Architectural History

Harkness Estate – Old Farmhouse // c.1860

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On the sprawling grounds of the Harkness Estate (featured previously), this wood-frame home showcases the more human-scaled farmhouses that many in New England once had. The farmhouse was likely built in the middle of the 19th century and was used until the early 20th century when the farmland (and likely other surrounding coastal farms) were purchased and turned into the massive 237-acre estate. Interestingly, the Harkness Estate was used as a summer house for the Harkness family, but also as a ‘gentleman’s farm’. Gentleman’s Farms were an important element of the upper-class lifestyle in the Gilded Age as they served as formal summer mansions and working farms that often supplied produce and dairy products to the owners’ winter residences. The wide open spaces and ability to have a tranquil lifestyle was appealing to many who lived in dense urban centers for most of the year. While nearly all “gentleman farmers” had servants actually do all the work, they sure loved the idea of living on a farm. At its peak, the Harkness Estate with it’s prized herd of Guernsey cows, 65 employees, 35 of whom were year-round support staff. It is likely the lead farmer and family lived in this building, right in the center of the estate.

Henry C. White Estate // 1913

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White Estate, c.1970, taken by Wayne Andrews

Henry Cooke White (1861-1952), the patriarch of an extremely artistic family, purchased undeveloped land on a coastal part of Waterford, Connecticut in 1891. When passing through the area he found a vantage point overlooking the water, he was overwhelmed by the panoramic view of Long Island Sound, writing in his memoirs, “…I was convinced that this was my Promised land.” Not long after, he built a summer cottage on what became known as White Point the following year. The Whites wintered with his parents in Hartford until they built a year-round home in Waterford in 1913, designed by Wilson Eyre, a Philadelphia architect, after he was inspired by Charles Lang Freer’s home in Detroit. The rustic Shingle style house was constructed of ashlar stone masonry with shingles above, which is sited perfectly on the rocky shoreline. Also on the site is a boat house and garage (which I could photograph from the street) in similar detailing. Henry‘s son and grandson both followed his footsteps: Nelson Cooke White (1900-1989), who was born at White Point, and inherited his father’s love of the sea, became a noted marine and landscape painter; and Nelson Holbrook White (1932-) who was taught by his grandfather and later studied in Italy how to perfect his painting.

Seaside Sanatorium – Superintendent’s Residence // 1936

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The last stop we will see at the stunning Seaside Sanatorium campus in Waterford, Connecticut is the former Superintendent’s Residence. Built in 1936, the home is elegantly sited at the waterfront, which would have provided amazing views for the man in charge of running Seaside, the Tuberculosis hospital for children here. Like the Maher Building, Nurse’s Residence, and Duplex Residence previously featured, this building was designed in the Tudor Revival style and is also credited as a work of architect Cass Gilbert. The Superintendent’s Residence is interesting as it has two completely different facades. The campus-facing facade features an L-shape with a garage wing and projecting entry pavilion in stone. Above, a diamond-pane window would allow natural light into what may be the stairhall. At the waterfront, a large open porch (since boarded up) and large windows at the first floor, would provide natural light and air into the building, along with amazing views of Long Island Sound. Additionally, a catslide roof extends from the rightmost bay and covers a recessed porch with basketweave brickwork above. I would for sure live here, could you?

Waterfront Facade

Seaside Sanatorium – Duplex Residences // 1936

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Another of the handful of original structures extant on the Seaside Sanatorium campus in Waterford, Connecticut, is this gorgeous Tudor Revival style duplex constructed for medical staff housing. Like the Main Building and Nurse’s Residence, this duplex is credited as a design by the great Cass Gilbert. While the building was constructed after Gilbert’s death in 1934, the plans were likely all drawn up at the time the Maher (main) building was in 1933. The duplex residences feature a symmetrical facade with two main entranceways, located in slightly projecting pavilions, and are set within basket-arched openings, detailed with alternating brick and granite voussoirs. There are three-part windows above the doors which project from the wall plane and have cross-braced faux balustrades of wood below. Identical sun porches are recessed at either end of the house. The small associated garage to the
immediate northeast has a simple design, but one that reflects the style of the houses. Like the other buildings on the campus, this structure is vacant and is slowly rotting away. So sad to see.

Powers-Rosenthal House // c.1877

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This gorgeous stone house was built circa 1877 by Phillip M. Powers (1814-1889), who served as President of the Millstone granite quarry in Waterford, Connecticut. The home is said to have been built off an earlier 1700s home, but all was constructed in ashlar granite to showcase Mr. Powers’ quality stone. It is said that Phillip went bankrupt not long after the construction of this home. In 1930, the house was purchased by Beatrice H. Rosenthal and her husband. Ms. Rosenthal served as both a delegate and as a committeewoman of the Democratic National party, and a staunch advocate for women’s rights. She was also active in women’s educational institutions around New England. The old home and barn are now available for rentals for events or overnight stays.

