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

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.

Fanny S. O’Connor House (1899)

Very unusually for a Georgian Revival style house, the Fanny S. O’Connor House, on Gillett Street in Hartford, was constructed of brownstone. The house, built in 1899, also features a Jacobethan Revival-style gable.

Rocky Hill Congregational Church (1808)

The Rocky Hill Congregational Church was constructed on Old Main Street, in Rocky Hill, in 1808. The congregation had been organized in 1727, when the town was still part of Wethersfield. This notable Federal-style church was extensively documented for the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1938.

Farmington Savings Bank (1927)

Founded in 1851, the Farmington Savings Bank moved into its current Main Office, on Main Street in Farmington, after it was completed in 1927. From 1865 to 1927, it had been located in an old store building that once stood in front of the current building. Before that, the bank had been successively located in the homes of its first two treasurers!

Dr. Joshua Belden House (1722)

The Dr. Joshua Belden House, constructed in 1722, is located on Main Street in Newington. A center-chimney colonial house, it was updated in the Greek Revival style, with columns and pediment on the facade. Records show that Dr. Belden had two “bound” children, or indentured servants, in his household.