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

Horace Webster House (1837)

The Horace Webster Farmhouse (pdf), at 577 South End Road in Southington, is a Greek Revival house built in 1837. It was constructed on land that Webster had purchased in 1835. He moved an earlier house on the site to the rear to become a barn. Thought to have been one of the oldest houses in Southington, it burned down in 1975. Webster, who was a descendent of seventeenth-century governor John Webster, moved to Fair Haven in New Haven in about 1863. His sons continued to operate the property as a cattle farm until 1917. In the 1920s, the farm property became a golf course, now the Southington Country Club.

Mechanics Savings Bank, Winsted (1929)

The Mechanics Savings Bank of Winsted was established in 1875. A new Beaux Arts/Neo-Classical Revival building (pdf), designed by the firm Hoggson Brothers of New York, was constructed for the bank at 86 Main Street in 1929. The bank became Northwest Bank for Savings in 1979 and Northwest Community Bank in 1996.

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Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church (1846)

The congregation of Pleasant Valley Methodist Church formed in 1838 and met in members’ homes until the church was built in 1846-1848. A Greek Revival building, it is located on Route 181 in Pleasant Valley, Barkhamsted. Additions to the church were built in 1899 and 1992.

Ephraim Kirby House (1773)

The house at 113 South Street in Litchfield was completed around 1773 for Ephraim Kirby (it is also known as the Reynolds Marvin-Ephraim Kirby House). A veteran of the Revolutionary War, Ephraim Kirby became an attorney and in 1789 compiled the first volume of state law reports in the country. In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson appointed Kirby as the first Superior Court Judge of the Mississippi Territory. Kirby traveled to Fort Stoddert, in what is now Alabama, and died a few months later. His grandson was Edmund Kirby Smith, the Confederate general. The Kirby House was completely transformed in the early twentieth century with numerous Colonial Revival alterations.

Scudder-Smith House (1905)

According to one source, the Scudder-Smith (or Smith-Scudder) House at 17 Main Street in Newtown was built in 1905 as a two-family house for two sisters. It was also the home of Arthur J. Smith, publisher of the Newtown Bee newspaper which began in 1877.

10 Main Street, Newtown (1930)

The Colonial Revival house at 10 Main Street in Newtown was built 1930. Its first owner built it after selling his land to the state as part of the the parcel where the Fairfield Hills State Hospital was constructed. Later residents of the house included a Judge and a doctor who had his office and examination room in his home.

Flatiron Building, Hartford (1896)

This is my 200th Hartford Post! To celebrate this milestone, I’m announcing that I have a book coming out later this summer called A Guide to Historic Hartford, Connecticut, published by The History Press.

Please watch this site for more announcements soon and “like” the Facebook page for the book:
http://www.facebook.com/AGuideToHistoricHartfordConnecticut

Also visit the site I’ve created for the book at
http://guidetohistorichartford.historicbuildingsct.com/.

The Flatiron Building in the above picture (called flatiron for its distinctive shape, resembling the famous Flatiron Building in New York City) is at 529-543 Ann Uccello Street in Hartford, between Ann and High Streets. The Neoclassical Revival commercial structure was designed by Frederick R. Comstock and was built in 1896. It has been vacant since a fire in 2004.