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

Simsbury Free Library (1890)

The Simsbury Free Library began on the second floor of the Hopmeadow District School in 1874. Amos Richards Eno, the Simsbury-born Real-Estate Tycoon, had given the Library a large endowment and later provided the land and funds for the construction of a library building. Built in 1890, the Library was designed by Melvin H. Hapgood of Hartford in the Colonial Revival style. Eno’s daughter, Antoinette Eno Wood, donated the rear addition of 1924. The Simsbury Public Library was established in 1986 in a new building and the old Simsbury Free Library building was renovated and now contains the Simsbury Genealogical and Historical Research Library and the William Phelps Eno Memorial Center.

New London Public Library (1892)

The New London whaling merchant, Henry Philemon Haven, who died in 1876, left a bequest to be used for charitable purposes. His trustees used the funds to build a library, completed in 1892 and designed by the firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge (H.H. Richardson‘s successor firm). The architects sent George Warren Cole, who eventually established his own firm in the city, to New London to supervise three simultaneous projects: the Library, Williams Memorial Institute and Nathan Hale School. The Richardsonian Romanesque Public Library of New London building features a design similar to the libraries designed by Richardson and contrasts a Milford granite construction with brownstone trim.

Ansonia Library (1892)

We begin June with libraries, as we declare this week to be Library Week at Historic Buildings of Connecticut! Our first library is the Ansonia Library, designed by the architect George Keller, who was responsible for many other interesting buildings in the state. Caroline Phelps Stokes, granddaughter of Anson Greene Phelps, who founded Ansonia, donated the library, buying the land for it on the corner of South Cliff Street and Cottage Avenue. She traveled from New York to supervise the construction of the building, which utilized Longmeadow freestone with a foundation of granite from Ansonia. In a gable, above the library’s entryway, is a relief sculpture of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and knowledge. The Ansonia Library was completed in 1892, but did not open its doors until 1896, because the town government was initially reluctant to provide the $1,500 per year required for the library’s operating expenses.

Old Buckingham House (1671)

The owners of the Joseph Buckingham House, long known as the Old Buckingham House, located on Main Street in Old Saybrook, believe the house was built in the late seventeenth century. The plaque on the front has the date of 1671. It is a saltbox house with later additions. It was once the home of Rev. Thomas Buckingham, one of Yale’s original founders and trustees, and it is believed to be the site of the first Yale commencement in 1702.

Solomon Goffe House (1711)

The oldest house in Meriden is the Solomon Goffe House on North Colony Street. As explained in A Century of Meriden (1906):

We know nothing about Mr. Goffe except that he lived here ten years, married a Wallingford girl. Mary Doolitlle, and the birth of one child is recorded. In 1721 he sold the place to Thomas Andrews, of Wallingford, who, apparently, lived there until 1729, when he sold it to Jonathan Collins, of Middletown. The old house was enlarged, perhaps soon after Mr. Collins bought it, for the addition looks as old as the rest, but that there has been an addition is plain to be seen. The dormer windows in the old gambrel roof are probably a later addition, and there have been apparently some changes in the interior. That the house is the one built by Solomon Goffe will be apparent to any one who will examine the old rafters and the huge floor beams. The chimneys in the cellar are enormous and the stones were cemented with clay mixed with straw as were the foundation walls, a sure sign of an early house; another indication of age is the split laths, used in very early houses. The Collins family continued to own the house until 1796 when a son, Jonathan, Jr., sold it to Samuel Taylor of Chatham. Mr. Taylor doubtless lived in it until 1806 when he sold it to his son-in-law, Partrick Clark.

Now owned by the City of Meriden, the house is a museum, open by appointment.

Lyman Dudley House (1810)

On New London Road in Mystic is a house built by Capt. Jonathan Wheeler in 1810. In 1829, the house was acquired by Lyman Dudley, a blacksmith who built a foundry across the street. Perhaps it was when Dudley owned the house that it was modified in the Greek Revival style. A bay window on the side was also added later in the nineteenth century.

Smith-Harris House (1845)

A Greek Revival house with an elaborate window in its front gable, the Smith-Harris House in East Lyme was most likely built in 1845 by John Clark for Thomas Avery. The house was later occupied by Avery’s son, William, and after his death, it was sold to William H. H. Smith, who used it as a summer home. In 1921, he sold it to his brother and nephew, Herman Smith and Frank Harris, who had married two sisters. After the deaths of their husbands, the sisters continued to reside in the house, until they relocated to a nursing home. The house was left vacant and was deteriorating when a group of citizens urged the town to save and restore the house. A restoration committee was appointed in 1974 and the restored house opened as East Lyme’s Town Museum in 1976.