Blowing Into Windsor

From Dave Brigham:

My parents moved from Weatogue, Connecticut, where I grew up, to nearby Windsor many years ago. In the 11 years since I've run this blog, I've only posted a few things about Windsor, which was the first English settlement in the Nutmeg State (see February 27, 2020, "Shoot It If You Got It," September 20, 2017, "One-Stop Barnstorming Tour" and April 3, 2014, "Beat Hotel").

Recently, I arrived in town early for a day trip to visit my mom, so I ambled around the downtown. Here's what I found, in the order that I found it. Much of the information contained herein comes from the excellent Tour Windsor web site set up by the Windsor Chamber of Commerce, the Windsor Historical Society and First Town Downtown.

The former freight house built on Mechanic Street by the New Haven, Hartford & Springfield Railroad Company dates to around 1870. "Wide double doors could be slid open to allow carts laden with crates and parcels to be wheeled directly from the trains and into the building where the items were sorted for distribution," per the Tour Windsor web site. By the middle of last century, the building had fallen into disrepair as railroad use waned. In 1988, the Town of Windsor renovated and refurbished the old freight house. In 2007, the Windsor Art Center moved into the building.

Across Mechanic Street is the building, below, which dates to 1930.

There's nothing of particular interest about this place, not on the surface anyway. It may have been related to a nearby apartment complex in a former industrial space. Now, wouldn't it be great if I had pictures of those buildings? Yes, yes it would. But for some reason I didn't shoot First Town Square, which features a building that dates to 1852. Over the decades the factory was home to businesses including Eddy Electic Co., Sequassen Woolen Co., General Electric and cigarette maker P. Lorillard Co. Maybe I'll shoot First Town Square some other time.

Anyway, moving on....how about a historic train station?!

Completed in 1870, the Windsor Train Station was renovated in the 1980s and looks amazing. It is used by the Windsor Art Center, but also serves as an Amtrak stop on the line between Springfield and New Haven.

Next door to the train station is a building with a cool history, but unfortunately no present.

This is 25 Central Street. That fancy green - portico? - hasn't always been there. Check the Google Maps picture below. I'm not sure what to make of this architectural change.

As you can tell by the ICE CREAM sign painted on the wall, this place used to sell food. It was a bakery called Get Baked. I only went there a few times, but the muffins were great. My sister, who used to work around the corner from this place, raved about it. It closed two years ago.

In the back of the building was Central Street Antiques. I don't know when the business was founded, or when it moved (or went out of business). Not sure if there's anything inside the building; the only indication that the store used to be here is the partial sign on the back of the building.

Now for the history, per the Tour Windsor web site. "In 1922, Arthur W. Lovell built the Lovell Building that housed the Tunxis Theater. The structure replaced the Best Manufacturing Company that had operated on the site until a fire in 1919. The theater opened on December 9, 1922 showing 'Smilin" Through' with Norma Talmage and other silent motion pictures. Renovations in the 1930s allowed for patrons to hear 'talkies' with sound throughout. The theater changed hands, management, and names many times. Eventually, Central Street Antiques purchased the property and held auctions in the large space."

I never would have guessed this place started life as a theater.

Looking west from the rear of the old Tunxis Theater building, I spied the backside of 181 Broad Street, below.

I don't have anything to say about the back of this building, but stick around: I took a picture of the front, too!

Over on the corner of Union Street and Palisado Ave. is the former Train Wreck Tap Room.

This place closed some time during the last year, surely a victim of the pandemic shutdown. The building dates to 1945, according to one online source. When my parents first moved to Windsor, a whole bunch of us (my wife and kids, my sister, my parents, my brother and his family) would pile into the restaurant that was there for a while, The Whistle Stop. The food was really good and so was the beer selection.

In more recent years, when we go out to eat we stop into the Union Street Tavern, which is just down the street from the tap room.

