Located on the grounds of the Institute of Living in Hartford (which had begun as the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane, founded by Dr. Eli Todd), Elizabeth Chapel was donated by Dr. Gurdon Wadsworth Russell in memory of his first wife. Constructed in 1875 of Westerly Granite, the chapel was designed by George Keller, utilizing a variation on the same basic plan he had made earlier for his Grace Episcopal Church in Windsor.
Constructed while he was still designing monuments for the firm of J. G. Batterson, George Keller‘s Grace Episcopal Church, on Broad Street Green in Windsor, is his earliest completed building. Just 21 years old at the time, Keller had just arrived in Hartford in 1864. The cornerstone was for the church was laid that year and the building was completed in 1865. Windsor’s Episcopal parish had been established in 1842, and their first church building was built in 1845. The church designed by Keller, in the Gothic Revival style, was enlarged and rededicated in 1934.
This week, we will be looking at the architecture of George Keller. Born in Ireland, Keller came to the United States when he was ten. Taking up the study of architecture, he came to Hartford to design monuments for J.G. Batterson, producing many memorials for Cedar Hill Cemetery. He would later design the cemetery’s Northam Memorial Chapel in 1882. Keller utilized a Gothic style and resisted the Classical and Colonial Revivals.
Primarily associated with churches and public buildings, Keller also designed houses, so we begin this week with the row houses he designed along Park Terrace in Hartford (above). These houses present a simplified form of Keller’s “Modern Gothic” style. They also display similarities with Keller’s design for the (no longer extant) Hartford High School building of 1883. He also designed a similar group of houses along Columbia Street in 1888-1889. The Park Terrace houses had a special significance for Keller, because the last house on the row (24 Park Terrace, below) became his own home as the fee for planning the project.
