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

Flavel Whiton House (1842)

At 83 Maple Street in Ellington is a Greek Revival house built in 1842. Its original resident was Flavel Whiton, who served as a state senator in 1849.

Located in the village of Westfield in Middletown, the house at 125 Miner Street is an Italianate villa-style residence. It was built in 1860 by Henry Cornwell. Acquired by Edgar Burns in 1888, it remained in his family until 1952.

Arthur Magill, Jr. House (1821)

The building at 625-631 Main Street in Middletown is a Late Federal-style mansion (with early Greek Revival features), built in 1821 by Arthur Magill, Jr. With his father, Magill founded the Middletown Manufacturing Company, the first woolen mill to use steam power. Financial setbacks and a lost law suit in the Connecticut Supreme Court forced Magill to give up the property in 1832. From 1835 to 1870, the house was home to a boys preparatory school, run by Daniel Chase. D. Luther Briggs later lived in the house. He was Mayor of Middletown from 1890 to 1893. By that time, the building had been converted to commercial use, serving as a hotel/boarding house under various names until 1943. It now houses a Community Health Center.

Town Records Building, Burlington (1906)

The former Town Records Building in Burlington is a brick structure built in 1906. Today it is the office of the Burlington Chamber of Commerce.

Chapel, Avon Old Farms School (1922)

One of the first buildings to be constructed at Avon Old Farms School in Avon was a carpentry shop (other early buildings were the Water Tower and Forge). The carpentry shop was later turned into the school’s Chapel in 1948 and named the Chapel of Jesus the Carpenter. The school buildings were designed by Theodate Pope Riddle, who utilized craftsman from the Cotswolds in England to construct buildings in a traditional English country manner. The carpentry shop is a half-timbered structure of brick nogging resembling similar buildings found in English villages that Theodate Pope Riddle had visited. Originally, students sat in the chapel on seats that faced each other along its length. The Chapel underwent a major renovation in 1999: the roof was restored and a new organ was installed inside. Next to the Chapel is a wooden cross, made in the early 1950s with hand tools using timber grown in the school’s woodland’s. It was placed in its current location when the Chapel was renovated in 2000. A tablet notes that it is dedicated to the memory of Donald W. Pierpont, Provost (Headmaster) from 1947 to 1968.
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John C. Anderson Carriage House (1888)

John C. Anderson built his grand Second Empire house on Orange Street in New Haven in 1882. Six years later, a matching mansard-roofed carriage house was built on Lincoln Street, directly behind the main house. The building features ornately carved brownstone window trim.

Trumbull College, Yale University (1929)

Trumbull College, one of Yale University’s residential colleges, was named for Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull. The building‘s Gothic architecture, by James Gamble Rogers, matches well with his design for neighboring Sterling Library. Rogers, who designed eight of Yale’s twelve residential collages, considered Trumbull College, modeled after King’s College, Cambridge, to be his masterpiece.