Old Naugatuck High School (1905)

One of the most important buildings designed by McKim, Mead & White in Naugatuck is the High School on Hillside Avenue, constructed in 1905. Naugatuck industrialist and philanthropist John H. Whittemore wanted the school to have a prominent position on a hill overlooking Naugatuck Green and the many other structures that he had commissioned the firm to design. To adapt to the sloping site, the firm created a building in which each of its three floors has an entrance at ground level and each side is designed with its own distinct appearance. Based on Greek temples, the school is constructed in pink granite and pressed buff brick. A new High School was built on Rubber Avenue in 1959 and, although the original school’s interior was damaged by fire in the 1960s, it was painstakingly restored to become a junior high school, now called Hillside Middle School.

Sage-Allen Building (1898)

Like the Shoor Building, which I featured yesterday, the Sage-Allen building on Main Street in Hartford was designed by Isaac A. Allen, Jr. The yellow brick Renaissance Revival department store building was built in 1898 and originally housed both Sage-Allen & Co. and the Chas R. Hart Co., a carpet, drapery and wall paper retailer. The two companies each had display windows, on the first and second floors respectively. Sage-Allen soon grew and came to occupy the adjacent buildings on Main Street to the south. The company went bankrupt in the 1990s and the building was in danger of demolition. New apartment and retail space was to be constructed on the site and a design solution was found that incorporated the old facade with new additions on either side. The resulting new structure, called the Lofts at Main and Temple, has allowed the Sage-Allen facade to still dominate the view east up Pratt Street, as it has for over a century.

Also, check out the latest posts on my Historic Places blog about sites I recently visited in Pennsylvania and New York: Washington’s Headquarters in Newburgh NY and Knox’s Headquarters in New Windsor NY; the Eastern Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches and Cemeteries of St Clair, PA; Trout Hall in Allentown PA and the Troxell-Steckel House in Egypt PA; and historic buildings of Jim Thorp and Bethlehem PA, including Bethlehem’s Colonial Industrial Quarter.

Shoor Building (1909)

The Federal-style Corning House once stood at 150 Trumbull Street in Hartford, just north of the old Hall of Records building. In 1909, it was replaced with what later became known as the Shoor Brothers Furniture Company building. Shoor Brothers did not move in until 1955. The original stores to occupy the building in 1909 were the Flint-Bruce Company furniture store and the Luke Horsfall Company clothing store. The building was designed by Isaac A. Allen, Jr, who also designed the similar Dillon and Sage-Allen buildings in Hartford. Among the businesses now occupying the Shoor Building today is Trumbull Kitchen. A modern addition now adjoins the building where the Hall of Records once stood.

Sharpenhoe (1922)

Sharpenhoe is the name of a house at 132 Red Stone Hill in Plainville. This Colonial Revival home was built in 1921-1922 for Charles Hotchkiss Norton (1851-1942), a mechanical engineer and designer of machine tools. In the 1890s, Norton invented a heavy-duty cylindrical grinding machine capable of supplying machine parts for automobiles. The Charles H. Norton House was designed by Isaac A. Allen, Jr. of Hartford. As described in Modern Connecticut Homes and Homecrafts (1921): “this dwelling of red brick with garage attached is an exceptionally happy conception of the hip roof type of Colonial house with dormer windows. The design everywhere evidences a refinement of taste in the choice of its carefully considered decorative details.” Norton’s family continued to live in the house until about 1958.

Windsorville United Methodist Church (1877)

 

 

According to Vol. 2 of The Memorial History of Hartford County (1886):

The Rev. William H. Turkington, who occupied the pulpit of the Methodist Church at Windsorville [now Windsorville United Methodist Church] in 1882, has kindly furnished the following brief record of its history : —

“The following sketch concerning the church in this place is taken from the minutes of the Methodist Episcopal Conference. The church was built in 1829 [at Thrall and Clark roads, moved to Windsorville Road in 1858]; the name of East Windsor first appears in 1829 ; the name of Ketch Mills in 1839; the name of Windsorville, in 1850. In 1876 the church was destroyed by fire. In 1878 [1877, according to the Souvenir History of the New England Southern Conference (1897)] the present church edifice was dedicated.”

A complete list of the men who in rotation have filled the pulpit of this church since its foundation in 1829 includes more than forty names. The present pastor [1886] is the Rev. H. M. Cole.