First Baptist Church, Waterford // 1848

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Founded in 1710, when Waterford was still part of New London, the Baptist Church was one of the dominant institutions in the historical development of the Jordan Village, which became the historic population center of town. The fact that Jordan Village in Waterford sprang up around a Baptist and not a Congregational church gives it an unusual religious significance in the state. The Baptist denomination was introduced to Connecticut from Rhode Island in 1705. The separation from the City of New London, which was organized around the locally supported Congregational church, was due in large part to the differences between the the formal, structured, Congregationalists and the evangelical Baptist farmers. In 1848, when this church in Jordan Village was built, many residents followed the architectural vocabulary and built Greek Revival homes nearby, creating a large development boom in the new town center. The church remains today as an active member of the community.

Jordan Schoolhouse // c.1735

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Waterford was once part of New London, but it separated in 1801 as the area desired its own town government which took agricultural interests more seriously. In the 19th century, much of the town’s economy was centered around agriculture, with many residents running sheep farms. During the 20th century, sheep farms were replaced by dairy farms. Between 1920 and 1960, there were about 100 dairy farms in Waterford. After WWII, suburbanization occurred and many wealthy residents of nearby New London moved to Waterford for more space. The oldest surviving public building in Waterford, Connecticut is this Colonial-era schoolhouse which was likely built in the 1730s. The Jordan Schoolhouse was built as a rural schoolhouse as farmers wanted their children to be taught writing, reading, arithmetic, and religion, even if they followed their parent’s footsteps in farming. The gambrel-roofed Georgian building was used as a school until the mid-19th century and it was converted to a private home for Asa and Eliza Gallup and their family. The schoolhouse was eventually moved to its current site on Jordan Green in 1972 and is operated as a museum space for the Waterford Historical Society.

New London Harbor Light // 1801

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In 1760, the colonial legislature of Connecticut passed an act creating a committee to pursue the funding, construction, and staffing of a new lighthouse for the harbor entrance at New London. The following year, thousands of lottery tickets were sold to raise £500 for the lighthouse (a popular method of raising funds for construction projects in those days). The lighthouse, a sixty-four-foot-tall stone tower with a wooden lantern at the top, was finished that same year at the west side of the harbor entrance. By 1799, issues began to pile-up, including a crack in the structure compromised the integrity of the tower, compounded by the fact the light was so dim as to often be indistinguishable from the lights of the surrounding homes. These challenges led the charge for a new lighthouse. Congress allocated $15,700 for a replacement lighthouse on May 7, 1800, and New Londoner, Abisha Woodward began construction on the current octagonal, tapered, eighty-foot-tall tower. The present light was completed the next year and is constructed of smooth-hammered freestone which are lined with brick inside. The current gable-roofed, two-and-a-half-story keeper’s residence was built in 1863, and in 1900 it was expanded to provide quarters for the assistant keeper and their families. Today, the keeper’s house is privately owned and the light tower is owned by the New London Maritime Society, who offer tours of the light on occasion.

Walter Garde Cottage // c.1910

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This summer cottage in the Neptune Park development of New London, Connecticut, was built around 1910 for Walter Garde, a resident of Hartford and New London. Walter built this home as a retreat from city-living where he could breathe the fresh sea breeze and not worry about smoke and pollution from the growing industrial cores of Hartford and New London. The home blends styles and forms elegantly with a stuccoed ground floor and shingles above. A cross-gambrel roof adds depth with windows in various shapes and sizes creating a pleasing composition at the street. Walter Garde was a businessman who notably opened the Garde Theatre (now Garde Arts Center) in Downtown New London.

Lighthouse Inn // 1902

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In the 1890s, Charles Strong Guthrie and wife Frances Amelia Lampson Guthrie began vacationing at Pequot Colony, a resort community in New London, CT, with considerable social cachet and popular with wealthy New Yorkers like themselves. Charles Guthrie was an industrial mogul who served as President of the Republic Iron and Steel Corporation. In 1901, the couple acquired 12-acres of land overlooking the Long Island Sound, and hired renowned Summer home architect William Ralph Emerson to design a mansion with the Olmsted Brothers commissioned to design the site and landscaping. Upon completion in 1902-03, the estate became known as “Meadow Court”, taking its name from the six-acre wildflower meadow overlooking the Sound. The home was a landmark in the Mission/Spanish Revival style, which became popular in the early 20th century, coinciding with other architectural revivals. Charles Guthrie died prematurely in 1906 at age 46, and not long after, Frances began spending summers on Long Island. In the 1920s, she sold off some of the land to a developer, who constructed more modest summer cottages, and sold the mansion, which soon after re-opened as the Lighthouse Inn. The summer hotel flourished through the mid 20th century, boosted by great management and luxury events. A fire in 1979 destroyed some of the building, but it was restored. It closed in 2008 and sat vacant until recently, when a new owner has begun the long process of restoration, looking to restore the light back to the Lighthouse Inn.

