From Stone House to Glass House: Connecticut’s House Museums
by Karin
Peterson, Museum Director, Connecticut Commission on Culture &
Tourism
New England is well known for its many historic house museums and Connecticut alone has
over 200. The Commission of Culture & Tourism invites the public to view an
exhibit on Connecticut’s historic houses,
“From Stone House to Glass House” in its gallery at One
Constitution Plaza
(second floor), Hartford
during business hours. The exhibit opens April 1 with a special viewing between
3:00 and 7:00 p.m. and continues through May 28. This exhibit tells the collective
story of the state’s historic house museums by focusing on the opening of select
museum houses and linking them to personalities, organizations and legislation.
Women’s groups led the earliest
efforts to save historic houses from uncertain futures. Town chapters of the
Daughters of the American Revolution began forming in Connecticut in 1892 and the National Society
of Colonial Dames, led by Elizabeth Colt, established a Connecticut Society in
1893. These fledging organizations were especially active in the first part of
the 20th century. Their preservation efforts focused on saving old
buildings associated with illustrious citizens or events.
The Henry
Whitfield Museum
in Guilford was
one of their successes and the museum house starts the exhibit time line. Long
recognized as an important relic from the past, it seemed to many that the
house should be publicly owned and preserved forever. In response to a petition
from the Colonial Dames, the Connecticut General Assembly passed a resolution in
1899 naming it the State
Historical Museum.
Shortly thereafter, a group of concerned citizens purchased the Knapp Tavern or
“Putnam Cottage,” in Greenwich,
the 1779 headquarters of General Israel Putnam, to save it from demolition. Connecticut’s historic
house museum movement was on its way.
Historical societies also were early
involved with historic house making as they sought to preserve landmarks
important to their story. In 1907 the New London County Historical Society undertook
a fund drive to purchase the Shaw
Mansion and all its
contents from the last family member living there. The house had been the headquarters
for Connecticut’s
navy during the American Revolution and among the house’s treasures was a tea
table taken as prize from a privateer in 1778. There was such support and widespread
interest that the newspaper daily reported the amount raised. Similarly, in
1929, the Litchfield Historical Society purchased the home of its best known
resident, Tapping Reeve, who established American’s first law school.
Early preservation activities tended
to be local. The exception was the establishment of the statewide Antiquarian
and Landmarks Society in 1936. Although begun with the intent to stimulate interest
in Connecticut history after the heightened awareness generated by the
Tercentenary, A&L soon found itself being offered—and accepting—historic houses
to be museums. Its first museum house, Nathan
Hale Homestead in Coventry,
opened in 1948. Its second museum house, Buttolph-Williams in Wethersfield, which opened two years later,
reflected a shift in preservation criteria to architectural merit and integrity
with less emphasis on a famous owner.
Connecticut preservation received a big
boost with the establishment of the Connecticut Historical Commission (now part
of the Commission on Culture & Tourism) in 1955. However, the state
allotted only limited funds until 1966, when the National Historic Preservation
Act required each state to have a State Historic Preservation Office. Thus, the
CHC was able to assume oversight of the Henry Whitfield house and acquire the
Prudence Crandall house, now an historic house museum, to save it from
demolition. In 1971 the CHC provided funds to assist the Society for the
Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England) with the
purchase of Roseland Cottage in Woodstock.
Its acquisition signaled another milestone—the recognition by architectural
historians and the public of the value and need to preserve Victorian houses.
While some historic houses joined
the public domain effortlessly by gift, by bequest, or by purchase, others
required years of struggle and legal battles. Katherine Seymour Day led the
fight to save the Hartford
house where Samuel Clemens wrote some of his most famous books after it was
sold to a developer in 1921. Although no longer threatened with demolition,
there were no funds for restoration or operation as a museum. The house was
used as a public library with rented apartments. It was not restored and opened
to the public as the Mark Twain House until 1974. One of the grandest
residences in the Connecticut, the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion
was being used by the City of Norwalk
as its public works garage. A grassroots movement formed to save it from
demolition in 1962. The bitter fight included a citywide referendum and a legal
battle which went all the way to the Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors.
The Glass House, seminal example of
the Modernist architectural style, brings the story of Connecticut historic house museums to the
present. Built in 1949 by architect Philip Johnson, it was bequeathed to the
National Trust for Historic Preservation and opened to the public in 2007.
New England is well known for its many historic house museums and Connecticut alone has
over 200. The Commission of Culture & Tourism invites the public to view an
exhibit on Connecticut’s historic houses,
“From Stone House to Glass House” in its gallery at One
Constitution Plaza
(second floor), Hartford
during business hours. The exhibit opens April 1 with a special viewing between
3:00 and 7:00 p.m. and continues through May 28. This exhibit tells the collective
story of the state’s historic house museums by focusing on the opening of select
museum houses and linking them to personalities, organizations and legislation.
