Originally built in the town of Bedford, Massachusetts in 1682 and moved to Main Street in Glastonbury in 1974. The Bedford Mass. House’s large central chimney and leaded casement windows are reconstructions of common features of post-medieval English houses (other examples include the Hyland, Stanley-Whitman, and Buttolph-Williams Houses).
The front porch was added later to this c. 1840 Greek Revival house, located on High Street in South Glastonbury. The house was once occupied by Lorin Curtis, a Civil War veteran, and his wife, Florence Hollister Curtis, who wrote a history of Glastonbury in 1928. Now a two-family home, the house also features a rear addition, built as a studio by the artist Dick Wilton, who lived in the house in the 1980’s.
Built around 1828, on Main Street in Glastonbury, by Henry Benton for his bride, who then refused to move to the rural town. The expensive home was soon lost to creditors. It became the parsonage of the First Church, Congregational of Glastonbury in 1847, and was converted into apartments in the 1950s. In 2001, a new owner began restoring the house.
Located on Capitol Avenue in Hartford, right across from the State Capitol building, Connecticut’s State Library and Supreme Court Building was constructed in 1908-1910. It was designed by the New York architect, Donn Barber, in a style influenced by the Italian Renaissance. The statues above the front entrance, installed in 1913, are figures of Justice, History, Art and Science, sculpted by Michel Louis Tonnetti. The building’s East Wing houses the State Library, while the West Wing houses the Supreme Court. Between the two wings is Memorial Hall, which is home to the Museum of Connecticut History. As with the neighboring State Capitol, visitors can take tours of the Supreme Court.
After completing her home on Wethersfield Avenue in Hartford in 1893, Mary Borden Munsill had one built next door for her son, Gail Borden Munsill. The home, completed in 1895, is constructed using yellow brick, which gives it a distinctive appearance. The son’s house, unlike the mother’s, is less ornate and, with its greater smoothness and symmetricality, looks ahead to the Colonial Revival style.
Built in 1860, on Charter Oak Place in Hartford, for the Kingsbury family. The Kingsbury House was later owned by Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling, inventor of the Gatling Gun, the first successful machine gun. A rear addition in the Moorish Revival style was later added to the original Italianate House. This rear section had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1980.
Built in 1852 for Calvin Day, on Spring Street, on Asylum Hill in Hartord. A typical Italianate example, with a slightly visible cupola, the Calvin Day House has lost its original gray color and much of its ornamentation. Calvin Day, a successful dry goods merchant, was the father of John Calvin Day, who married Alice Hooker, the daughter of John and Isabella Beecher Hooker. John and Alice’s daughter, Katharine Seymour Day, would preserve the Harriet Beecher Stowe and Day-Chamberlain Houses in the Nook Farm neighborhood of Hartford. Since 1929, the house has served as the Gray Lodge of the Shelter for Women.
You must be logged in to post a comment.