Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

gambrel

Simsbury 1820 House (1820)

The Simsbury 1820 House is an inn which is housed in an elaborate gambrel roofed Federal mansion. The house was built by Elijah Phelps, the son of Maj. Gen. Noah Phelps, who was a hero of the Revolutionary War. Elijah Phelps’s son-in-law, Amos R. Eno, became wealthy by investing the profits of his dry goods business in real estate in New York. He used the 1820 House as a summer residence. His grandson, Gifford Pinchot, a conservationist and governor of Pennsylvania, was born in the house in 1865. In 1884, Amos Eno retreated to the Simsbury House after his son, John C. Eno, embezzled millions from his father’s bank and fled to Canada. In 1890, Amos Eno added a large rear extension to the house, which was later inherited by his daughter, Anoinette Eno Wood, who called the home “Eaglewood,” in reference to her family’s patriotism and her last name. She had the house renovated in the Colonial Revival style. The house remained in the family until 1948, afterwards becoming a restaurant called the Simsbury House. When a developer bought the house and started to auction off its fixtures in the 1960s, the Town of Simsbury decided to purchase it. Little was done to renovate it, however, until in 1985 it was bought and restored by Simsbury House Associates to become an elegant inn.

The Captain George Phillips House (1750)

Captain George Phillips was a leading merchant of Middletown and, like his neighbor, Jehosaphat Starr, he answered the Lexington Alarm in 1775. His brick gambrel-roofed house, on Washington Street, was built around 1750. The Greek Revival entryway and the reduction in size of the first floor windows are nineteenth century changes. There is also an obviously later addition to the house’s east elevation.

John Latimer House (1690)

The oldest parts of the house of Captain John Latimer, on Main Street near Wethersfield Cove, date to around 1690. The house is right next door to the Captain Samuel Latimer House. The John Latimer House is currently for sale.

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Captain Ambrose Nicholson House (1756)

Built around 1756, or earlier, the Captain Nicholson House in Glastonbury was moved from Hubbard Street to Main Street in 1970. It was built by the sea captain, Ambrose Nicholson, the year he married Margaret Hills, or perhaps around 1740 by his father, Henry Nicholson. The house was restored in 2001.

Elkanah Cobb House (1769)

The Elkanah Cobb House, on Water Street in Stonington Borough, is one of the oldest in town. Built in 1760s, the Cobb House is a one-and-a-half story structure with a gambrel roof and unusual 9 over 6 sash windows. Cobb was the owner of the house at the time when Stonington was bombarded by British ships on August 19, 1814 during the War of 1812. According to The Homes of our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn., by Grace Denison Wheeler (1903), the house “stood in the thick of the fight near the [American] battery, and so has many scars received during the bombardment.” Benson J. Lossing visited Stonington in 1860 and mentions the house in his Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 (1869).

East District School (1789)

The brick East District School in Norwich was built in 1789, on land donated to the town by Thomas Leffingwell IV. It was used for about 125 years and its students included Lydia Huntley Sigourney, who attended in 1795. The school was quite progressive, with boys and girls being taught the same subjects. Starting in 1891, the building was used by the School House Club for cultural and social events. Located on Washington Street, it is now a historical museum.

The Samuel Webster House (1787)

The house of Samuel Webster and Lucy Bissell Webster, daughter of David Bissell, is on Main Street in the East Windsor Hill section of South Windsor. This early example of a colonial brick house was probably built in 1787, although the sign on the house claims an earlier date of 1760.