Phelp’s Hall, designed to resemble a massive Tudor gatehouse, was built in 1895 as the grand entry to Yale’s Old Campus. Designed by Charles C. Haight, it was the last structure built along the row of Yale buildings facing New Haven Green, which was once occupied by the Old Brick Row. With the exception of Connecticut Hall, the earliest buildings of the Old Campus, including Brick Row, were replaced in the later nineteenth century, with the Gothic Revival style now dominating the campus.
The Henry Farnam House, on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, is an 1871 building whose style was completely changed in 1934. The house was originally constructed as an impressive High Victorian Gothic mansion, the first on the street in that style, for Henry Farnam, engineer of the Farmington Canal and a railroad president. Designed by Russell Sturgis, it featured extravagant Gothic details, including turrets, gables and lancet windows. These were all removed and the home converted to a Colonial Revival style after the house became the property of Yale University in 1934. Since 1937, the building has been the residence of Yale’s presidents.
James Abraham Hillhouse, who did so much to develop New Haven’s Hillhouse Avenue in the early nineteenth century, planned a house on the avenue in 1826-1827 for his widowed relative, Mrs. Abigail Whelpley, and her sons. The main Federal-style building may have been moved from elsewhere (dating perhaps to as early as 1800) and Hillhouse also approached architect Ithiel Town to create a new facade for the house, which may or may not have been used. The house was occupied by Noah Porter from 1848 until his death in 1892. Porter was a Yale professor and served as the University’s president from 1871 to 1886. From 1866 to 1870, Porter‘s house was remodeled, by architect Henry Austin, in the fashionable Second Empire style, with a mansard roof and two side porches. Porter‘s daughters inherited the house, which was bequeathed to Yale University in the early twentieth century. At that time, the house was returned to a more Federal appearance and the porches were removed. The building is now home to Yale’s Program in Ethics, Politics and Economics and the Center for International Security Studies.
Historic Buildings of Connecticut’s fiftieth entry for New Haven is the old Yale University Art Gallery building, designed by Egerton Swartwout a Yale graduate, in a Gothic style called “Tuscan Romanesque.” Built along Chapel Street in 1927, the Art Gallery is connected to the earlier Street Hall (1864), across High Street, by a distinctive bridge. Swatwout planned a further extension of the building, but this original plan was not completed; instead the museum was expanded in 1953 with the construction of the modern-style new Art Gallery building, designed by Louis I. Kahn. Until recently, the bridge over High Street contained faculty offices, but it will soon be renovated, in the continuation of a Gallery plan which has already resulted in the restoration of the Kahn building. This work will expand the Art Gallery across the bridge and into Street Hall. (more…)
Yale University’s Horcow Hall, on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, was originally built in 1859 as a house for Pelitiah Perit, a merchant. It was the first home on the street to be painted brown. The architect was Sidney Mason Stone, the father of Margaret Sidney, author of the Five Little Peppers series of children’s books). A third floor was added to the Renaissance-Revival home in the 1860s and a large rear wing was added by Henry L. Hotchkiss, who acquired the house in 1888. In the 1930s, the house was purchased by Yale and became an annex for the Peabody Museum and the Bingham Oceanographic Laboratory. In the 1960s, it became a faculty residence and in 1984, renamed Horchow Hall, it was renovated to become one of the buildings of Yale’s School of Management.
The Graves-Gilman House, on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, is an Italianate Villa built in 1866. Originally intended for John S. Graves, it was sold before it was completed to Tredwell Ketcham of New York, who gave it to his daughter, Mary Van Winker Ketcham. She was the wife of Daniel Coit Gilman, a Yale professor and librarian, who became the second president of the University of California in 1872 and in 1875 helped establish the Johns Hopkins University as its first president. Gilman also wrote a number of books, including biographies of James Monroe and James Dwight Dana, whose house was also on Hillhouse Avenue. Yale acquired the house in 1921 and it was converted in 1957 to house the Department of Economics.
The John Pierpont House, on Elm Street in New Haven, was built in 1767 and is located between the Jonathan Mix and Ralph Ingersoll Houses. The house was used by British soldiers as a headquarters and hospital during the Revolutionary War, when they raided New Haven in 1779. It remained in the Pierpont family until 1900, when it was purchased by Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Secretary of Yale University, who added two symmetrical rear wings. The house was acquired by Yale in 1921 and “restored” by architect J. Frederick Kelly in 1929. Other alterations have been made over the years, some being removed by Kelly, who sought to recreate a Colonial appearance. Yale has used the house as the Faculty Club, Office of Undergraduate Admissions, and most recently as the University’s Visitor Center. The building’s interior and exterior have been extensively renovated since it became the Visitor Center in 1995.