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

John Wheeler House (1720)

The Black Rock section of Bridgeport was first occupied by the Wheeler family in 1644 and developed as a trading settlement. Its oldest surviving house is the John Wheeler House at 268 Brewster Street. Although traditionally dated to 1720, the steep pitch of its roof and various interior features suggest an even earlier date in the seventeenth century (c. 1680). John Wheeler was a wealthy merchant who represented Fairfield in the colonial legislature. The house was greatly altered over time: a Gothic Revival center gable with a quatrefoil window was added in the 1850s, the original central chimney was removed above the first floor and the front facade was greatly altered in the 1940s. These later alterations were removed in the 1980s when the house was restored to an early colonial appearance.

Old North Cemetery Office, Hartford (1890)

Established in 1807, Hartford‘s Old North Cemetery (pdf) contains the graves of such notables as Frederick Law Olmsted (Sr. and Jr.), Daniel Wadsworth, Horace Bushnell, Dr. Mason Cogswell (father of Alice Cogswell) and Mary Beecher Perkins (sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe and grandmother of Charlotte Perkins Gilman). It is also the final resting place of African-American soldiers of the 29th Colored Volunteer Regiment from the Civil War. The long-neglected cemetery is in a bad state of repair, but is now undergoing renovation. The cemetery has a Queen Anne-style brick office building, which resembles a tiny Victorian house. (more…)

St. Justin Catholic Church (1933)

In 1914, Father Francis P. Nolan built a house in the Blue Hills section of Hartford. In 1924, he was named founding pastor of St. Justin Parish. Fr. Nolan, who had a degree from Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School and had worked as a civil engineer, was much involved in planning the new church with architects Whiton & McMahon. Built in 1931-1933, the church is an Art Deco structure and has Art Deco ornamentation in the interior as well. (more…)

The Belden (1898)

The Belden is a Colonial Revival/Neoclassical Revival apartment building at 1545-1555 Main Street in Hartford’s Clay/Arsenal neighborhood. designed by the firm of Bayley & Goodrich and built in 1898, it occupies a prominent position at the corner of Main and Belden Streets. A fire destroyed part of the north section of the building, but it was restored and partially rebuilt in 1983.

Thirman Milner House (1927)

Thirman Milner, born in 1934, was elected to the State House of Representatives in 1978 and served as Hartford’s first black mayor (and the first popularly elected black mayor in New England) from 1981-1987. During that period, Milner lived in a 1927 brick Colonial Revival-style house (designed by Berenson & Moses) at 19 Colebrook Street.

John Clark House (1875)

The Greek Revival farmhouse at 319 Barbour Street in Hartford was built around 1875 by John Clark, with a front porch added around 1900. The rear ell was added in 1915, when the Women’s Aid Society opened a shelter for “friendless and erring women.” John C. Clark, Jr. opened a funeral home in the house in the 1950s, now called Clark, Bell & Bell. John C. Clark, Jr. was the first African-American to serve on the Hartford City Council (1955-1963). On the Council, he helped create the fair rent commission.

Charles Tuttle House (1850)

Now surrounded by houses of a much later date, the Greek Revival farmhouse at 249-251 Blue Hills Avenue in Hartford was built around 1850. There were once many dairy farms in the area, and this house’s owner, Charles Tuttle, operated one well into the twentieth century.