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

The Hotchkiss-Betts House (1854)

The second house to be built for Nelson Hotchkiss on Chapel Street in New Haven was constructed in 1854, possibly to a design by Henry Austin. The facade of this Italianate house features two bow fronts, on either side of the front entry porch. Hotchkiss, of the sash and blind making firm of Hotchkiss & Lewis, only lived in the home two years before moving back to his old house. Judge Fred J. Betts lived in the house in the 1870s. By the 1970s, the house was boarded up and in disrepair. It was later restored.

Connecticut Hall (1750)

Connecticut Hall, built in part by at least five enslaved laborers, was erected between 1750 and 1752 and is Yale‘s oldest surviving building. Located in the University’s Old Campus, its design was based on Harvard’s Georgian-style Massachusetts Hall. Money to fund its construction was obtained through the sale of a French ship, captured during King George’s War. Yale’s president, Thomas Clap, hired Francis Letort from Philadelphia and Thomas Bills from New York to build the dormitory, which would house a number of notable residents, including Noah Webster, James Hillhouse, John Trumbull, Eli Whitney and, most famously, Nathan Hale (A statue of Hale now stands outside the building). Later, when more buildings were being constructed for Yale’s “Brick Row” in the Federal style, the gambrel-roofed Connecticut Hall was no longer in fashion. In 1797, John Trumbull removed the old roof and enlarged the building. The building, renamed to South Middle College was again remodeled in 1882 and used for various purposes in the following years.

In 1900, with the buildings of the Brick Row being demolished, Connecticut Hall was saved from destruction by a group of alumni, led by Professor Henry W. Farnam. In 1905, with the Colonial Revival under way, alumni funds supported yet another remodeling, by architect Grosvenor Atterbury, which restored a gambrel roof to the building. Again standing out with the construction of new Gothic buildings around Yale’s Old Campus, a sense of balance was restored with the construction of McClellan Hall, a reproduction and partner to Connecticut Hall, in 1925. Today, Connecticut Hall is home to Yale’s College Faculty meeting room, the Comparative Literature and Philosophy departments, and a computer lab. Please take a look at today’s companion post about Massachusetts Hall at Historic Buildings of Massachusetts.

The Ralph Ingersoll House (1829)

Located on Elm Street, across from New Haven Green, the Ralph Ingersoll House was built in 1829 and was designed by Town and Davis. This early Greek Revival home was built by Nahum Hayward and a letter survives from Ingersoll to the architects explaining that the specifications, required by Hayward, had not arrived with the plans for the house. The brick walls would have originally been stuccoed or painted. The house was bought by Yale in 1919 and restored by Delano and Aldrich; some of the original furniture is preserved in the Ingersoll Room of the New Haven Museum and Historical Society. Ralph I. Ingersoll was a lawyer and politician, serving as mayor of New Haven and U.S. Representative. In 1831, he opposed the creation of a college in New Haven for African-Americans. As a lawyer, he also represented the Spanish Crown during the Amistad case.

The James Dwight Dana House (1849)

James Dwight Dana was a mineralogist and Yale professor. Dana was also a member of the United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) and the author of numerous books on geology. His house, on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, was designed by Henry Austin in the Italianate style, but was decorated with trim influenced by India (by way of British publications). The same year the house was constructed, Austin’s John Pitkin Norton House was built for another Yale science professor. The wing to the north was added in 1905 and the house was sold by the Dana family to Yale in 1962. It now houses Yale’s Department of Statistics. There is also HABS documentation on the house.

Aaron Skinner House (1832)

As with some other homes built on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven the 1830s, the Aaron Skinner House was designed by Alexander J. Davis, with significant involvement by James A. Hillhouse. Skinner, who briefly operated a boy’s school in his home, was persuaded to go along with Davis and Hillhouse’s expensive Greek Revival design. In the 1850s, Henry Austin altered the house by filling in the second story, which originally did not extend so far, to match the first story. This crated a more cube-like appearance. The house was later owned by the Trowbridge family and was bequeathed to Yale by Rachel Trowbridge. It now serves as Yale’s International Center for Finance.

Cambridge Arms (1925)

Constructed during New Haven’s apartment house building boom of the 1920s, the Cambridge Arms, on High Street, was designed by Lester Julianelle in the Jacobethan-style, to complement the Gothic architecture of nearby Yale University. Jacobethan was a more elaborate style than the humbler and more rustic Tudorbethan. The apartment building features the Jacobethan’s multifaceted turrets and varied bays, which helped reduce the structure’s massiveness on a residential street.

The Oliver B. North House (1852)

Showing greater freedom than in his earlier design of the 1849 Norton House on Hillhouse Avenue, Henry Austin designed another Italian villa style house on Chapel Street in 1852. Built for the Cincinnati merchant Jonathan King, the house features a prominent central tower. It is commonly known by the name of its next resident, Oliver B. North, head of O.B. North, a saddlery and carriage hardware firm.