The John Marsh House, located near Hartford’s border with Windsor, is the only eighteenth century house remaining in the city’s North End. It was built in 1783 by Hezekiah Marsh for his son, John Marsh. The Marsh family farm has long since been developed and even the house’s front yard has been significantly reduced. The home’s Greek Revival doorway is a nineteenth century alteration.
The community of Middle Haddam in the Town of East Hampton, like neighboring Haddam Neck, was once a shipbuilding center. Captain John Johnson, who had been a privateer, began a sail loft on his property at Knowles Landing, employing four women to sew the sails. His house, in the colonial cape style, was built around 1795 and has been much altered over the years.
Saint Clements Castle is located along the Connecticut River in Portland. It was built for Howard Taylor, a solicitor, and his wife Gertrude and was designed by New York architect Sidney Algernon Bell. The mansion displays the influence of sixteenth century European castles, while the roofs resemble those found on homes in the Bavarian alps. A Norman inspiration appears in the stone tower, above the French Tudor entrance. The balcony was modeled on the Inn of William the Conqueror at Dives-sur-Mer and the living room is based on the Great Hall of the Chateau of Langeais. Construction was finished on November 23, 1902. Because November 23 was celebrated in England as the Feast of St. Clement, an early pope and Apostolic Father, the name “Saint Clements Castle” was chosen for the house. In 1993, the house’s then owner turned the 82-acre estate over to the nonprofit Saint Clements Foundation, which has restored the home and is dedicated to preserving the historic property. More pictures below… (more…)
Located at 1 Blacksmith Hill Road in Middle Haddam in East Hampton, the Ira Lee House is a Federal-style home built in 1806. Lee was described, in The History of Middlesex County (1884), as “a prominent citizen of Middle Haddam, and at one time a justice of the peace and judge of Probate.” His house reflects a common rural variety of the Federal style, with the structure following a traditional center-chimney colonial design, the Federal details being restricted to the elaborate doorway. The house has its original six-paneled door.
The Italianate house at 9 Elm Street in Mystic was built for Leonard W. Morse around 1855. Morse was involved with starting a machine company, begun in 1848, which lasted until the Civil War and sold cotton gins and machinery for the southern states. The house was later owned by Albert L. Pitcher, who published the Mystic Times newspaper.
The Historical Society of East Hartford has a complex of three historic buildings in Martin Park. The oldest is the Makens Bemont House, commonly called the Huguenot House. It was built by Edmund Bemont in 1761 and was purchased, four years later, by his son, Makens Bemont, a saddle maker. The house’s last owner donated it to the Historical Society in 1968 and in 1971 it was moved to the park from its original location at the intersection of Tolland Street and Burnside Avenue. Since its relocation and restoration, the Huguenot House has acquired a reputation as a haunted house.
Samuel Johnson, the first Episcopal clergyman in Connecticut, organized Christ Church in Guilford in 1744. The Episcopalians first used a small church, built in 1748 and located within the bounds of Guilford Green. In 1834, the church was sold, with the proceeds financing the construction, in 1834-1838, of a new Gothic-Revival church with a grandly imposing tower. Local builder William Weld constructed a chancel in 1872 and another addition, for an organ, was built in 1890.
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