The 1800 Benton-Hale House, on Main Street in Glastonbury, was built by Samuel Benton when he married Fanny Talcott. In 1838, the house was acquired by Frary Hale, “said to have been the first woolen manufacturer in Connecticut; he lived 90 years.” He also served as town clerk, 1848-1850. The house’s rear ell may be an earlier structure.
North of the house of William Noyes, Jr. (now known as the Florence Griswold House), on Lyme street in Old Lyme, is the house built in 1756 for his father, Judge William Noyes. Judge Noyes was himself the grandson of Rev. Moses Noyes, Lyme’s first minister. Originally located right next to the road, the house was moved back and restored by the Hodgson family around 1900 in keeping with the ethos of the Colonial Revival. The house’s front portico and end porches are also twentieth century additions. In the 1930’s, the house was owned by a widow, Henrietta Greenleaf Lindsay, who followed the advice of her friend, the actress Elsie Ferguson, in converting the house into an inn. It was named the Bee and Thistle Inn to honor her, as those are the symbols of the Ferguson Clan in Scotland. The Inn is still in operation today.
The Henchman S. Soule House, on Chapel Street in New Haven, is late Greek Revival-style house near Wooster Square. Soule was a sea captain. In 1862, he sold the house to Henry S. Parmalee, a piano maker, founder of the New Haven Trolley line and inventor of the first practical automatic sprinkler system, which he had installed in both his factory and his home. The house was restored in 1999 and is now a bed-and-breakfast known as the Historic Mansion Inn.
The Seth Cheney House, on Hartford Road in Manchester, was probably built sometime in the mid-nineteenth century and was remodeled in 1910. Located northeast of the Cheney Homestead, it is one of Manchester’s Cheney Mansions. A later owner (in the 1890s) was Mrs. Emeline Cheney (widow of Arthur Cheney), who had an interest in Spiritualism and was a friend and confidant of Isabella Beecher Hooker. Today, the house is a bed-and-breakfast known as the Mansion Inn.
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.
Silas Webster Robbins, a partner in the seed business, Johnson, Robbins and Co., built an impressive Second Empire style mansion on Broad Street Green in Wethersfield in 1873. Damaged by fire in 1996, the home was purchased in 2001 by new owners, who have restored it. The Silas W. Robbins House will open as a bed-and-breakfast on November 1, and a number of gala events are planned for this month, including daily house tours, Oct. 6-Oct. 14, to benefit the Keane Foundation.
Built on Main Street in Wethersfield around 1830. The Chester Bulkeley House is one of only two surviving brick Greek Revival Houses in town. It is currently run as a Bed and Breakfast.
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