New London Ledge Lighthouse // 1909

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Set way off the coast of Connecticut at the eastern end of Long Island Sound, sits this stunning lighthouse which appears more as a Second Empire style home than a lighthouse! By the early 1900s, New London, with its protected harbor at the mouth of the Thames River, had made the transition from whaling center to industrial city. New London Ledge Light was built because New London Harbor Light wasn’t sufficient to direct vessels around the dangerous ledges at the entrance to the harbor. The New London Ledge Lighthouse was completed in 1909, built by the Hamilton R. Douglas Company of New London and is an architectural antique as its Second Empire style is about 50 years past the time the style was popular in American architecture. The lighthouse reportedly owes its distinctive French Second Empire style to the influence of the wealthy home owners on the local coast, who wanted a structure in keeping with the elegance of their own homes. Sadly, many of the large homes near the shore in the area were destroyed in the Great Hurricane of September 21, 1938. Coast Guard crews lived at the light until it was fully automated in 1987. The lighthouse today is owned and operated as a museum by the New London Maritime Society.

Mary English Cottage // 1911

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This shingled beach cottage on the southern tip of New London, Connecticut sits in the Neptune Park community, which was laid out by real estate speculators as summer homes, primarily for local families. The Post Hill Improvement Company made up of professionals, purchased the beach and the surrounding land for $25,000 and began selling off the land adjacent to the beach. Then, once developable lots were sold and many cottages were built, they sold the beach alone back to the City for the same sum of $25,000. Like many such developments, deed restrictions were placed on properties, and ensured that only a dwelling house, with a minimum value of $2,500 if not waterfront and $3,000 if waterfront, could be constructed on the lots. This formerly Colonial Revival cottage was built in 1911 for Mary R. English, and would have cost at least $3,000. The shingled home was later given the tower and other details, but retains much of its charm.

Langdon Library // 1892

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Langdon Library in Newington, NH, was established through the generosity of Woodbury Langdon of New York City, a summer resident of Fox Point in town. In 1892 Langdon offered to donate 2,000 books to the Town of Newington, if suitable provisions could be made for their care and circulation. The Town voted to erect a library at town meeting in 1892 and accepted the offer. Portsmouth architect William Allyn Ashe furnished designs for the building which reads as a pleasing, symmetrical Romanesque Revival building. The structure was outgrown and needed repairs in 2013, and hired the firm of Lavallee Brensinger Architects to oversee the redesign, which restored the 1892 building. The resulting project tripled the usable square footage of the library, and the new wing allows the library to remain quaint and the main focus.

Old Newington Parsonage // c.1725

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The Old Parsonage in Newington, NH, is a rare survivor from the 1700s in the tiny town. It is one of few extant “saltbox” houses to be found in the New Hampshire seacoast. Like most houses of this type, the parsonage has a lean-to that was added a few years after the house was built. Like the nearby meeting house, the parsonage has long been inextricably connected to the public life and the identity of Newington. Unlike the much-altered meeting house, the parsonage retains the appearance of the 1700s and has been extremely well-preserved, giving a glimpse into 18th century life in Newington. The parsonage is estimated to have been constructed in 1725 when Richard Pomeroy, the first Sexton of the church, sold the property here for 19 pounds, with no mention of a dwelling. It was acquired by a John Knight (1685-1765). After his death, the dwelling was sold to the Town of Newington and restored to be used as a parsonage.

Newington Meetinghouse // 1713

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This old meetinghouse predates the Town of Newington having been erected when the area was known as “Bloody Point,” which was claimed by both Dover and Portsmouth. Surrounded on three sides by the Piscataqua River and the Great Bay estuary, early residents of Bloody Point found it difficult to attend town meeting or church service in either Dover or Portsmouth. Bloody Point residents soon decided to establish a parish, independent from both Portsmouth and Dover. The granting of a separate parish with town privileges in the early 1700s required the construction of a village meetinghouse, and the establishment of a church with a settled minster. There was no requirement for separation of church and state at that time, so a meetinghouse would serve the dual purpose of being both a place for feisty town meetings and solemn worship. Construction of the Bloody Point Meetinghouse began in 1712, and the first meeting was held in it in January, 1713, even though the building was far from completed. There were no seats, and the windows were only holes in the walls. On August 6, 1713, a meeting was held to organize the parish in the new building. The name “Newington” was chosen after an English village that provided a bell for the new meetinghouse. Rev. Joseph Adams was the first settled minister in the new meetinghouse, and he preached there for 68 years. Rev. Adams was the uncle to John Adams, second president of the United States, and great uncle of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president. The building was modernized in 1838-39 to its present church-shape appearance. Windows were reconfigured, the main entrance was moved from the long south side to the east gable end, and the freestanding belfry was relocated onto the roof of the east gable end, effectively rotating the building 90 degrees without moving it. The present-day Greek Revival building remains as a highly significant relic of the founding of Newington.