This sturdy and handsome brick building was built in 1927. It served as the Windsor Fire Company’s headquarters until 1964. The Union Street Tavern restaurant opened in 2006, and features cool vintage fire and police department photos and memorabilia. With any luck, some time in the near future, my family and I will eat here again.

Across Union Street from the former Whistle Stop is a place with an interesting history.

Built in 1902 as a parish house for the First Church in Windsor, this building featured a kitchen, a reading room, a chapel and several parlors for church gatherings. In 1955, after building a new parish hall, the church sold the place to the Washington Lodge of Masons. In operation since 1825, the lodge continues to meet here.

In the side yard of James Selig Estate Jewelry & Antiques on Broad Street, I spied the pastoral scene below.

Sculpted by Phil Thulen, this is one of many "reclaimed critters" that the antique shop sells. Continuing south along Broad Street, I came to #181, the building with the whitewashed rear end I featured above.

Currently home to Family Pizzeria and Queen Nails, this building dates to 1935 and was the home of Snelgrove Florist for 80 years, according to this article from the Windsor Historical Society (scroll down to read about the florist and see a photo). Look closely and you'll see the ghost of the word "Florist." The photo in the article shows the full sign, as well as a neon FLORIST sign that the Snelgroves acquired at a trade show in Vegas (!).

On the west side of Broad Street is VFW Post 4740/Raymond B. McHugh Post.

Dedicated in 1941 as a post office, this classic brick goverrnment building held that position for 22 years. In 1965, the VFW Post opened, after spending the prior two decades in a local Greek Revival home at the foot of Stony Hill, per the Tour Windsor web site.

(Entrance to the VFW Post.)

Across Elm Street from the VFW hall is the Plaza Building, which dates to 1929.

If you guessed that this place was once a theater, you're right. "Over the years this building has housed numerous commercial ventures including a grocery store, movie theater, and Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream," per the Tour Windsor web site. In 2011, the building was acquired by the Sachdev family, which has been renovating it with plans to revive it as a theater, and to add a restaurant and convert second-floor apartments to office space.

(The rear addition dates to 1935.)

My inside source (my sister) tells me that the owners have hit some snags over the years of working on the Plaza, including the existence of an underground stream (!). There is a pond at Washington Park, a short distance west, that runs close to this building before draining on the east side of Broad Street, near the Loomis Chaffee School.

I'm not sure the status of the renovation, but the pandemic likely didn't help. Here's hoping good things start happening here soon.

Next to the VFW Post is the Windsor Trust Building.

Built in 1929, this bank was constructed from bricks saved from a private home that was razed on the site. It is now home to Windsor Federal Savings

Behind the bank, on Maple Street, is the Windsor Town House, which I featured in a stand-alone post that I linked to above.

I haven't found out anything about this place online. My source tells me this motel is likely home to a transient population. I'm guessing by the architectural style and the sign, that this place dates to the 1950s.

Across Maple Avenue from the Windsor Town House, tucked down a long driveway, is the building below. I think the best word to describe it is adorable.

Built in 1882, this brick Victorian gem was originally a fire station, the first in town, according to this post at an unidentifiable blog. Now home to Gottier Investments, it served as a firehouse until 1939.

(Side view of the Gottier Investments building.)

Across a small parking lot, on Broad Street, is the Mondovi Dental building, which has some great jazz-themed murals on the side.

(Billie Holiday painting.)

(Miles Davis painting.)

(Thelonius Monk painting.)

I don't know who the artist is, but I'm guessing these artworks were commissioned by Steve Lipman, Windsor's "Singing Dentist," who works in the building. Here's an interview and some music samples.

Next door to the dentist office is The Bean @226, a coffee shop located in a circa-1885 former post office.

In addition to the post office, this beautiful building has been home over the years to a drug store and many other businesses.

There are other buildings in the immediate downtown that are listed on Tour Windsor as historic, but I had limited time, and knew I wanted to check out some stuff along nearby Poquonock Avenue/Route 75. First up on that short list was the Windsor Music Centre.

