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

Connecticut State Capitol (1878)

From 1701 to 1875, Hartford and New Haven alternated as Connecticut’s state capital. Once Hartford won the designation as sole capital city, plans were made to build a new capitol building to replace the Old State House. The new state house was constructed on a hill at the western end of Bushnell Park, on land that had been the original home of Trinity College. The College’s Greek Revival buildings were demolished and the State Capitol building was completed on the site in 1878. The legislature met there for the first time in 1879. The only High Victorian Gothic-style capitol building in America, it was designed by Richard Michell Upjohn, who won the design competitions. He had to make modifications to his plan in order to please the demanding Board of Capitol Commissioners, who were influenced by the contractor commissioned to construct the building, James G. Batterson. The most notable change was the addition of a domed tower. Upjohn had originally planned a traditional Gothic clock tower, but the Board wanted a dome which, while traditional on NeoClassical-style capitol buildings, is highly unusual for a Gothic building.

John Robbins House (1767)

In 1767, John Robbins built his house, on Old Main Street in Rocky Hill, on land he had purchased from the Duke of Cumberland, who had earlier been granted the land by George II. The house was later used as a tavern, known as the Duke of Cumberland Inn. The brick Georgian-style house was updated in the Colonial Revival style in 1910.

Asylum Avenue Baptist Church (1896)

Seven years after the Congregationalists built a church in the expanding Asylum Hill neighborhood of Hartford, the Baptists constructed a Gothic Revival-style sanctuary facing Sigourney Street. Designed by the architect George Keller, this small 1872 structure (which later burned) was joined in 1896 by the main section of the present Asylum Avenue Baptist Church, designed by Hapgood & Hapgood.

Taylor Chapman House (1764)

Located on Palisado Avenue in Windsor, the Taylor Chapman House was constructed in 1764 in the Georgian style.

Jonathan Cowles House (1799)

Built for Jonathan Cowles, a wealthy merchant, in 1799 on Main Street in Farmington. Like the John Watson House in South Windsor, the Jonathan Cowles House is a three-story Federal mansion. It was bought by Miss Porter’s School in 1908 and is now a dormitory known as Colony. This was the dorm lived in by Jacqueline Bouvier when she went to the school.

Asa Andrews House (1804)

Asa Andrews was a tinsmith in Farmington whose Federal-style house on Main Street was probably built sometime after he purchased the land in 1804. Nearby stands his c. 1803 tin shop (which perhaps originally dates to the 1690s). After Andrews‘ death in 1831, his widow, Nancy Bidwell Andrews, ran a school for young children in the house. In the mid-nineteenth century, the house was owned by Deacon Simeon Hart, a teacher and headmaster at the Farmington Academy, who later ran his own boarding school in his home. Deacon Hart was the Farmington Savings Bank‘s first secretary and treasurer and the bank was originally located in his house. After his death, in 1853, the bank moved down Main Street to the home of Samuel Smith Cowles, its second Treasurer.

Memorial Baptist Church (1931)

Hartford’s Memorial Baptist Church was organized in 1884, with its original building on the corner of Washington and Jefferson Streets. A new church, built in the Colonial Revival style, was begun in 1931, but was not completed until 1949, due to the impact of the Great Depression. The church, on Fairfield Avenue, features semi-circular windows, slender columns and other influences of the refined Federal style.