PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD RECIPIENTS
| 2016 | 2015 |
Connecticut Treasures, formerly a part of the People’s Choice program, features the wealth and diversity of buildings from each of the eight Connecticut counties. The public is invited every year to vote for a favorite building for this state-wide award.
On Church Street facing the New Haven Green is New Haven City Hall, one of the country’s earliest and finest designs in the High Victorian style. It is a work of Henry Austin, and contains an elaborate iron staircase. The polychrome façade in various sandstone and limestone shades was restored in 1976. The historic façade was incorporated into the updated City Hall in 1993-1994.
The 2025 category is Museums. Voting opens July 21 and closes July 27 at 11:59pm.
Vote using the form at the bottom of the page or click here. You can only vote once.
The foundation for the Ukrainian Museum and Library of Stamford was laid by Bishop Constantine Bohachevsky in 1933 with the purchase of the Quintard estate and the subsequent announcement in 1935 of plans to establish a cultural institution on the premises. During the organizational and preparatory period beginning in 1935, continuous efforts were made to engage and broaden interest in this project within the Ukrainian communities in the United States and to develop awareness of the need to establish a museum and library. The Museum and Library’s official opening and dedication took place in September 1937. For the first four decades, museum exhibitions were held in two great rooms of the mansion. Since the 1980s, the museum exhibition space has expanded to two floors of the mansion, and the library and archives were moved to their own building, the former St. Basil Preparatory School. The Ukrainian Museum and Library of Stamford is incorporated in the State of Connecticut.
The beautiful edifice, commonly called the Chateau, was originally constructed as a private state in 1867 by Edward A. Quintard. Ancestors of Quintard purchased the ground upon which the Chateau stands in 1708. Its elegant stone façade, slate roof, and tall windows speak to the craftsmanship of late 19th-century European-inspired architecture.
The Wadsworth Atheneum is comprised of five connected buildings. In 1841, Hartford native Daniel Wadsworth (1771‒1848) announced plans to open a public art gallery. With help from friends and donors, he expanded his vision and founded an athenaeum, a cultural center dedicated to art, literature, and history. Opened in 1844, the Wadsworth building is constructed of Connecticut granite from plans started by Hartford-based architect Henry Austin and finalized by Ithiel Towne and Alexander Jackson Davis.
The Cornwall Historical Society occupies a nineteenth-century Italianate-style carriage house that was constructed for John T. Andrew (1811-1887), who owned the nearby house at 9 Pine Street. Built ca. 1865, the building is notable for its cupola and its wide molded eaves with elaborate brackets. Historians believe that the carriage house may have been the work of master builder Cyrus William Marsh (1824-1899) of Cornwall. The building was later converted into a residence.
In September 1966, the Cornwall Historical Society acquired the building and started using it as its new headquarters and exhibition space. The Society made few changes to the building except to add a vault for its most precious collections.
In 2007, with the help of a grant and funds raised from the community, the building was renovated and a new addition was constructed. The process took almost two years to complete and focused on returning the exterior of the building to its original appearance. The building is one of the few structures in town executed in the full-blown Italianate style.
The Connecticut River Foundation at Steamboat Dock was established in 1974 as a small, all-volunteer organization dedicated to the dream of establishing a museum that would preserve the history of the Connecticut River and its people. The purchase of the 1878 Steamboat Warehouse building, docks and surrounding property was the beginning of that dream becoming a reality. Today, the Connecticut River Museum is a private, not-for-profit, education institution that is fully accredited by the American Alliance of Museums and is a member of the Council of American Maritime Museums and the International Congress of Maritime Museums. In 2012, the Museum expanded its ability to tell the
stories of the Connecticut River and its people through the purchase of the historic Samuel Lay House, which adjoins the Museum campus. The Connecticut River Museum currently plays an important role in collecting and protecting manuscripts, books, art and artifacts of regional significance. It also delivers high-quality exhibitions and educational programming to visitors and local residents alike, and each year introduces thousands of school children to the important stories of the River and its people. We maintain our National Registered buildings on Steamboat Dock in Essex, and provide a spectacular waterfront park as a venue for museum functions, community events and quiet reflection.
Source: https://ctrivermuseum.org/
Construction of the Henry Whitfield House began in 1639 when a group of English Puritans, including Reverend Henry Whitfield and his family, entered into an agreement with the Menunkatuck band of the Quinnipiac tribe and renamed the area Guilford. Built of local granite, the house was one of the colonial settlement’s four stone houses that functioned as defensive buildings and private homes. It is now considered to be Connecticut’s oldest house and New England’s oldest stone house. Since 1900, it has been owned and operated by the State of Connecticut as a public museum, and the site is a State Archaeological Preserve.
The house underwent many structural changes over the course of its nearly 400 years. Restored by noted architects Norman Isham and J. Frederick Kelly in the early 1900s, it is an important example of Colonial Revival restoration work and was named a National Historic Landmark based on these historic preservation projects.
The Henry Whitfield House is a physical reminder of the European settler colonialism of the 1600s, as well as the Colonial Revival era of the 1800s-1900s that celebrated and glorified European ethnocentricity and superiority. The museum is striving to confront the facts about the site’s history in order to acknowledge past injustice, recognize how that injustice manifests in society today, and work towards an equitable future for all people.
Designed by Samuel Belcher, architect of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, and built for William Noyes in 1817, the Late Georgian-style mansion reflects the affluent, formal style of living during Old Lyme’s maritime era.
Visitors can tour the Florence Griswold House. The Late Georgian mansion was transformed from a wealthy sea captain’s home into a boardinghouse for some of the most noted names in American Impressionism. Over 200 artists such as Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, and Matilda Browne found the lush countryside of Connecticut the perfect location for an American art colony.
The most remarkable feature of Miss Florence’s home is its painted panels. Throughout the boardinghouse years, artists painted scenes from classic Old Lyme subjects to exotic and faraway places on the wooden panels throughout the house. In the dining room alone, there are nearly 40 paintings for visitors to explore. There is no other room like it in America.
The William Benton Museum of Art has an interesting and colorful past. While it opened officially as an art museum in 1967, its roots go back to the early 20th century and the days of the Connecticut Agricultural College before it became the University of Connecticut.
The original Museum building was constructed in 1920 and served as The Beanery, the campus’s main dining hall until the mid-1940s. The building is a small, Collegiate Gothic structure, with a gracious sculpture garden. It is among the core campus buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Source: https://benton.uconn.edu/about/
The Windham Textile & History Museum (also known as the Mill Museum) was founded in 1989 in Willimantic, a former industrial borough located in the Town of Windham in Windham County, CT. At that time, the Museum acquired ownership of two buildings and grounds that had been part of a factory complex once owned by the American Thread Company. ATCO had shut down its massive, multi-building Willimantic plant in 1985 and moved out of state. The new owner of the plant, a real estate developer named Jonathan Dugan, subsequently transferred two of the plant’s smaller buildings to the Museum as a gift. Both buildings are located on the north side of Main Street, across the street from the rest of the plant, on a triangular lot bounded by Main Street on the south, Union Street on the northeast, and two privately owned parcels (one containing a Main Street commercial building, the other a Union Street dwelling) on the west. A small, paved parking lot lay between the two buildings, and was part of Dugan’s gift. Both buildings were constructed into the side of Carey Hill, so that the first floor of each opened at ground level onto Main Street and the second floor of each opened at ground level onto Union Street.
Source: https://millmuseum.org/