Museum - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Hill-Stead (1901)

Constructed between 1898 and 1901, the Pope Riddle House, centerpiece of the Hill-Stead estate in Farmington, was constructed as a retirement home for the industrialist and art collector Alfred Atmore Pope and his wife, Ada Lunette Brooks. It was designed by their daughter, Theodate Pope Riddle, working with Edgerton Swartout, an architect with the firm of McKim, Mead, and White. Gaining a valuable apprenticeship in architecture through this experience, she would go on to design many buildings over the next 30 years, including the 1920 reconstruction of the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in New York and the Avon Old Farms School, which she founded.

Once described by Henry James as, “a great new house on a hilltop,” the Colonial Revival-style building combines various influences, from the traditional New England farm house to George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Various additions were made in the following years by Theodate Pope Riddle (who married diplomat John Wallace Riddle in 1916). She later inherited the house and left the estate to become a museum after her own death in 1946.

The museum showcases Alfred Pope’s art collection. Begun in the 1880s, it includes works on paper, Japanese woodblock prints, and Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Mary Cassatt and James M. Whistler. It was featured in the 1907 book, Noteworthy Paintings in American Collections, edited by John LaFarge and August Jaccaci.

Cheney Homestead (1785)

The brothers, Timothy and Benjamin Cheney, were important early American clockmakers. Timothy built the Cheney Family Homestead around 1785, and used a nearby brook to operate a grist mill that he built around 1790. After Timothy’s death in 1795, his oldest son, George Cheney, inherited the house. Among George‘s numerous children, his sons John and Seth became noted artists, while Charles, Ralph, Ward, Rush and Frank founded what would become the Cheney Brothers Silk Manufacturing Company. Today the Homestead is museum, owned and operated since 1969 by the Manchester Historical Society.

Cheney Firehouse (1901)

The Cheney family of silk manufacturers had a firehouse constructed on Pine Street in Manchester in 1901 to house the South Manchester Fire District‘s Hose & Ladder Company No. 1, which served the Cheneys’ silk mills and the surrounding neighborhoods. At that time, the Cheney Fire Station relied on the latest horse-drawn equipment. The Cheneys later sold the building, which is now owned by the town of Manchester. Since 1979, it has been rented to the Connecticut Firemen’s Historical Society, who operate the Fire Museum in the building.

Academy Hall (1803)

Rocky Hill’s Academy Hall was built in 1803 as a navigation school for sailors at time when the town was still an active port and students might hope to become sea captains in the future. Construction was funded by public and private contributions, but the builder, Abraham Jaggers, still ended up bankrupt! It later served as a primary school until 1940. Damaged by fire in 1839, the interior was rebuilt. The building has also been altered in other ways, including the removal of the two original end chimneys. Currently owned by the town, the Academy Hall is currently leased to the Rocky Hill Historical Society and serves as a museum and historical library.

The A. Everett Austin, Jr. House (1930)

On this Veteran’s Day, I went to see the play at the Hartford Stage, Chick, The Great Osram, about the life of A. Everett Austin, Jr. Known as “Chick,” Austin was the director of the Wadsworth Atheneum from 1927 to 1944 and during his tenure made Hartford a center of the art world. He built up the Atheneum’s collections of both Old Master Paintings and modern art, brining to the first major exhibition of Picasso to the united States. He was also involved with the performing arts, staging the premiere of Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson‘s Four Saints in Three Acts, with an all black cast, and bringing George Blanchine to America. It was the biographical play’s last day, but an exhibition called Magic Facade: The Austin House, about the home Chick Austin built on Scarborough Street in Hartford, continues through April 20.

The house, constructed in 1930, was designed by Leigh H. French, Jr., under Austin’s direction. A Palladian Villa, it was modeled on the 1596 Villa Feretti-Angeli in Dolo, Venezia, Italy. The house gives the feeling of a stage set, as it is only one room deep. When I was in high school, I heard one variation of an urban legend about the house, according to which it was a mere facade for a power station! The house was bequeathed by Chick’s widow, Helen Goodwin Austin, to the Atheneum in 1985 and has recently been restored. It is available for tours on request with a donation to the Sarah Goodwin Austin Memorial Fund.

The Connecticut State Library and Supreme Court Building (1910)

Located on Capitol Avenue in Hartford, right across from the State Capitol building, Connecticut’s State Library and Supreme Court Building was constructed in 1908-1910. It was designed by the New York architect, Donn Barber, in a style influenced by the Italian Renaissance. The statues above the front entrance, installed in 1913, are figures of Justice, History, Art and Science, sculpted by Michel Louis Tonnetti. The building’s East Wing houses the State Library, while the West Wing houses the Supreme Court. Between the two wings is Memorial Hall, which is home to the Museum of Connecticut History. As with the neighboring State Capitol, visitors can take tours of the Supreme Court.

Museum on the Green (1840)

Located on the Green in Glastonbury, the town’s first secular Town Hall was built between 1839 and 1840 by Parley Bidwell, who probably also designed it. Glastonbury’s first Meeting House of 1693 had stood nearby. The 1840 building served as the Town House for a century, and is now the Museum on the Green, operated by the Historical Society of Glastonbury.