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

Jesup House (1810)

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Ebenezer Jesup (1767-1851) was a resident of the Green’s Farms section of what is now the Town of Westport. Jesup was a grain dealer whose ships traded with Boston and other ports. Because his wharf and warehouses were along the Saugatuck River, he decided to build a home closer to his place of business. About 1807-1810, he erected a house that was considered to be the finest mansion in Fairfield County at the time. The community of Saugatuck would continue to develop, becoming the commercial center of Westport, which was incorporated as a town in 1835. In 1884, Ebenezer’s grandson, Morris K. Jesup (1830-1908), gave the house and eight acres of land to the Saugatuck Congregational Church, which was then located across the Post Road. He stipulated that the property was to be used as a parsonage and site of a future meeting house. In 1950, the Saugatuck Congregational Church’s meeting house, originally built in 1832, was moved onto the donated Jesup property. The Jesup (or Jessup) House, still used by the congregation today, is considered a great example of Federal style architecture. The house was photographed in the 1930s for the Historic American Buildings Survey. Photographs and measured drawings can also be found in The Architectural Forum, Vol. 33, No. 6 (December, 1920).

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Samuel Babcock House (1851)

Samuel Babcock (1788-1851) was a prominent Middletown manufacturer and politician. Originally from Old Saybrook, he was a silversmith there and around 1812 came to Middletown, where he had a shop near the Episcopal Church. In the 1850 census, he was listed as a spectacle maker (eyeglass manufacturer). He was active in various businesses, including banking, granite-quarrying and railroads. About 1851 he erected an Italianate house on Main Street, in front of Mortimer Cemetery. In 1927, the house was moved to 64 Liberty Street, across from the cemetery to make way for commercial development. At its new location, Salvatore Muscatello, the new owner, converted the second floor into a rental apartment and detached the original rear wing to become a separate house at 5 Frazier Avenue.

Mayo S. Purple House (1909)

The Colonial Revival-style house at 142 Main Street in East Hampton has a Queen Anne-style octagonal side tower. The house was built in 1909 or 1910 by Mayo Smith Purple (1860-1942), a prominent businessman in East Hampton. For 35 years he worked for the Bevin Bell Company, eventually becoming the company’s secretary. Around 1914 he assisted in the reorganization of the Gong Bell Manufacturing Company, subsequently serving as that company‘s president for about 28 years. His other positions included president of the Watrous Manufacturing Company, treasurer and manager of the East Hampton Bell Company, and in the mid-1920s treasurer of the Bevins and Wilcox Line Company. Purple also served in the state legislature for a term in 1885-1886 and returned almost a half-century later for four consecutive terms from 1932 to 1940. In 1883 he married Gettine Louise Arnold, who died in 1935.

Col. Daniel Brainerd House (1780)

Col. Daniel Brainerd (1752-1809), a farmer, built the house at 275 Saybrook Road in the Higganum section of Haddam about 1780. His sons inherited the house, but it was their sister, Zeruah Brainerd (1786-1877), who lived in it until her death. In the early twentieth century, the house was occupied by Owen Brainerd (1865-1919), an architect who worked with Carrere and Hastings of New York. He designed St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church (now used as a private residence) on Saybrook Road.

The Cooley Gallery (1867)

The building at 25 Lyme Street in Old Lyme was built in 1867 as the J. A. Rowland Hardware Store, which occupied it until 1948, when it was sold to Smith’s Hardware. In 1975, antiques dealer Richard T. French bought the building, which soon became the Country Duffer clothing store. The building has been home to The Cooley Gallery since 1988.

Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

Puritan Hotel in Gloucester, Massachusetts

I’m announcing the return of this site’s companion blog, Historic Buildings of Massachusetts! The site has been offline for about a year and hadn’t been updated since the end of 2017, but I have some new material that I’ll be adding from Concord and Sheffield, and a great deal from Gloucester, like the brick hotel, pictured above, which dates to 1810. I’ve also recently posted a library and a church, both in Great Barrington. In addition, I’ve been working on indexes of buildings by street address for each town (like the ones I have for this site), and I have so far completed most of them. Please check out that site (and this one, of course!) for new posts!

75 Olmsted Street, East Hartford (1890)

The similarly designed houses at 69 and 75 Olmsted Street in East Hartford were both built as rental properties about 1890 by Herbert S. Keeney, who probably did not himself reside in town. He later sold the house at #69 to Louise K. Seymour and owned #75 (pictured above) until the 1920s.