Martha Apartments (1926) & Palace Theater (1928)

Located at 161-169 Main Street in Danbury is the Martha Apartments/Palace Theater complex. Designed by architect Philip Sunderland, the Martha Apartments were erected in 1926. The third storefront from the south end on the building’s ground floor (165 Main Street) is the entrance to the Palace Theater, the fifth largest auditorium in Connecticut. The theater opened on September 6, 1928 as a vaudeville stage seating 1,999 (a way to avoid the law that a 2,000 seat theater had to join the union and pay extra fees). The Palace soon switched over to moving pictures. In 1979, it was converted into a triplex by the addition of partitions, and continued in business until 1995. In 2008, owner Joe DeSilva began to renovate the historic theater to become a venue for film and the performing arts.

North Branford Congregational Church (1909)

The Second Ecclesiastical Society of Branford, also called the North Society, was established in 1724. Work soon began on a meeting house, after a debate that considered three possible sites for the building. It was eventually decided to erect the edifice “on the knoll on the west side of the river, at the place near Samuel Harrison’s.” Work began in 1726 and it was finished in 1732 with the completion of the gallery. As related by Rev. Elijah C. Baldwin in his “Annals of North Branford,” as quoted in Vol. II of S. L. Rockey’s History of New Haven County, Connecticut (1892):

That meeting house had its location very near the present newer structure at the center. It stood and was used until after the present meeting house was finished. It is remembered by some persons now living. Its windows were small and diamond-shaped and numerous. It had doors on the east, west and south sides. The pulpit was high and shut-in galleries went around three sides, and they were quite high. The floor of the house was a step below the sills as you entered. Box pews for families covered the floor. Above the pulpit was hung a square, roof-like structure for a sounding board. In later years the bats had nests in this and occupied them with impunity, because of many years accumulation of dust and filth, that seemed out of the reach of all cleaning efforts that were made in those days. It was no uncommon thing for a bat to get loose during a service and go scooting through the house, to the manifest discomfort of many in the congregation.

The Second Society and Third (Northford) Society of Branford incorporated as the new town of North Branford in 1831. The first town election was held in the basement of the just completed Second Society’s second meeting house. As described in Rockey’s book:

The new meeting house was begun May 26th, 1830, six feet north of the old house, and was dedicated in April, 1831. In the winter of 1870-1, a pulpit recess was added and the house was thoroughly renovated. It has since been kept in good repair. The church property was further improved in the fall of 1886, when a neat frame Gothic chapel and parish house was built, near the main edifice. Its cost was about $2,000, which was largely the gift of Mrs. George Rose and Mrs. Lucretia Plant, assisted by others of the parish. This house was dedicated January 16th, 1887.

On February 1, 1908, the church burned down in a fire, although the 1887 Chapel was saved, thanks to a bucket brigade from the nearby river. A new North Branford Congregational Church edifice was built on the same site and has been in use since Easter, 1909. A parish house, containing the church school and fellowship hall, was erected in 1960, connecting the 1909 Sanctuary to the 1887 Chapel.

Enoch C. Ferre House (1840)

The house at 101 Broad Street in Middletown was built soon after 1839 by Enoch C. Ferre. The house is Greek Revival in style with an Italianate cupola. Later owners of the house included Gaston Tryon Hubbard, who had established himself in the lumber business and in 1878 incorporated the Rogers & Hubbard Company, of which he was president; John L. Smith, a Scottish immigrant who became a jeweler (he was a founder of the Middlesex Mutual Assurance Company, which had its first meetings in the back rooms of his jewelry store) and was on the first Board of Trustees of Wesleyan University; and Dr. Francis D. Edgerton, a founder of the Middlesex County Hospital.

Frankenstein-Hemphill House (1887)

 

 

In 2013, local Pawcatuck teen Connor Beverly wrote a book entitled On the Corner of William and West Broad: A True Example of Aristocracy in Pawcatuck. It details the history of the house at 140 West Broad Street, which was built in 1887 and was in the Eastlake style. Beverly was inspired to write the book by a package of letters and photo negatives he purchased on eBay. They were formerly the property of Sally Frankenstein, a young girl who lived in the house. Later owned by the Hemphill family, who sold it in the early 1970s, the house was restored in the 1980s and was for some years the Sage House Bed and Breakfast.

Update: As noted in the comment below, the house was built based on a mail order design by Michigan architect D. S. Hopkins. It is very similar to the house by Hopkins in the illustration below:  

Hezekiah Hale House (1828)

The house at 326 Jackson Hill Road in Middlefield was built c. 1828, but is associated with Hezekiah Hale, Jr., who died in 1826. His father, Hezekiah Hale, Sr., was a sexton of the Congregational Church and kept a record of the dead from 1761 to 1814 that was included in Thomas Atkins’ History of Middlefield and Long Hill (1883). In 1805, Hezekiah Hale, Jr. (1778-1826) married Nancy Miller, a descendant of Thomas Miller, one of the original proprietors of Middletown.

Andrew Roberts House (1870)

The house at 54 Burnside Avenue in East Hartford was built c. 1870 by Andrew Roberts. A carriage maker, Roberts bought the tract of land in March, 1869 and soon took out a $3,000 mortgage, probably to build the house. The property was foreclosed in 1887 and three years later it was purchased by a farmer named George Bissell (died 1903). The house has been much altered through the construction of a modern store addition, currently home to Custodio Grocery, connected to the front facade.