Greens Farms Academy, founded in 1925, is a K-12 independent school in Westport, CT. Its main building is a private home that was adaptively reused as a school. The house was designed for Robert Thurlow Vanderbilt, founder of the Vanderbilt Chemical Company. The architect was Harrie T. Lindberg, the Stamford White protegé who was called “the American Lutyens”. Lindberg was versatile and designed in Colonial Revival as well as Elizabethan/Jacobean styles. While he was known for his large carefully proportioned residential commissions all over the country, he also designed the Vanderbilt Chemical Company headquarters in Norwalk, CT. and the US embassy in Helsinki, Finland.
The stone house overlooks a great lawn oriented towards Long Island Sound. Its entry form the opposite side is formed by an oval edged with mature apple trees followed by a stone and brick paved court. The simple geometry of the slate gabled roofline is punctuated by numerous chimneys. The elegant house and approach axis are sufficiently strong to organize additions and detached buildings that comprise the growing campus.
Serenely integrated into the historic fabric of Choate-Rosemary hall’s campus in Wallingford, CT. Rosemary Hall, a school for girls, was founded in 1890 by Mary Atwater Choate. In 1896 Mary’s husband, Judge William G. Choate, established The Choate School for boys on the same family property in Wallingford. Student rooms, faculty apartments, and shared spaces are configured to support community life indoors and outdoors.
In 1965, Horace Mann established the John Dorr Nature Laboratory in Washington, Connecticut with a gift of 83 acres. The Laboratory now encompasses 275 acres of fields, streams, and ponds in which students can explore nature and engage in outdoor pursuits.
Dorr’s resident four-person faculty instructs students in environmental science, conservation, and outdoor living. The John Dorr Nature Laboratory operates with the premise that it is vital to life on Earth to increase awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the world around us. The Dorr educational philosophy also incorporates the idea that self-esteem is a critical determinant of an individual’s growth. The Dorr experience demonstrates that community cannot be imposed but must grow out of experience; that it is a result of working together and relying on one another.
Middletown is a diverse New England community of nearly 48,000 residents located along the Connecticut River. Originally settled in the early 17th century, the city is a vibrant and eclectic community known for 350 years of innovation in maritime trade, commerce, manufacturing and the arts.
In 1955, Middletown's newest elementary school on Wadsworth Street was named for the educator, poet and former Governor of the State of Connecticut, C. Wilbert Snow.
The most distinguishing feature of the existing Snow School was its unusual decentralized configuration. Uncommon in the northeast United States, this “California-style” campus plan featured core areas arrayed along the bus loop/drop off and small detached grade-level classroom buildings set back into a heavily wooded site. In order for these PreK-5 students to engage in all-school programs, students and teachers were required to travel to these main buildings, frequently during inclement weather.
The Governance Committee of the Marine Science High School of Southeastern Connecticut began in 2000 to diligently research sites for the new school. This school was the result of a ten-year effort to bring together a wide variety of area partners in the development of a new high school to prepare students for higher education and/or marine related employment.
Through working with community leaders and the Town of Groton, a site for the Marine Science Magnet High School was established in Groton and the newly constructed school opened its doors on September 1, 2011.
In June 2014, MSMHS held its first graduation at the University of Connecticut Avery Point campus. Twenty-three students from the Class of 2014 received the first-ever MSMHS high school diploma in the presence of LEARN Executive Director Dr. Eileen Howley, USCGA Rear Admiral Sandra Stosz, and MSMHS Principal Dr. Nicholas Spera.
With his wife, Harriet, William E. Peck purchased the Charles Grosvenor Inn and, on October 3, 1894, Pomfret School was born.
Peck’s personal reputation and charisma helped get the young school going. By the beginning of the 1896–1897 school year, Pomfret had doubled in size, growing from 42 to 80 students and from 6 to 11 faculty members. During those early years, the Pecks lived in one of the cottages attached to the inn. A single building (the first “main house”) housed the dormitory, classrooms, and dining hall, and a nearby stable served as the first gymnasium.
In the next 122 years, the school saw 13 Headmasters, 2 World Wars, (numerous regional conflicts), significant growth, financial crisis, evolution to coed education, massive changes in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, cultural diversity, success’ & failures in athletics, the construction of many significant buildings and the expansion of their main campus. The school currently has 350 students including representatives of 23 States and 20 countries.
The campus occupies 500 acres of a hilltop in Northwestern Connecticut.
The grounds were laid out by world-renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and many of the original buildings were designed by the celebrated Beaux-Arts architect Ernest Flagg. Today, the Hilltop is a wonderful amalgam of old and new, blending iconic landmarks like Clark Memorial Chapel with airy facilities like the Centennial Academic and Arts Center. Pomfret is bounded by several hundred acres of open space including natural meadows, forested uplands, miles of walking trails, and Wappoquia Brook. This Quiet Corner of Connecticut is less than an hour from Boston, Hartford, and Providence, and only three hours from New York City.
Avon Old Farm School was founded in 1918 by Theodate Pope Riddle, one of America’s first license female architects. In addition to her mission to educate, Theodate designed and supervised the building of the Cotswold – inspires Arts and Craft campus between 1918 and 1927. She insisted that the building materials be gathered and made on site to the greatest extent possible, and that they be durable to serve the boys of the school, as illustrated with her own words: “Beauty of material and authentic design, yes, but imagine the boys trooping in with muddy boots from the farm and you will see the reason for stone floors and excellently strong and simple furniture!”
In addition to material and use sensitivity, Theodate directed that the techniques used for construction were authentic to the Cotswold tradition. In this regard, her approach and the resulting school campus could be considered an early model of sustainable community development
The East School was built in 1870, during a period of rapid growth in Rockville caused by the post-Civil War economic boom and was designed to relieve crowding pressure on smaller district schools. The era in which it was built also coincided with Rockville's continuing economic prosperity and was built to provide a higher level of education called for by the area's employers. Although it was state of the art at the time of its construction, it served the town as a high school only until 1924, and now houses school administrative offices
Please cast your vote below!
Green Farms Academy
Choate Rosemary Hall
Horse Mann School, John Dorr Nature Laboratory
Wilbery Snow Elementary School
Marine Science Magnet High School
Pomfret School
Suffield Academy
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