connecticut architecture

Elliott-Russo House // c.1835

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Located at the corner of Wooster Place and Chapel Street in the iconic Wooster Square neighborhood of New Haven, this early Greek Revival style house is a physical landmark showcasing the evolution of the neighborhood in the 19th and 20th centuries. The residence was built around 1835 either for or purchased early on by Matthew Griswold Elliott (1805-1892), a businessman who later engaged in politics and became Vice President of the New Haven Savings Bank and a director of the New York and Hartford Railroad. In 1890, the property was purchased by Paulo “Paul” Russo, an Italian immigrant who was born in 1859, in Viggiano, Italy. His family moved to New York in 1869 and then New Haven in 1872. Paulo opened a small market in New Haven which became the first Italian-owned business in the state of Connecticut. In 1893, Russo became the first Italian to graduate from Yale Law School and he helped foster and grow the local Italian-American community around Wooster Square. After Paul Russo, Michael D’Onofrio, also of Italian descent, purchased the home and along with his wife, brothers, and friends, D’Onofrio transformed the building into a funeral home for over a decade before the house was converted to condominiums. The Elliott-Russo House is a landmark example of a hipped-roof, Greek Revival style residence with smooth flushboard siding, pilasters dividing the bays, and unique Greek meander motifs in the window lintels.

Olive Street Rowhouses // c.1865

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The Wooster Square area of New Haven, Connecticut, is comprised of a lovely collection of houses and institutional buildings from the 1830s through the late 19th century, showing the ever-changing taste of architectural styles from Greek Revival to Italianate to Second Empire and Queen Anne. These rowhouses on Olive Street serve as bookends to long rows of houses on Court Street, a narrow, one-way street radiating from Wooster Square. The buildings were developed by the Home Insurance Company, a fire insurance firm and developer that helped fuel the development of residential New Haven in the 1860s by investing in real estate, primarily with fireproof masonry buildings. These Italianate style rowhouses were built in the 1860s after the Civil War and were sold on speculation to middle-class families. All buildings retain the original bracketed cornices, brownstone sills, lintels, and basement facing, and projecting porticos at the entries.

St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church // 1904

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St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church in Wooster Square, New Haven, Connecticut, was established in 1889 to serve a burgeoning community of Italian immigrants and is said to be the oldest Italian Catholic church in the state. New Haven’s census of 1870 listed just ten Italian residents and by 1900, the census listed more than 5,000 Italian-born residents. Most of these Italian immigrants were drawn to New Haven for employment in the growing industrial and railroad industries and the proximity to New York, where many arriving immigrants passed through. New Haven’s Italian community centered around Wooster Square, where many today know all about the many Italian groceries and nationally known pizzerias. The Italian Community acquired a c.1855 church here by 1899 and following a fire, rebuilt the church in the current form. The New Haven-based architectural firm of Brown and Von Beren furnished plans for the Italian Renaissance Revival style renovations, which was completed in 1904 with bold central tower and stucco walls, retaining many original Italianate windows. The church has served as an important cultural and institutional landmark in New Haven for over 120 years and the congregation remains active.

Ye Olde Manse of Willington // c.1728

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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.

Lillibridge Farmhouse // c.1770

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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.

William H. Hall House // 1896

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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.

Clara Hall Elliott Memorial Church // 1909

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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.

Gardiner Hall, Jr. Company Factory // 1860+

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In 1860, Gardiner Hall Jr. (1839-1915) founded a spool cotton thread business called the Hall & Manning Company, and later renamed the Hall Thread Company. The new business failed in a year with the onset of the Civil War and the accompanying shortage of cotton. During the war, in 1861, Hall designed and patented a machine for finishing thread and moved to South Willington, Connecticut, founding the Gardiner Hall Jr. Company. He had a three-story mill building constructed around 1862 where his small operation took off. In the following decades, the factory complex expanded rapidly, and machine, blacksmith, and bleach and dye shops were built on the property to increase production. Coinciding with this growth, Gardiner Hall built tenements, a boarding house and a community building for his growing workforce in the 1870s nearby. Before his death in 1915, Hall donated funds to erect a memorial church in memory of his daughter, and donated generously to his workers. His son, William Henry took over operations and was succeeded by his sister, Rosa Hall, until the factory closed in 1954. The industrial buildings were used for decades from various manufacturing companies and today are occupied by retail stores, a tattoo parlor, and event space, perfect adaptive reuse!

Benjamin Franklin College & Pauli Murray College, Yale University // 2017

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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.

Becton Engineering and Science Center, Yale // 1968

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The Becton Engineering and Science Center at Yale is a behemoth academic building on Prospect Street containing offices, laboratories, a library, and an auditorium for the world-renowned institution. Discussions about a new engineering and science center began in 1965 after a generous donation by Yale alumni, Henry Prentiss Becton, and the University hired famous Modernist architect, Marcel Breuer to design the new building opposite the city’s Grove Street cemetery. For the design, Breuer used precast concrete panels and logical planning, to maximize interior space through the building which required less vertical columns in the floorplates. At the street, an elongated arcade provides views into the interior spaces and serves as a shelter from the weather. The arcade and facade above is supported by stunning buttress-like columns, a Modernist nod to the predominant Gothic buildings and character of Yale’s campus. A landmark example of the Brutalist style, the Becton Center serves as a great, and well-preserved example of an often maligned period of American architecture.