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Reuben Curtiss House // c.1840

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The Reuben Curtiss House is a classic example of a Greek Revival farmhouse from the mid-19th century, located in Southbury, Connecticut. Local history states that a house built here by Israel Curtiss (1716-1795) who farmed the land with his large family. In 1798, Israel’s large estate was distributed among three of his sons, Joseph, Benjamin, and Reuben. This was complicated by the fact that in the same year, both Joseph and Benjamin died, leaving the entire estate to Reuben. From about 1840 and possibly until he sold the property in 1866, Reuben B. Curtiss ran an academy here, known as “Buck Hill Seminary for Boys.” It was a large operation, as suggested by the size of the addition and confirmed by the 1850 federal census. At that time there were 23 students in residence, ranging in age from 8 to 12, along with four adult supervisors. It was likely that the former farmhouse was expanded and the present 1840s Greek Revival block was added which now is the main facade.

Tranquility Farm – Farmhouse and Barn // c.1840

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Tranquillity Farm, spanning the rolling hills around Lake Quassapaug in Middlebury Connecticut, was originally a 303-acre model/gentleman’s farm developed by John Howard Whittemore, a successful industrial-era businessman in Naugatuck, and his wife Julia Spencer Whittemore. Whittemore was a major figure in Naugatuck, sponsoring a series of commissions of McKim, Mead & White for buildings in the city center. For his country farm estate, he again commissioned McKim, Mead & White to design a new country house, a farm superintendent’s house, boat house on the lake, and other outbuildings for a working farm. An older farm was purchased, which included a modest Greek Revival style farmhouse dating to the early-mid 19th century (seen here) and a large wooden barn. Both of these were kept and incorporated into the estate near the southern entrance to the property, possibly to harken visitors back to the charm of rural living. The sweeping landscape, featuring miles of distinctive stone walls lining the roads and crisscrossing the fields, was designed by Charles Eliot and completed by Warren H. Manning – both protégée of Olmsted.

Middlebury Town Hall // 1936

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The first white settlers arrived in what is now the Town of Middlebury, Connecticut in the early 1700s, displacing Algonquin people who lived there long before. By the late 1700s, there was sufficient population to justify a petition to the General Assembly for establishment of a separate Middlebury ecclesiastical society, and such action was taken by the legislature December 29, 1790. They named the new town Middlebury due to its location between the existing towns of Waterbury, Woodbury and Southbury. The first church edifice was completed four years later, on the town green in the center of the new town. Other buildings normally found in a village center followed, including store, tavern, school, blacksmith shop and other churches. The town grew organically as a more agricultural center and saw some suburban development due to the proximity to larger population centers. In 1935, a fire destroyed the existing 1840s church and 1890s town hall, forcing the town to rebuilt. They hired J. Frederick Kelly, who was not only an architect but a historian who restored many significant buildings all over the state, to furnish plans for a new town hall. The present Classical/Colonial Revival building features two columns in antis and recessed pediment that echoes the adjoining Greek Revival church, but the Town Hall is executed in brick instead of wood (to give it more fireproofing than the last building). On the sides, the building has elliptical and round-headed windows and other elaborate details that suggest the Federal style.

Southport Congregational Church // 1875

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Southport was and still is a part of Fairfield, Connecticut, but it has long been very different from the geographic center of town. Largely due to distance, Fairfield Congregationalists in the Southport area of town sought to establish a new parish to worship closer to home. By the 1840s, their request was granted and a small wood-frame Greek Revival house of worship was built in 1843. By 1871, the increase in population and wealth in the village necessitated a new, larger church. The congregation hired the architectural team of Lambert and Bunnell who made a huge statement here! It is constructed of granite ashlar masonry with a steeply pitched roof and soaring spires.

Trinity Parish Chapel, Southport // 1872

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The Trinity Episcopal Church in the Southport section of Fairfield, Connecticut was established in 1725. As the parish and town grew, a large and architecturally stunning church was erected in 1862, and housed services for some of the wealthiest and well-connected residents of Connecticut. During Rev. Edward Wells’ rectorship, it was decided that a parish school was needed, and as an ardent believer in religious training, he started planning for a new chapel for use as a school. The Trinity Parish Chapel was designed by Southport architects Disbrow & Taylor and erected 1871-72. This Gothic Revival building is an excellent example of the rural church architecture which enjoyed widespread popularity throughout the country during the mid 19th century. Designed on a simple rectangular and decorative wooden bell cote, the small chapel’s board-and-batten siding and modest though strong Gothic details create a composition which compliments the more grand church just steps away. The chapel was originally built as a free-standing building, but was connected by a large, brick addition in the 20th century.

