The Huntington House, located along Windsor’s Broad Street Green, was built in 1901 and was lived in by members of the Huntington family until 1998. It is a Neo-Classical Revival and Colonial Revival style house, modeled on a Newport mansion. In 2001, the house was restored and opened to the public as the Huntington House Museum, but closed in 2005 due to a lack of community support. It now serves as offices.
This house is unrelated to the paints. The Benjamin Moore House was originally built around 1770 in Poquonock, a northern area of Windsor. It was constructed by Simeon and Hannah Barber Moore but, after they moved to Torrington in the 1780s, it was passed on to their son Benjamin and his siblings, Eldad and Hannah. In 1801 they applied for a mortgage which was held by Oliver Ellsworth. But even with an additional loan, the Moores had sold off their property by 1806. In 1986, the house was saved from demolition by Edward Sunderland, of Sunderland Period Homes, who dismantled it and moved it five miles away to its present location, where it is now part of Ellsworth Settlement in Windsor, a modern development consisting of relocated period homes. The house’s current Connecticut River Valley doorway is an appropriate reproduction. The house was featured in an article in the February, 2008 issue of the magazine, Early American Life. The house is currently for sale.
The date the Joseph Rainey House, on Palisado Avenue in Windsor, was built is unknown, but the Greek Revival style was popular in the 1820s and 1830s. It is also possible that the Greek Revival section was added to an earlier building owned by Jonathan Ellsworth. Joseph Rainey was the first African American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing South Carolina from 1870 to 1879. He bought the house as a summer home in 1874. The house is on the Connecticut Freedom trail.
Built on Wethersfield Avenue in Hartford for the brother of Sam Colt, the Italianate-style James Colt House was built in 1856. Like the other Italianate houses along the same block, including Sam Colt’s own Armsmear, with which it shares many design features, the James Colt House has been attributed to the architect Octavius J. Jordan. In 1976, the house was the first in Hartford to be restored with a grant from the National Park Service and Federal tax incentives.
Built around 1860, the Edmund Hurlburt House is a great example of Italianate architecture, featuring an elaborate portico, with paired arched windows above, and a cupola. Hurlbut and his partner, James Ashmead, were in the goldbeating business. The house is located on Congress Street, which Hurlburt and Ashmead helped develop and which is now a historic district with many Greek Revival and Italianate houses. Francis Pratt and Amos Whitney, the founders of Pratt and Whitney, also lived on Congress Street.
George A. Fairfield was a prominent leader in Hartford’s industrial growth after the Civil War. He was president of the Weed Sewing Machine Company and the Hartford Machine Screw Company. Fairfield Avenue was named for him and in 1866 he built an imposing Second Empire style mansion there. The house features many extravagant elements, including an medieval-style octagonal tower to the rear. The house is now subdivided into condominiums. The Oliver H. Easton House, another striking Second Empire home, is located across the street.
Congregation Beth Israel, Connecticut’s oldest Jewish congregation, was established in 1843. It is now one of the largest Reform congregations in the northeast. The first synagogue was built in Hartford in 1876 and is today the Charter Oak Cultural Center. In 1936, the congregation moved to a new building, on Farmington Avenue in West Hartford. Designed by Charles R. Greco, Temple Beth Israel was built in the Neo-Byzantine style and features a prominent Byzantine dome. The congregation received a West Hartford Historic Preservation Award in 2006 for the meticulous restoration of the synagogue.
