Taft Hotel (1911)

Built in 1911, the Taft Hotel, on College Street in New Haven, opened its doors to the public on New Year’s Day, 1912. The elegant hotel was right near the Shubert Theater and many Broadway celebrities stayed there over the years, including Rogers and Hammerstein, who wrote the tune Oklahoma in their rooms at the Taft. Former President William Howard Taft, for whom the Hotel was named, lived there for eight years while he was teaching at Yale Law School. Before the Taft Hotel was built, other hotels and taverns had stood on the site, including one in which George Washington stayed in 1775. The Taft’s immediate predecessor was the New Haven House, designed by Henry Austin, which was built in 1858 and was razed in 1910. The Hotel closed in 1973 and was boarded while it was converted into apartments. Now known as the Taft Apartments, the building still has its historic tap room on the ground floor, restored and reopened as Richter’s Cafe in 1983. The Hotel’s grand ballroom is now a restaurant called Downtown at the Taft.

Phineas Camp House (1758)

According to a date carved on an interior wooden beam, the three-bay Phineas Camp House, on Main Street in Durham, was built in 1758. The property, including the house, a merchant shop and a barn, was sold to Phineas Camp in 1785 by his brother, Elnathan Camp, who had in turn bought the then new house from their father, John Camp, Jr., in 1760. In 1794, Phineas Camp sold the property to Phineas Squire, who then sold it back to Elnathan Camp. In 1808, Elnathan’s son, Sylvester Camp, sold it to Deacon Seth Seward, a wealthy shoemaker. The house then passed through many owners in the nineteenth century, during which time a Greek Revival addition was built on the southeast corner.

Frederick G. Platt House (1886)

The distinctive home, built in 1886 for Frederick G. Platt, is located at 25 Court Street in New Britain. With its prominent tower decorated with ornamental terra cotta, the house is a striking example of the High Victorian Gothic style. Frederick G. Platt was president of the New Britain Lumber and Coal Company, incorporated in 1871, and secretary-treasurer of the Railroad Block Company. As explained in David N. Camp’s History of New Britain (1889), “The Railroad Block Company, which consisted principally of stockholders of the New Britain Lumber and Coal Company, was organized under the law relating to joint stock corporations, in 1881, with a capital of $24,000, to build a business block. The land purchased for the purpose was on Main Street, north of the railway, and the building erected is known as the Railroad Block. H. P. Strong is president, and F. G. Platt secretary and treasurer of the company.” Platt was also president of the New Britain Machine Company. In 1895, responding to changing tastes in architecture, Platt sold his house and built a new one on Grove Hill in the Colonial Revival style. The next owner of the house on Court Street was Harriet H. Merwin, widow of Charles P. Merwin of the Berlin Steam Brick Works. Attached for many years to a hardware store, the house was restored in 1987 and is now used for offices.

Former Parsonage of the First Congregational Church of Cromwell (1835)

Former parsonage

The former parsonage of the First Congregational Church in Cromwell was constructed in 1834-1835 on Main Street. It was the second of three buildings to be constructed by the Church at the time, following the Academy building of 1834 and preceding the Meeting House of 1840. All three buildings are brick and in the Greek Revival style. The house remained a parsonage until the Church sold it to a private owner in 1965. The house’s Stick style circular side porch is a later addition. (more…)

Second Congregational Church of Winsted (1899)

The Church of Christ is a Baptist and Congregational church in West Winsted, Winchester. An Ecclesiastical Society in Winsted was first formed in 1778, half way between the societies of Winchester and Barkhamsted. In 1853, as related by John Boyd in Annals and Family Records of Winchester (1873), a committee was appointed to consider “the organization of a second Congregational church and society to be located in the West Village.” The committee reported “that the large increase of population, and the prospect of a more rapid accession in the future, rendered an increase of religious privileges and accommodations indispensable to the well-being of the community; and recommended an early organization of an Ecclesiastical society, and the location and building of a house of worship.” The new congregation constructed a church in 1857, later replacing it with the current church, dedicated in 1899. With the erection of a new church, the old building, together with an adjoining chapel built in 1860, were purchased and remodeled for business purposes. The dedication of the new church was described in the Hartford Weekly Times of September 7, 1899. The reporter explained that the church was built “of Torrington granite, trimmed with Long Meadow sand stone and is of French Gothic style.” The first and second churches of Winsted, faced with expensive repairs after the Flood of 1955, merged together with the First Baptist Church in 1957. The new federation was called the Church of Christ (Baptist and Congregational). 119 members of the old First Congregational Church, fearing that the use of their church building would be discontinued in favor of using just the Second Congregational Church for worship, left the federation. Their church is now known as the First Church of Winsted (also Baptist and Congregational), while the Second Church building continues under the name of the Church of Christ.

Edit: As noted in the comment below, the church has changed its name to the Second Congregational Church of Winsted.