Known locally as the ‘Ye Olde Manse‘, this stunning Georgian cape house is located at the eastern edge of the town green in Willington, Connecticut. Thought to be the oldest extant house in the small, rural community, the gambrel-roofed homestead was possibly built by John Watson of Hartford, who was thought to have been an original proprietor of Willington, but was instead an assignee of George Clark who was. In the 19th century, the homestead operated as the congregational church parsonage. Today, the Georgian cape house with gambrel and saltbox roof is a single family home and has been lovingly preserved by centuries of stewards of this old manse.
Located in northern Willington, CT, this farmhouse on a quiet, country road, dates to before the Revolutionary War! David Lillibridge (1744-1831) of Exeter, Rhode Island, served from 15 to 17 in the French and Indian War, and manned Fort Stanwix. In 1767, when he was a lieutenant in his local militia, he converted, and entered the Baptist ministry. In 1777, he purchased a farm from Moses Holmes, but it is unclear if this residence was existing or if he built this large farmhouse. In Willington, David Lillibridge became a farmer-preacher, establishing a Baptist ministry here. The home remained in the Lillibridge family at least until the 1870s, when it was owned by Burnham Lillibridge. The Georgian saltbox residence is set back from the street and sits upon the bucolic rolling fields of the property.
Located between his family factory and the memorial church built for his late sister, the William H. Hall House in South Willington, Connecticut, is among the community’s finest Victorian residences built for a wealthy industrialist. William Henry Hall (1867-1922) was the son of industrialist Gardiner Hall Jr., who established the business under his name, which manufactured thread and spools, hiring hundreds of employees. After the death of his father, William Hall became the head of the company, but clearly was successful long before this as he had this stately Queen Anne style mansion built in 1896. Beyond his work at his family’s business, William H. Hall served in the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1893–1897 and again in 1905, 1909, and 1911, and he was generous with his money throughout his life and in his will. Hall served on the board of trustees of his alma mater, Wesleyan University, from 1912 until his death, with his estate donating $175,000 to Wesleyan to construct a chemical laboratory named in his honor. Closer to his home, his heirs partially funded the the Hall Memorial School in South Willington in his honor. The property remained in the family after his death, and in the 1980s, it became an assisted living facility, with large additions constructed, but the Hall House remains a great architectural landmark for the mill village.
This handsome stone church in South Willington, Connecticut, was commissioned in 1909 by Gardiner Hall Jr., a terminally ill industrialist, in memory of his late daughter Clara, who tragically died in 1899 at the age of 30. The church was used by area residents, many of which included mill workers hired to work at Mr. Hall’s factory nearby and lived in mill housing just behind this church. Following the construction of this Memorial Church in South Willington, Baptist and Congregational Churches of Willington merged to form the Federated Church of Willington, which has worshiped at this location ever since. Neo-Gothic Revival in style, the church is constructed of multicolored random ashlar sandstone with limestone trim and features a corner clock tower with belfry, buttresses, stained glass windows, and limestone tracery. The church was designed by Boston architect, Thomas Marriott James and was completed by 1911.
Opened in 2017, the two newest residential colleges at Yale University, Benjamin Franklin College and Pauli Murray College, became a case study in how contemporary buildings can honor traditional design while introducing 21st-century amenities. Designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), the two large dormitories reinforce Yale’s legacy of collegiate Gothic architecture while reading as new construction to the trained eye. The two buildings feature unique layouts to create enclosed courtyards and are stylistically designed as fraternal twins, similar in size and palette but each enjoying its own identity and organization. RAMSA architects were inspired by James Gamble Rogers’ 1930s Colleges at Yale, which (like at Harvard) were inspired by the college systems at Cambridge and Oxford in England which create enclosed quads or courtyards for students in self-contained housing. Like Rogers’ Neo-Gothic Yale buildings, the Franklin and Murray Colleges feature battlements, stained and leaded glass windows, iron gateways, towers, and hidden stone gargoyles. The two buildings are a tour de force of Traditional Architecture that blends new and old in all the best ways.
The Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale University is a contemporary, 12,200-square-foot centertucked away behind larger buildings that serves as an important nucleus for research-based programs within Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. The center brings together students from diverse disciplines to the new building where collaboration to solve real-world issues can be done. Designed by Weiss/Manfredi, the innovative building’s elliptical form is centrally positioned in a courtyard surrounded by taller, boxy structures, creating a unique juxtaposition. Lined by undulating, transparent glass walls, the design allows visibility inside to see and participate in the work inside. The Tsai Center is one of my favorite new buildings in New England and showcases how high-quality and innovative design can make a big architectural statement, even if the building is just a small pavillion-like structure.
