Having the tall order of being a neighbor to the later Westover School, the town of Middlebury’s Central School still packs an architectural punch. The school was built in 1898, replacing the former Union Academy building also near the town green. The school building is Neo-Classical in style with a projecting pedimented portico supported by four columns. A cupola extends through the roofline and shingle siding add some charm to the small two-room school building. The former school later housed the Middlebury Public Library and is now occupied by the Middlebury Historical Society.
Any good gentleman’s farm needs a superintendent to actually oversee all the labor being done to harvest crops and take care of the livestock (because a millionaire owner cannot be burdened to deal with such mundane matters…) When John Howard Whittemore, a successful industrial-era businessman purchased an old farm in Middlebury, Connecticut to spend summers and time out of industrial malaise, he knew that along with a summer home for his family, he would need to build other structures on the 300-acres of rolling hills. The famed architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White was hired by Whittemore to design many of the buildings on the grounds, from the main house, to the superintendent’s cottage to a boathouse. The firm designed this superintendent’s cottage (which currently looks to be getting a new roof) and the creamery in the rear. Both are great examples of the Shingle style in modest, agricultural structures.
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.
The Highfield house is a historic building located in Middlebury, Connecticut. The House, surrounded by over 600 acres of land, was the former summer estate of Columbia University law professor Joseph and his wife, Elizabeth Chamberlain. They commissioned Theodate Pope Riddle, one of the first licensed female architects in America to build this comfortable English Arts and Crafts style cottage on a hill above a lake. It is likely that after the Westover School was completed in town, the Chamberlains were excited to see how Theodate could design them a summer house in the similar Arts and Crafts style. The estate was completed in 1914 and stands two-stories with the second floor concealed within the steeply pitched gable roof. Like Westover, the building was stuccoed. In the 1950s, the estate was purchased by a group of individuals who dedicated the complex as a family and country club with golf, tennis courts, and pool. It is known as the Highfield Club today.
One of the more substantial buildings in the small town of Middlebury, Connecticut is this large church which faces the town green. In 1904 St. John of the Cross Parish was granted ecclesiastical status however, a decade would pass before the newly constructed stone church on the Middlebury Green was dedicated on November 22, 1914. The building was constructed in rubblestone with a Classical Revival temple-front pavillion and two Renaissance Revival square towers with open belfries. Reports stated that the building took over five years to construct, which was almost entirely built with volunteer labor and built with stones taken from parishioners fields. The architect of the church is unknown.
At the heart of the rural community of Middlebury, comprised largely of Connecticut farmers, far from the hustle and bustle of the world, Mary Robbins Hillard (1862-1932) sought to create a girls school to “provide young women with a liberal education in a community which would contribute to the development of their character, independence and sense of responsibility.” To accomplish this, they needed a school, and Mary hired her good friend (and architect) Theodate Pope Riddle to design the private girl’s school campus and main buildings on a site fronting the town green. The school opened in 1909 with125 pupils, slightly over capacity. For the design Theodate Pope Riddle – who was one of the first American women architects and a survivor of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania – took inspiration from English Arts and Crafts and historical precedence in English schools with large open courtyard plans. Originally finished in a gray stucco, the building enclosed a quadrangle at the rear. Inside, administration offices, reception rooms, living rooms, a library, gymnasium, chapel, dining rooms, infirmary, and (of course) classrooms lined the interiors on a closed loop to allow students and teachers access to all parts of the building without ever stepping outside in the cold New England winters. The Westover School remains active and one of the highest ranked private schools in the area today, and with a more cheery yellow coat!
The oldest extant church building in Middlebury, Connecticut is a church that no longer is, the former Middlebury Methodist Church. Built in 1832, this building sits across from the Town Hall and Congregational Church and together, they form the eastern edge of the town green. The building is a more refined example of the Greek Revival style with paired entrances, corner pilasters, and a pediment facing the street with blind fan within. By the early 20th century, the church had a dwindling membership and sold the building in 1923 to the Westover School which opened just over a decade earlier. The building was used as a library for the school for some time and still is under the ownership of the esteemed private institution to this day, who maintain the former church very well.
Located next door to the Middlebury Town Hall, the Middlebury Congregational Church has a very similar history to its Classically inspired counterpart. The congregational church here was established in 1791, less than a year after a separate Middlebury ecclesiastical society was granted and the first church here was erected in 1794. Decades later, a more traditional and larger church was desired by the congregation, so they had a Greek Revival style church built in 1839. Nearly 100 years later, the church (and adjacent original town hall building) burned in a large fire in April 1935. Undeterred, the congregation hired architect Elbert G. Richmond, AIA (1886-1965), who as a young man worked in the New Haven office of J. Frederick Kelly, Connecticut’s first and most famous restoration architect. The present building is a near-replica of the mid-19th century church building, and even has a bell that was recast from pieces of the old bell that crashed through the building during the earlier fire. Talk about rebirth!
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.
Buildings of New England 