Oliver Perry House // 1843

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This imposing Greek Revival house is located in Southport and is one of a handful of the stunning Classically designed mansions near the waterfront. The house was built in 1843 for Oliver Perry a Yale Law School graduate who did not work in law, but became a successful merchant and businessman instead. Oliver H. Perry established his fortune as a shipowner and a merchant and was Treasurer and Director of the Southport National Bank. He was active in civic affairs and served as speaker of the house of the Connecticut General Assembly and commissioner to survey and settle the border dispute between Connecticut and New York. His Southport house is a stunning example of the Greek Revival style in the temple form with a two-story projecting pedimented portico supported by four Doric columns.

Frederic Bronson Barn // c.1895

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Not many buildings in Greenfield Hill, Fairfield, Connecticut showcase the neighborhood’s transition from farming community to affluent suburb quite as well as this stone barn turned house on Hillside Road. The stone barn was constructed around c.1895 for Frederic Bronson Jr. (1851-1900) a prominent New York attorney and treasurer of the New York Life and Trust Company which was founded by his grandfather, Isaac Bronson. In about 1892, Frederic demolished his ancestral home and hired architect Richard Morris Hunt to design a new country estate for his family. The house was called Verna and is also located in Fairfield. Today Verna is known best as the Fairfield County Day School. As with many wealthy men of the Gilded Age, Frederic wanted his rural retreat to also work as a gentleman’s farm, where he could have staff farm and tend to livestock on the expansive rolling hills bounded by historic stone walls. He appears to have had this barn built for his livestock shortly after the main house, Verna was completed nearby. Bronson died in 1900 and some of the property was later sold off. This property was acquired by a Charles Stillman in 1941 and it is likely him that converted the barn into a charming residence.

Harold C. Bullard House // 1927

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Some towns have the best (and high quantity of) examples of Colonial Revival houses in New England, and Fairfield, Connecticut is definitely one of those towns! This house on Barlow Road was erected in 1927 by Harold Camp Bullard (1879-1949), an engineer at the Bullard Machine Tool Company of Bridgeport, which was started by his father. The architect of the house is unknown, but the property stands out for its bold proportions, prominent Palladian window over the rounded entry portico, and rounded dormers at the gambrel roof.

Bradley-Wakeman House // c.1815

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While the Greenfield Hill section of Fairfield, Connecticut has some of the grandest houses (old and new) in the state, there are some more average size homes that just ooze charm and curb appeal. This example on Hillside Road, dates to the 1810s and was seemingly built by Alban Bradley (1767-1832) on land inherited by him from his late father, Seth Bradley. The family farmed on the land from this Federal period farmhouse until it sold out of the family by Alban’s only son, Burritt in 1825. Burritt sold the farm to Zalmon Wakeman who farmed on the many acres of valuable land there. Sometime before his death before the Civil War, the house was “modernized” with Italianate-style porch, which is supported by delicate cut trelliswork. This is a great illustration as to how modest renovations which apply up-to-date decorative details can be done to historic properties without compromising the original structure or its architectural integrity.

Reverend Richard and Lavinia Dey House // 1823

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Richard Varick Dey (1801-1837) was a young divinity student from New York City, attending the Theological Seminary in New Brunswick, New Jersey, when he met Lavinia Agnes Scott (1805-1886). Dey was the son of prominent New York attorney Anthony Dey and Catharine Laidlie; Catherine’s father, the Rev. Archibald Laidlie, was the first minister called to preach in English in the Dutch Church in New York City. Richard and Lavinia fell in love and became engaged on December 27, 1820. However, Lavinia’s parents were opposed to Richard, and her father even asked Richard’s theology professors at Rutgers to try to discourage his pursuit of Lavinia. It did not work and they married in September 1822. After graduating from the Seminary in 1822, Richard was licensed by the Congregationalists and the young couple moved to Greenfield Hill, in Fairfield, Connecticut, where he preached from 1822-1829. Local history states that it was actually Lavinia who designed this house in 1823 for their family and oversaw the builders during its construction. The Federal style house stands out for its clear Dutch form with its roof projecting to create a recessed verandah, likely influenced by the couple’s New York/New Jersey upbringing.

Reverend Dey, Lavinia, and their children relocated to New York City, and Richard preached at a number of churches the before he died unexpectedly in 1837, leaving his 32-year-old widow with four young children. Lavinia remained in New York, where she served as the manager of The Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children for over 25 years. She never would remarry and died in 1886.

