Yale - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Connecticut Hall (1750)

Connecticut Hall, built in part by at least five enslaved laborers, was erected between 1750 and 1752 and is Yale‘s oldest surviving building. Located in the University’s Old Campus, its design was based on Harvard’s Georgian-style Massachusetts Hall. Money to fund its construction was obtained through the sale of a French ship, captured during King George’s War. Yale’s president, Thomas Clap, hired Francis Letort from Philadelphia and Thomas Bills from New York to build the dormitory, which would house a number of notable residents, including Noah Webster, James Hillhouse, John Trumbull, Eli Whitney and, most famously, Nathan Hale (A statue of Hale now stands outside the building). Later, when more buildings were being constructed for Yale’s “Brick Row” in the Federal style, the gambrel-roofed Connecticut Hall was no longer in fashion. In 1797, John Trumbull removed the old roof and enlarged the building. The building, renamed to South Middle College was again remodeled in 1882 and used for various purposes in the following years.

In 1900, with the buildings of the Brick Row being demolished, Connecticut Hall was saved from destruction by a group of alumni, led by Professor Henry W. Farnam. In 1905, with the Colonial Revival under way, alumni funds supported yet another remodeling, by architect Grosvenor Atterbury, which restored a gambrel roof to the building. Again standing out with the construction of new Gothic buildings around Yale’s Old Campus, a sense of balance was restored with the construction of McClellan Hall, a reproduction and partner to Connecticut Hall, in 1925. Today, Connecticut Hall is home to Yale’s College Faculty meeting room, the Comparative Literature and Philosophy departments, and a computer lab. Please take a look at today’s companion post about Massachusetts Hall at Historic Buildings of Massachusetts.

The Ralph Ingersoll House (1829)

Located on Elm Street, across from New Haven Green, the Ralph Ingersoll House was built in 1829 and was designed by Town and Davis. This early Greek Revival home was built by Nahum Hayward and a letter survives from Ingersoll to the architects explaining that the specifications, required by Hayward, had not arrived with the plans for the house. The brick walls would have originally been stuccoed or painted. The house was bought by Yale in 1919 and restored by Delano and Aldrich; some of the original furniture is preserved in the Ingersoll Room of the New Haven Museum and Historical Society. Ralph I. Ingersoll was a lawyer and politician, serving as mayor of New Haven and U.S. Representative. In 1831, he opposed the creation of a college in New Haven for African-Americans. As a lawyer, he also represented the Spanish Crown during the Amistad case.

The James Dwight Dana House (1849)

James Dwight Dana was a mineralogist and Yale professor. Dana was also a member of the United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842) and the author of numerous books on geology. His house, on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, was designed by Henry Austin in the Italianate style, but was decorated with trim influenced by India (by way of British publications). The same year the house was constructed, Austin’s John Pitkin Norton House was built for another Yale science professor. The wing to the north was added in 1905 and the house was sold by the Dana family to Yale in 1962. It now houses Yale’s Department of Statistics. There is also HABS documentation on the house.

Aaron Skinner House (1832)

As with some other homes built on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven the 1830s, the Aaron Skinner House was designed by Alexander J. Davis, with significant involvement by James A. Hillhouse. Skinner, who briefly operated a boy’s school in his home, was persuaded to go along with Davis and Hillhouse’s expensive Greek Revival design. In the 1850s, Henry Austin altered the house by filling in the second story, which originally did not extend so far, to match the first story. This crated a more cube-like appearance. The house was later owned by the Trowbridge family and was bequeathed to Yale by Rachel Trowbridge. It now serves as Yale’s International Center for Finance.

The John Schwab House (1896)

The John Schwab House, on Prospect Street in New Haven, was designed in the Tudor Revival style by R. Clipson Sturgis. Schwab was a professor of political economy at Yale who later became Librarian of Yale University. He was the author of History of the New York Property Tax (1890) and The Confederate States of America, 1861-1865: A Financial and Industrial History of the South During the Civil War (1901).

The Mary Pritchard House (1836)

James Abraham Hillhouse (1789-1841), a poet and friend of the important architects, Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, was instrumental as a wealthy patron in the development of the area around New Haven’s Hillhouse Avenue. The street had been originally laid out during the Federal-era town planning undertaken by James Abraham’s father, James Hillhouse. By the 1830s, the area had become a prestigious neighborhood, with numerous Greek Revival mansions being built under the direction of the younger Hillhouse. Among these was one for the wealthy widow Mary Pritchard, constructed using plans drawn up by Davis. Ira Atwater and Nelson Hotchkiss were contracted to build the Greek Revival home with tall Corinthian columns, which was completed in 1836. Like most of the other buildings around it, the house is now owned by Yale.

The John Pitkin Norton House (1849)

Henry Austin designed one of New Haven’s earliest houses to be modeled on the style of an Italian villa: the John Pitkin Norton House on Hillhouse Avenue. Built in 1848-49, the house was inspired by the design for a villa published by Andrew Jackson Downing. As seen in HABS documentation from 1964, the house had lost much of its original detailing by then. In 2003, exterior restorations were made. The house was built for the Yale science professor John Pitkin Norton, an agricultural chemist who wrote Elements of Scientific Agriculture. Some additions were later made, including the third floor. The house was acquired by Yale in 1923 and is now a building of the Yale School of Management.