In business since 1960, this place has got a cool vibe, with some neat artwork adorning the exterior.

A friend who grew up in Windsor told me that this place is (or was) run by the family of Al Anderson of NRBQ, a band founded in 1965 in Kentucky whose music spanned rockabilly, pop and jazz. The band's best-known song is probably "Ridin' In My Car."

Another cool one is "RC Cola and a Moon Pie."

As cool as the music shop is, the main event around the bend was quite a thrill to explore.

At first, I thought this complex at the corner of Poquonock Avenue and East Street was just a sort-of old retail building with some apartments or offices up top. And a convenience store with a cool plastic sign.

But once I saw the historic marker, I knew there was much more going on.

There's a sign on this building that says "BUILT 1640," which is, well, a little misleading, as I'll explain. In that year, Rev. John Warham established at this site what may have been the first grist mill in Connecticut, according to this Windsor Historical Society article. A succession of proprietors ran the mill for the next 150 or years. Col. James Loomis -- father of the five siblings who founded the Loomis Chaffee School -- ran the place for quite some time. Upon his death in 1862, Earl Simons bought the property and tore down the old mill, per the historical society article. "[I]t is said that he used some of the timbers to erect the earliest part of the building that currently stands on the site," the article continues. So the building is more than 150 years old, and parts of it are 380 years old. That's pretty cool.

By 1929, Farmers Grain & Supply Co. was in business here. From the 1940s into the '60s, Raymond Robbins operated Robbins Grain & Hardware in this location. After that, the Larsen family took over the business.

The Larsens' store is now closed. I'm not sure how long ago it went out of business, or whether something else will fill this space in the near future.

How about we wrap this up with a close-up of that awesome sign!

A Historic Life Change on Cape Cod

From Dave Brigham:

I vacationed on Cape Cod for many years with my wife and kids, as well as my wife's family, renting a variety of houses in Pocasset. Inevitably, each summer, someone raised the idea of buying our own house in the small village that is part of Bourne. I mostly ignored these conversations, as I wasn't interested in owning a second home.

During the summer of 2020, spurred in part by the pandemic, the conversation about owning a vacation home intensified between my wife and her sister. When they learned that a small cottage was about to hit the market, they decided to put in an offer. I didn't want to stand in the way, so I gave them three conditions: I don't want my name on anything, I don't want to have to do anything for the house, and I don't want to be expected to be there every time my wife wanted to go.

I can be quite the curmudgeon.

Long story, short: their offer wasn't accepted. But they persisted. Before long, my wife found a listing in the town of Sandwich. Long story, short: they bought the house, which is located in the Jarvesville Historic District, which is "centered on the site of the former Boston and Sandwich Glass Company factory," per Wikipedia.

Suddenly, I was excited to own a second home! I realized that my issue wasn't with buying a vacation property, but with doing so in Pocasset, because not much goes on there. But when my wife told me the house in Sandwich dates to 1858 and is a former tenement house for the glass factory, AND had a workshop in the back that had been converted to a guest house, AND that the bustling village I'd been to before was a short walk across Route 6A, well I was all in.

I became instantly hooked on our house, as well as the surrounding historic district. So naturally I have taken a lot of photos and done some research into the historic area.

So, let's check it out.

This is the workshop in our backyard. As you can see, the previous owner hung some cool old signs on this little guest house. There are neat touches like this throughout the property, although my wife tells me there were a lot more such flourishes when she and her sister first looked at the house. Many of them were sold at a yard sale prior to our closing.

There is a large shed on the property, as well as an old camper, below, that was used to store a lawnmower and other gardening stuff, I think.

I am somewhat obsessed with this little gem (OK, diamond in the rough). The inside is somewhat of a disaster, so restoring it for use as a sleeping quarters would require a mammoth amount of sweat equity and time. And I'm about as handy with tools as Roseanne Barr is with singing, so there's no way I can take this project on and finish it before I die. So what to do? Hire someone? Chip away at it with my wife and her sister and brother-in-law? That sounds like a good plan.

