] The Rev. L. D. Gowen was chosen pastor at this meeting and the first services were held in Smith’s Hall, which is now Tilly’s carriage factory, on May 22, 1859. [. . .] A temporary place of worship called the Baptist Tabernacle was completed shortly before Mr. Fagan’s advent as pastor of the church [in 1861]. That building is now occupied by William Podmore, on North Main street, on the site of the present church edifice [built in 1885], on West avenue. [. . .]

The 1885 church building burned on February 2, 1936. Instead of rebuilding on the same West Avenue site, which had become a business area, parishioners decided to rebuild at 105 East Avenue and the church’s name was changed from the South Norwalk Baptist Church to the Community Baptist Church. The cornerstone was laid April 11, 1937 and the first service was offered October 17, 1937.

Niantic Cinemas (1950)

Niantic Cinemas at 279 Main Street in Niantic opened in 1950 as the single-screen Niantic Theatre. It was renamed after it was purchased by the Mitchell family in 1979 and was split into three screens (later 4 and, in 2003, 5 screens).

Alley House (1853)

The Greek Revival house at 572 Main Street in Plymouth is home to the Plymouth Historical Society. Their website states that it was built in the mid-nineteenth century. Another article gives the date as 1853. It was built by A.C. Shelton, of the Shelton and Tuttle Carriage Company, for his niece. The property was later known as the Burr Farm and then belonged to the Alley family.

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