Pomeroy-Belden House // c.1758

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This stunning gambrel-roofed Georgian manse is located on Bronson Road in Fairfield’s Greenfield Hill neighborhood, a well-preserved in the northern part of town with large historic homes on large lots. The Pomeroy-Belden House was built in about 1760 for Seth Pomeroy (1733-1770), the son of Seth Pomeroy Sr. (1706-1777) a gunsmith and soldier from Northampton, Massachusetts, who served in King George’s War, the French and Indian War, and the Revolutionary War (at nearly seventy years old). Seth Jr. graduated from Yale in 1753, and would accept the call as the minister of the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church from 1757 until his death in 1770. He had this stately house built for his family during his time as minister. After his death, the house was purchased by Captain David Hubbell who used it as a store until it was purchased by Reverend William Belden, who served as pastor of the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church from 1812-1821. The Georgian mansion features a central double-door entry with traditional door surround, later shingle siding and a gambrel, wood shingle roof punctuated by three small dormers.

Greenfield Hill Congregational Church // 1855

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Local residents of northern Fairfield successfully petitioned the General Assembly to establish a Congregational church in 1725 as a new Northwest Parish, a distinct group from the Fairfield Congregational Church. Their first meeting house was erected just years later in 1727. A larger, more substantial meetinghouse was built in 1760. The area of Greenfield Hill has always been remote and more suburban, but became important in the late 18th century when Timothy Dwight became minister of the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church in 1783. Dwight would go on to become the eighth president of Yale College (1795–1817). With increased funds and affluent members, another church was built in 1850 from plans by esteemed architect Richard Upjohn, in the Gothic style. Sadly, just years after it was completed, a fire from a furnace inside destroyed the church. So again, they rebuilt in 1855 with the building we see today, sort of. Architect Alfred Nash furnished plans for the building which was more Italianate in design. The church would be modernized in the 1940s in the Colonial Revival style, from plans by local architect Cameron Clark, likely inspired by the collection of Colonial-era homes nearby, including his own home in Greenfield Hill. The church remains a visual anchor for the affluent neighborhood.

Roswell B. Fitch House // c.1850

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Roswell Burrows Fitch (1833-1908) was born in the seaside village of Noank to parents Elisha and Mary P. Fitch. At twelve years of age he commenced to be self-supporting, and from then until he was fourteen, occupied a clerkship in a general store in town. In his teens, summers were spent aboard ships fishing for a livelihood, and his winters attending school. Upon completing his education, he became clerk in a store, and was afterwards engaged to assume the management of a union store which was erected for the special purpose of being placed under his charge. The store, located on Main Street in Noank, was eventually fully purchased by Fitch, and he did well financially. He may have had this house built or merely bought it years after it was built in the mid-19th century. When he sold his business in 1890, he “Victorianized” the classically designed Greek Revival style house with Queen Anne embellishments. The renovations in 1890 included an octagonal tower, an elaborate porch, a two-door entry likely replaced the sidelights and transom, brackets and applied decoration at the gable and cornice, and a Palladian window which was a Colonial-inspired addition. Hodge-podge or eclectic houses are some of the most fun!

Robert Henry Peckham House // 1872

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Another of Noank’s stunning Victorian-era seaside cottages is the 1872 Robert Henry Peckham house which is located across the street from the village’s most ornate cottage, the Deacon Robert Palmer House (featured previously). The house exhibits a gambrel roof which reads as a mansard roof at the side elevations. A round arched window is set into the gable end. Decorative cut bargeboards add much complexity to the design. It appears that in the early 20th century, as Noank was re-establishing itself as an artist colony, the owners added the small wrap-around porch and stone garden wall.

Noank Train Depot // 1858

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Starting in 1848, rail service connecting New Haven and New London, Connecticut commenced to provide transit between two of the state’s economic centers. The New Haven and New London Railroad was completed in 1852 and almost immediately, work commenced on extending the line eastward as the New London and Stonington Railroad. This completed the “Shore Line” route between New York City and Boston through other lines and the span became re-organized and named the Shore Line Railway. One of the many village stops along the route was in Noank, in this 1858 rail depot. The small train station is covered in board-and-batten siding with an overhanging gable roof supported by brackets. In 1976, much of the shoreline track was purchased by Amtrak, which is now known as the Northeast Corridor. The Noank station was cancelled as a stop, and the building was sold from the holdings, it is now office space, seemingly for the Noank Village Boatyard.