Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Mansard

Norwich City Hall (1873)

In 1869, the General Assembly of Connecticut granted the Town of Norwich and the County of New London the right to jointly erect a multipurpose building for town, city and county purposes, which originally included a county Superior Court and a jail in the basement. The Second Empire-style City Hall of Norwich, at the intersection of Union Street and Broadway, was built between 1870 and 1873. The clock tower was added in 1909 and a European plaza in 1999. There is also HABS documentation for this building from 1984.

Adeline Chadwick House (1877)

The Adeline Chadwick House, on Sherman Street in Hartford, was constructed in 1877 by the builders John R. Hills, a mason, and William Blevins, a stone dealer. The Second Empire-style house and its adjacent twin to the north, the Nathan Bosworth House (1878), were among the first to be built in Hartford’s West End.

John M. Davies House (1868)

When it was completed, on Prospect Street in New Haven in 1868, the John M. Davies House was the largest house in the city. It was designed by Henry Austin (with David R. Brown) for Davies, who owned a shirt-manufacturing company with Oliver Winchester, before the latter became famous for manufacturing firearms. The irregularly laid-out French Second Empire-style house lies on rising ground fronted by a wide lawn, creating a dramatic composition. In 1947, the house was purchased by a New Haven cooking school that would become the Culinary Institute of America. In 1964, while still owned by the Institute, it was the subject of a HABS study. In 1972, the house (now renamed the Betts House) was purchased by Yale University and remained unused for many years. Damaged by a fire in 1990, the house was restored in 2000-2002 and now serves as the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

The Mary Cheney House (1870)

A Second Empire-style house with a mansard roof, originally built in Manchester in 1870 by Frank Cheney, one of the original brothers of the Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturers, was passed in to his daughter, Mary Cheney. She engaged in various philanthropic activities and Manchester’s Public Library is named for her. Located on Hartford Road, the house is now used by the South United Methodist Church as New Hope Manor, a residential school and treatment center for adolescent girls with mental health and substance abuse issues.

George A. Fairfield House (1866)

George A. Fairfield was a prominent leader in Hartford’s industrial growth after the Civil War. He was president of the Weed Sewing Machine Company and the Hartford Machine Screw Company. Fairfield Avenue was named for him and in 1866 he built an imposing Second Empire style mansion there. The house features many extravagant elements, including an medieval-style octagonal tower to the rear. The house is now subdivided into condominiums. The Oliver H. Easton House, another striking Second Empire home, is located across the street.

The Dexter-Adams House (1781)

The Dexter-Adams House, on Centre Street in Mansfield, was built sometime after the land it was constructed on was purchased in 1781 by William and Nathan Dexter. It was purchased in 1803 by Barzillai Swift and was later lived in by his daughter, Lucy, and her husband, Dr. Jabez Adams, one of Mansfield and Windham’s physicians of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He worked for a while in partnership with his brother-in-law, Dr. Earl Swift. Dr. Adams’ daughter, Alice, married the builder Edwin Fitch, who possibly made some of the later alterations to the house. The nineteenth century changes include the addition of a mansard roof and a porch.

Cheney Hall (1866)

The Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturing Company flourished in Manchester in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nineteenth century mill village complexs, which included housing for workers, also featured entertainment venues for the community. Built in 1866, as a theater and cultural center, Cheney Hall was designed by the Boston artist and architect C. H. Hammatt Billings, who had also created the original illustrations for Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Over the years , audiences at Cheney Hall would see theatrical performances, boxing matches, high school graduations, and many famous speakers, including Horace Greeley (who had dedicated the building in 1867), Mark Twain, Susan B. Anthony, Henry Ward Beecher, Grover Cleveland and William H. Taft. The building was used as a hospital during the 1918 flu pandemic. Used as a fabric salesroom from 1925 to 1976, the building was then in bad condition, but was saved from demolition when the Cheney Brothers National Historic Landmark District was created in 1978. Restored in 1991, Cheney Hall today hosts performances of the Little Theatre of Manchester and is available for rentals.