The Wolf’s Head was established in 1883 as one of Yale’s secret societies. It was intended as an alternative to the more established Skull and Bones and Scroll and Key societies, and it made a statement when it completed this clubhouse in 1884. The handsome Richardsonian Romanesque clubhouse at the corner of Prospect and Trumbull streets in New Haven was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead and White, which would go on to become one of the leading architectural firms in the country during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The rough-faced brownstone structure was historically covered in climbing ivy, adding to the building’s mysterious nature. Wolf’s Head made it their home from 1884 until 1924 when the building was sold to the University and Wolf’s Head moved to new quarters on York Street. The building was rented to clubs for years until the early 1960s, when it started to be used for faculty offices, staff and classrooms. The building was added onto and today, the old Wolf’s Head is used by the Institution for Social and Policy Studies.
The James Dwight Dana House at 24 Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut, is a landmark early example of an Italianate style residence designed by a famed 19th century architect. Built in 1849 from plans by architect Henry Austin, the house was constructed for owner, James Dwight Dana (1813-1895) and his new wife, Henrietta Silliman and possibly funded by her father, Benjamin Silliman, a Yale professor who was considered “The Father of Science in America”. James Dwight Dana’s education in geology, in addition to his studies with his father-in-law, Professor Silliman, extended to the four-year United States Exploring Expedition between 1838–1842), in which Dana served as the staff geologist and mineralogist, exposing him to a wide-ranging variety of geological formations and minerals. Upon his return to New Haven, he married Silliman’s daughter and then moved into this stately home. Later in his career, Dana was responsible for developing much of the early knowledge on Hawaiian volcanism. In 1880 and 1881 he led the first geological study of Hawaii. The James Dwight Dana House has a three-bay front facade, with a single-story porch extending across its width, supported by wooden columns with unique capitals. The shallow roof has broad, overhanging eaves sheltering a unique corbelled brick cornice. The building was added onto in 1905 with similar architecture and was purchased by Yale in 1962. Today, the building is preserved by the University and houses the Institution for Social & Policy Studies (ISPS).
Villa Bella Vista in Chester, Connecticut, stands as a striking and deeply personal interpretation of an Italian Villa, designed not by a professional architect, but by its remarkable owner, Eila Pierre. Known even among friends as Madame Pierre, she was a turn-of-the-century feminist of independent means who defied convention at nearly every turn. Drawing inspiration from the indigenous farmhouse architecture of northern Italy, Pierre personally designed the well-preserved stuccoed stone house, which was later constructed by local Italian immigrant masons who settled in Chester. Born Ila Rowland Stone (1870–1931), she was newly married to Reverend Dwight Stone, a Yale-educated minister of the town’s Congregational Church. Within just two years of marriage, it unraveled. Reverend Stone resigned his post, and by 1906, the couple’s uncontested divorce, scandalous for the time, was finalized. Casting off both marriage and social expectations, Ila reinvented herself as Eila Pierre. Despite the scandalous divorce and cheating rumors, she chose to remain in Chester and build a summer home that reflected her independence and worldview. Plans for Bella Vista were underway as early as 1904, when she purchased land on Old Depot Road. To prepare for the design, Pierre embarked on an extended tour of northern Italy, studying villas firsthand and bringing along a young local stone mason, Martin Lanzi, who later built his home across from Madame Pierre’s mansion. Villa Bella Vista, completed in 1908, includes common architectural details in the Italian Villa style with the campanile, or tower, the colonnaded piazza, and stone masonry that define the Latin prototype, all unique to Connecticut, which makes this home so special.
This architecturally unique and stunning Federal style house in Chester, Connecticut, was built in 1820 on the Middlesex Turnpike by Abram Mitchell for $10,000, double what he originally hoped to pay for the residence. The principal builder was Samuel Silliman, a locally well-known master carver, who clearly showcased his skill inside and out, much of which has been preserved by two centuries of owners. In 1845, the property was purchased by George Spencer, and presented as a wedding gift for his daughter, Julia, who married Dr. Ambrose Pratt (1814-1891). Dr. Pratt became well-known for his practice of hydropathology and temporarily used his house as a sanitarium known as the Chester Water Cure. The house was acquired by the local Roman Catholic Church and became the parish center until the residence was purchased and moved away from the busy street to its current location in 1966. In the 1980s, the house was purchased by famed artist, Sol Lewitt. The house has a large spider web window, still containing the original glass over the door and full-height pilasters dividing bays and inside, many stunning carved mantles and woodwork.
Buildings of New England 
