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

Pine Orchard Union Chapel (1897)

The borough of Pine Orchard in Branford is a small community of 300 households that started as a summer colony in the late nineteenth century. Landowners Frank and Henry Wallace provided land on Chapel Drive for the construction of a non-denominational chapel to be used for summer services. Between 1872 and 1892, the Wallace brothers and their father, Robert Wallace of Meriden and later Wallingford, had developed what is now Island View Avenue in Pine Orchard as a waterfront residential enclave. Plans for the Pine Orchard Union Chapel were approved on July 4, 1896 and the building, designed by the New Haven architectural firm of Brown and Berger, was completed a year later. The Chapel had no resident minister, so ministers came from neighboring communities to lead services. The Chapel was originally painted in a darker color, but in the early twentieth century it was painted white. The chapel was closed for regular services in 1963. Community residents worked to preserve the building, which is now regularly rented out for weddings. (more…)

681 Middle Turnpike, Mansfield (1820)

The house at 681 Middle Turnpike in the Mansfield Four Corners section of Mansfield, not far from Storrs, was built sometime before 1820. It had a number of owners until 1843, when it was purchased by Rev. Aaron R. Livermore (1810-1892), who was the minister of Mansfield’s North Society Church, now Storrs Congregational Church, from 1843 to 1858. The house was next owned by the Fish family.

Keeler-Pratt House (1750)

The sign on the house at 114 Perry Avenue, in the Silvermine section of Norwalk, identifies it as the Ralph Keeler House, built c. 1750. The Keelers were one of the founding families of Norwalk. Also known as the Isaac Camp property, the house has elsewhere been dated to c. 1778. Verneur E. Pratt (1891-1966) moved to Norwalk in the late 1920s and lived in the house. An inventor and entrepreneur, Verneur Pratt converted the adjacent carriage barn (116 Perry Avenue, built c. 1800) into a laboratory in the late 1930s. Pratt invented the Optigraph Reading Machine, an early microfilm reader.

Abraham Scranton House (1703)

The Abraham Scranton House, a Colonial saltbox at 548 Boston Post Road in Madison, opposite the Green, may have been built in 1703, 1720 or 1750. The latter date is when it came into the Scranton family.

Benton-Beecher House (1740)

The Benton-Beecher House in Guilford was originally located on Broad Street, where the the First Congregational Church now stands. It was built in 1740 and was the home of Lot Benton and his wife, Catherine Lyman. They had no children of their own but they adopted Mrs. Benton’s nephew, Lyman Beecher. He came to this house on his vacations as a student at Yale. Lyman Beecher eventually became a prominent Congregational minister. In Guilford he met Roxana foote, whom he married in 1799. Their children included Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher The Benton House was left by Lot Benton to Lyman Beecher, who sold the land to church in 1829 so that it could be removed to make way for the construction of the new meeting house. The house was moved by 35 yoke of oxen to its present location at 485 Whitfield Street.

Ray-Ely House (1775)

The house at 1283 Saybrook Road in Haddam was built about 1775 by Benjamin Ray on land he had inherited, with his brother Peter, from their father James Ray (1689-1786) the year before. The brothers sold the property to John Ely in 1804. His son William sold the house in 1839 to the Odber family (William’s daughter Harriet had married John Odber).

Fairfield County Courthouse (1888)

In 1886 the Fairfield County Bar Association and county representatives decided that the time had come to build a new county courthouse in Bridgeport. The city’s first courthouse (now called McLevy Hall), built in 1854, had become inadequate and its location near the public square meant that noise from the street, including from streetcars, had become a a nuisance when court was in session. As had occurred before in the 1850s, when the county seat was moved from the town of Fairfield to Bridgeport, the city of Norwalk made its own bid to build the new courthouse, but Bridgeport leaders, including Sidney B. Beardsley and P.T. Barnum, appropriated more funds and won legislative approval. The cornerstone for the building, located near the northwest corner of Golden Hill and Main Streets, was laid on June 24, 1887. Completed in 1888, the Courthouse is a Richardsonian Romanesque structure designed by Warren R. Briggs. There is also a Fairfield County Courthouse in Danbury.