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

270 Sigourney Street, Hartford (1916)

The apartment building at 270 Sigourney Street in Hartford was built in 1916. It is a four-story structure. On two sides it has four tiers of wooden porches featuring “Chinese Chippendale” balustrades.

East Avenue United Methodist Church, Norwalk (1891)

A Methodist group in East Norwalk began to hold prayer meetings and Sunday school classes in individual homes in the winter of 1870-1871. The basement of the home of James L’Hommedieu was soon set up as a regular place of worship. The growing congregation soon adapted an old railroad workmen’s shanty, which was being used by the L’Hommedieu brothers as a carpenter shop, as a new house of worship. Eventually a new church building was completed in 1872 on the corner of Rowan Street and East Avenue. The church was Norwalk’s fourth Methodist church, following those in South Norwalk, Central Norwalk and Rowayton. Planning for a new and larger church began in 1889. The old church was moved across the street and on its former site the cornerstone for the present East Avenue United Methodist Church was lain in 1890. The new church was dedicated on March 1, 1891.

Frank E. Aldrich House (1920)

Frank E. Aldrich purchased the lot at 254 West Main Street in Cheshire in 1919. Probably by the next year he had built a Colonial Revival house that also has features of the Neo-Classical (the columns) and Craftsman (exposed rafters) styles.

Carpet Mill Tenement (1840)

At 40 Prospect Street in Thompsonville in Enfield is a Greek Revival tenement building built c. 1840. It is one of many tenements in various styles in the neighborhood that were constructed for workers at the Hartford Carpet Company mills between the 1840s and 1920s. Here’s another of 40 Prospect Street:

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Cornell Doud, Jr. House (1807)

The Cornell Doud, Jr. House, at 20 West Street in Cromwell, was built circa 1807 on the site of a 1692 house that had long been home to the Ranney family. Comfort Ranney sold the old homestead to Doud, who replaced it with a center-chimney Federal-style house. In 1815 Doud, in partnership with Eben Wilcox, erected at distillery on the property. The house passed from the Doud family in 1883 and was later owned by Edmund Butterworth and then by his son Burton Butterworth.

Harrison-Linsley House (1724)

Nathaniel Harrison II (1692-1760) built the house at 124 Main Street in Branford in 1724. The house was once thought to have been built around 1680, at which point the land was owned by Daniel Swain, so it is listed as the Swain-Harrison House in the National Register of Historic Places. The house passed to Nathaniel Harrison III and then to his daughter Martha, who married Nicodemus Baldwin. Martha sold the house to Joseph and Lorany (Bradley) Linsley in 1800, so it is also known as the Harrison-Linsley House. The Linsleys’ daughter, Lorany Linsley Smith, lived in the house until her death in 1915 at the age of 100. The Smith family owned it until 1938, when it was acquired by the architectural historian and preservationist J. Frederick Kelly, who restored the house. Upon his death in 1947 Kelly bequeathed the house to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, now Historic New England. Under a long-term lease, the house is maintained by the Branford Historical Society as its museum and headquarters.

Captain Benjamin Allyn II House (1760)

Local tradition holds that the house at 119 Deerfield Road in Windsor was built in 1670 and associates it with Thomas Allyn (1635-1696), which would make it a very early example indeed of a brick house. The house has wood framing which is tied into the brick walls with iron tie-plates. These plates once featured the date of the house, but only the “1” and the “0” survive, although it is agreed that the missing numerals were “6” and “7.” While this could have been 1670, it is more likely, based on architectural evidence and Henry R. Stiles’ History of Ancient Windsor, that house was built in 1760, probably by Captain Benjamin Allyn II, a descendent of Thomas Allyn. Thomas Eggleston is said to have provided the bricks for the house.