stucco buildings

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.

Miss Grace Nichols House // 1913

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Located at the western end of Chestnut Street in the Flat of Beacon Hill, you will find this stucco residence, one of the finest mansions in Boston. The four-story residence with two entrances is built of brick and covered with stucco and was constructed for Miss Grace Nichols (1874-1944), the daughter of John Howard Nichols, who worked for John Lowell Gardner (the husband of Isabella Stewart Gardner) as a merchant transporting goods between Boston and Chinese markets, before overseeing mills. As a single woman, Grace inherited much of her parents wealth upon their deaths, and in 1913, hired architect, William Chester Chase, to design her Beacon Hill home in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, similar to Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Fenway Court mansion (1903). Grace Nichols married Richard Pearson Strong, a Harvard professor and medical researcher, in 1936 and the couple lived here with servants until their deaths in 1944 and 1948 respectively. After their death, the building was either purchased by or willed to the Boston Society of Natural History and the New England Museum of Natural History, which moved out of their Berkeley Street location in 1946. The Nichols Mansion served as the new Boston Museum of Science until 1951, when the new and current museum was built between Boston and Cambridge. Today, the former Nichols mansion is five condominium units, with owners having one of the most enchanting and unique properties in the exclusive Beacon Hill neighborhood.

Derby Neck Library // 1907

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The Derby Neck Library in Derby, Connecticut, is a beautiful example of an early 20th century library and one of a few Carnegie libraries in the state. The beginnings of the library began in 1897, when Wilbur F. Osborne and his wife, Ellen Davis Osborne, who lived at the nearby Osborne Farm, donated $50 to the nearby school to begin a small library in the building. After years of growth, Wilbur Fisk Osborne, requested funds from Andrew Carnegie, who was donating money to communities all across the country for such purposes, to build a new library for Derby Neck. In 1906, Carnegie donated $3,400 to the community, and planning began on the building. Sadly, Osborne died around the time the library opened in 1907. The building was designed in the Classical Revival style by architect, Henry Killam Murphy of Connecticut. Osborne’s daughter, Frances Osborne Kellogg, who inherited her father’s farmhouse nearby, directed the library until her death in 1956. The building was expanded in 1972 and again in 1999.