Mount Carmel Congregational Church is located on Whitney Avenue, in the Mount Carmel neighborhood of Hamden. The parish, established in 1758, had previously worshiped in a meetinghouse which stood a little north of the current church. That building was first used in 1761, but was not fully completed until after the Revolution. After it burned down, the present Greek Revival-style church was constructed in 1840, after several years of debate on where to build it.
Moorlands is the name of the circa 1836 house that was the Fairfield home of Henry Sheaff Glover, who also resided in New York City. In later years, after their father’s death, Dawson Coleman Glover, married Elizabeth Fowler (1913) and Harriet Coleman Glover married Gardner Willard Millett (1914). Their brother, John Le Roy Gover, attended Yale in 1914-1916. The house, at 290 Beach Road, was built on the site of the Buckley Tavern, built around 1740-1750. According to Benson J. Lossing’s Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, vol. I (1851), when the British forces of Major General William Tryon landed and burned Fairfield in 1779, the Buckley Tavern was saved:
Tryon made it his head-quarters. The naval officer who had charge of the British ships, and piloted them to Fairfield, was Mrs. Buckley’s brother, and he had requested Tryon to spare the house of his sister. Tryon acquiesced, and, feeling his indebtedness to her brother, the general informed Mrs. Buckley that if there was any other house she wished to save she should be gratified. After the enemy left, the enraged militia, under Captain Sturges, placed a field piece in front of the dwelling, and then sent Mrs. Buckley word that she might have two hours to clear the house, and leave it, or they would blow her to atoms. She found means to communicate a notice of her situation to General Silliman, who was about two miles distant. He immediately went to the town, and found one hundred and fifty men at the cannon. By threats and persuasion he induced them to withdraw. The next day Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, with his regiment, arrived from White Plains, and, encamping on the smoking ruins, made Tryon’s quarters his own
Observing the Buckley House not long before it was replaced, John Warner Barber wrote in his Connecticut Historical Collections (1836) that:
At the time of the invasion of the British, a 24 pound shot which was fired from Black Rock, entered the chimney. In the entrance at the door, are still to be seen the marks of twenty seven bullets, on the stair way. The heat was so great during the conflagration, that all the window glass in front of this house were broken.
The Irwin House is a mid-century Modern house, designed by Victor Christ-Janer and constructed by builder Robert Roles as a speculative house in 1953. Located on Wahackme Road in New Canaan, the house is named for its first owner, William A. Irwin, Jr., who purchased it in 1954. A fire in 1972 caused substantial damage to the house, but it was rebuilt following the original plans. Alterations were made in the 1980s to the house’s porches and balcony.
In 1959, Landis Gores designed a pool house (referred to as a cabana) in New Canaan for Jane Irwin, daughter of IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, and her husband, John Nichol Irwin II, a lawyer and ambassador to France. Completed in 1960, the Irwin Pool House is a Modernist structure with a symmetrical cruciform-shaped plan. In 2005, the Irwin family sold their estate, including the Pool House, to the town for use as a park. The pool was removed and the Pool House, now known as the Gores Pavillion, is being restored. It will be used as a center for the arts, to be called The Gores Pavilion for the Arts at Irwin Park.
In 1822, an octagonal wooden lighthouse tower and 1 1/2 story keeper’s quarters were erected at Stratford Point, in the section of Stratford called Lordship, located at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It was only the third light station to be built on Long Island Sound. The current brick-lined, cast-iron tower and adjacent keeper’s dwelling were built in 1881. The tower was originally all white, but was later painted red around the middle. Stratford Point Light was automated in 1969 and the lantern room was removed to be displayed at Boothe Memorial Park in Stratford. In 1990, the restored lantern room was returned to its place atop the tower. A Coast Guard family currently lives at the lighthouse.
Formerly the schoolhouse of Wethersfield‘s West Hill District, the one-room school called the “Little Red Schoolhouse” was built in 1869 and still displays its two separate front entrances, one for boys and one for girls. The building was later used by the Wethersfield Police Department and is now home to the Wethersfield Art League.
On the west side of Windsor Avenue in Windsor is a brick one-room schoolhouse called Stony Hill School. It was built around 1856 and originally stood across the street, but was moved to its present location in 1899 and rebuilt in the colonial revival style. The current site is on land deeded to the Board of Education by Dr. Erastus E. Case in exchange for land on the other side of Windsor Avenue. After the building ceased being used as a school in 1969, Case’s heirs sued the town, claiming that this violated Case’s deed. The town settled the lawsuit with a payment to the heirs. The school, which was damaged when a pine tree fell on it in 1970, has since been restored as a historic site and educational facility through the efforts of the Friends of Stony Hill School.
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