The Greek Revival building on Bethlehem Green that is now an American Legion Hall was built in 1839 as the Townhouse (Town Hall/Town Clerk’s Office Building). On the upper floor was Bethlehem’s Select School, where the best students from the town’s District Schools were selected to come for additional education. The school continued until about 1900. The building once had a tower/steeple, since removed.
At 60 South Main Street in Suffield is the house built in the Federal style for Charles Shepard in 1824. Shepard was a lawyer who practiced in Suffield from 1820 to 1829 and in Hartford from 1830 to 1850. He also represented Suffield in the state assembly from 1826 to 1828. The house was later home to the Fuller family. According to “The Town of Suffield,” by David E. Tarn (The White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs, Vol. VII, No. 6, December, 1921):
The Charles Shepard house is distinguished by its very graceful porch, of which the balustrade, however, would appear to be a later addition. The general proportions of this house, and especially the pitch of the roof, are distinctly of Connecticut.
In 1738 Jabez Lathrop sold his family‘s property in Norwich to Captain Joshua Huntington (1698-1745), a prominent merchant. This land probably included the house that exists today at 19 East Town Street, which Huntington proceeded to enlarge. As related in by Mary E. Perkins in Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895):
The house, now owned by Mrs. John White, is said to have been built by Joshua Huntington, about 1740. As a large price was paid for this property, and the house has many features which seem to indicate an earlier origin than 1740, it is possible, that, instead of destroying or removing the old Lathrop mansion, Joshua may have altered and remodeled it, but of this we have have no positive proof.
Capt. Joshua Huntington gave his earlier house, at 16 Huntington Lane, to his son Jabez Huntington. The house at 19 East Town Street was later extensively remodeled: the prominent gable on the front facade was added after 1895 (when the book by Perkins was published).
The building now known as the Jordan Park House was originally built in 1928 as the Waterford Public Library. A gift of Mrs. Edward C. Hammond, it was located on Great Neck Road in Waterford, but was moved in 1961 to make way for a new railroad overpass. A new library on Rope Ferry Road opened in 1966. The old library building was transferred to Jordan Park, where it would soon be joined by other relocated historic structures: the 1740 Jordan Schoolhouse and the 1838 Beebe-Phillips House. The Jordan Park House was home to the offices of the Waterford Recreation and Parks Department until 1984 and since then to the Waterford Historical Society.
As an industrial village in the nineteenth century, Baltic, in the town of Sprague, became a regional center for the Catholic Church in eastern Connecticut. Buildings constructed for Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish (founded in 1886) include St. Mary Convent, built in 1888, and the Academy of the Holy Family, built in 1914. The Georgian Revival-style church was built in 1911.
The brick commercial building at 2977 Whitney Avenue in Hamden was built in 1877 (or possibly earlier, circa 1853, unless it replaced an earlier building on the site) by James Ives (1815-1889). A prominent manufacturer and developer of local business, Ives operated a factory, built by his father Elam Ives, on the Farmington Canal that produced brass carriage hardware. He later built a new factory on the Mill River. He also engaged in other manufacturing endeavors, including the Mt. Carmel Screw Works. The area around the factory was known as Ivesville and the intersection of Whitney Avenue and Ives Street, where the Ives Building is located, is known as Ives Corner. Ives rented out the building as a general store. There was also a post office, where Ives’ brother Lucius was postmaster, and a meeting hall in the building. After 1913, the building was home for many years to Levine’s Market. In 1934, Sydney Levine devoted a section of the market to the sale of alcoholic beverages, a business which has since grown into today’s Mt. Carmel Wine and Spirits. (more…)
Lucerne is the name of the castle-like mansion at 20 Davis Street in Hamden. Designed by the architects Brown and Von Beren, it was built in 1906 for Frederick D. Grave. A German immigrant who arrived in America in 1861, Grave learned the cigar trade and in 1884 founded his own company in New Haven. Still in business, the company has been known since 1911 as F.D. Grave & Son. The mansion is now home to the architectural offices of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates.
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