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

Francis Cowles House (1840)

The Francis Cowles House, built circa 1840 (another source estimates circa 1844 and another circa 1835) on Main Street in Farmington, represents a transition in style from the Greek Revival (the colonnaded front porch) to the Italianate (the low pitched roof with bracketed cornice). A plaque in the building indicates it was built circa 1835 and was acquired for the school by the trustees of Miss Porter’s estate in 1901. (A now defunct website had mistakenly indicated that the house was purchased by Sarah Porter for her school in 1889). The house now serves as a dorm called “Brick“. The house is located on the site of the house where Sarah Porter’s father, the Rev. Noah Porter, was born, in the house of his father, Robert Porter. (Note: post edited 5/28/15 to reflect corrected info).

Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford (1892)

Trinity Parish was established in Hartford’s Asylum Hill neighborhood in 1859. The next year, a brownstone former Unitarian church was moved from downtown Hartford to serve as the parish’s first building. In 1892, it was replaced by a new Gothic Revival-style church, designed by Frederick C. Withers, an architect who had earlier designed the mansion known as Goodwin Castle for Rev. Francis Goodwin, Trinity’s third Rector, in 1873. The tower, designed by LaFarge & Morris, was added in 1912.

Bell School (1871)

Windsor’s 5th District schoolhouse, built in 1827 on Palisado Avenue (and replacing an earlier school, built in 1707 on Palisado Green) burned in 1870. The following year, the new Italianate-style Bell School, with its distinctive bell tower, was constructed to replace it. Civil War physician and neighbor, Gen. William Pierson, donated a bell to the school. The building is now a private residence.

The George A. Bolles House (1875)

Built around 1875, the George A. Bolles House is located on Asylum Avenue in Hartford and is an excellent example of the elaborate and creative homes built in the Asylum Hill neighborhood in the nineteenth century. The house originally had a different front porch, as well as a side porch, which has since been removed.

West Middle School (1930)

Hartford’s Georgian Revival style West Middle Middle School of 1930 replaced the school’s earlier building, a Victorian Gothic structure designed by Richard M. Upjohn and erected in 1873. The school‘s original facade faces Asylum Avenue in the city’s Asylum Hill neighborhood. Its design, like that of a number of other buildings in the city, was based on that of the Old State House. Update (2017): the school recently underwent a major renovation. West Middle Community School now has its main entrance on Niles Street. The Mark Twain branch of the Hartford Public Library has moved to a location inside the school, with its entrance being the school’s former front facade on Asylum Avenue.

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The Dr. Lee J. Whittles House (1850)

A Cardinal House is a bed and breakfast located on Main Street in Glastonbury. Their website describes it as an 1850 house in the Georgian Revival style. That would make it a very early example of this style of building.

Edit (5/27/08): I have more recently learned that this house was extensively remodeled in 1897 and again in 1936, when it was the home of Dr. Lee J. Whittles. He studied Glastonbury’s old houses for decades and was part of the committee responsible for the Welles-Shipman-Ward House from being razed.

Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company Building (1920)

Located on Elm Street, Hartford’s “Insurance Row” of the 1920s, a building based on the style of a Florentine palace (Renaissance Revival style) served as the home of the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company from 1920 to 1963, when it moved to a more modern building. The structure features a striking use of color in the pattern of its bricks and the use of glazed tiles.