Railroad tracks cut right across our street; trains go by once in a while, more so during the summer. I knew the stars had aligned on this place when my wife told me about the rusty old train car you see below.

What better neighborhood oddity for the guy who runs the Backside of America blog?!

On my first stroll around the neighborhood, I spied the beauty below.

(Late '60s/early '70s Oldsmobile Cutlass wagon.)

Right around the corner from our place is Sandwich Auto Parts.

(Vintage Dodge Dart that I hope to one day see driving through the neighborhood.)

Hard by the railroad tracks, the auto parts building dates to 1850 and is known historically as the Keenan and Daniels Store. Perhaps this is where factory workers used to buy their groceries.

Across Church Street from the old store I found the garage below, which sits on a lot by itself, and may be part of the auto parts business.

As for the Boston and Sandwich Glass factory, it was torn down ages ago, but on the site where it stood from 1825-1888, there is a cool plaque, below, that features a map of the complex.

Built by Deming Jarves -- hence the name of the historic district -- the factory was one of the earliest in the nation to produce pressed glass, per Wikipedia. Jarves "chose Sandwich [for the factory] because of its proximity to a shallow harbor and the possibility of a canal being built through Cape Cod that would allow for the shipment of goods," according to the Sandwich Glass Museum web site. "The local availability of timber could be used to fuel the glass furnaces. Even the salt marsh hay and grasses could be used for packing material." The factory closed in 1888 amid disputes with a newly formed glassmakers' labor union, per Wikipedia. Below, a detail from the plaque map.

Jarves brought with him to Sandwich master glass blowers from the New England Glass Company in East Cambridge, Mass., where he previously been an executive. For more on the New England Glass Co., see October 19, 2018, "Through the Looking Glass." Jarves left Boston and Sandwich Glass in 1858 and started a competing company, Cape Cod Glass Works, close by. He ran it with his son, but both men were dead by 1869, and the company shuttered.

I aim to find out in the future whether that old factory site is accessible.

A short distance away from the glass factory plaque stands a Liberty Tree Monument, below.

"This American Liberty Elm was named after 'The Liberty Tree: Our Country's first Symbol of Freedom,'" the plaque reads in part. To quote myself, from a June 2018 blog post about the former Brigham's Hotel & Restaurant and a Sons of Liberty plaque located in Boston's current Chinatown neighborhood, "By 1765 the tree had become integral to the burgeoning revolutionary movement in Boston, and effigies of those who supported the Stamp Act were hung here. That year, the tree was dubbed the Tree of Liberty and from that point on many important meetings were held here."

Currently, there are several trees rising above this plaque located in a small park along Jarves Street in Sandwich. None of them, to my non-arborist eyes, are majestic Liberty Elms. The plaque was placed by the Elm Research Institute of Keene, NH, which was founded in 1967 to "develop the research to save the American Elm from Dutch Elm Disease," per its web site.

Many of the houses in this historic district are former homes of glass factory workers, and are quaint as all get-out.

As you can imagine, preservation of these historic homes is a priority for neighbors and for the Town of Sandwich. Sometimes, however, people want to tear these wonderful old homes down, or need to because they are in such disrepair. One house in the area has been the subject of teardown talk for quite some time, as the owners claim several contractors have walked away from the possibility of restoring it. Two years ago, the Sandwich Historic District Committee encouraged the owners to hold off on demolition; to date the house still stands.

Another house in the historic district has an "X" on it that indicates demolition is in its future.

I just love how that pink door sets off against the darkened shingles. The inside, I'm assuming, must be in rough shape, as the outside doesn't look too bad to my untrained eye.

Among the reasons that Jarves built his glass factory in Sandwich were the marsh grasses and hay his company could use as packing material.

Just down the road from that lovely marsh scene is the Sand Hill School Community Center, which has been doubling as the town library. Built in 1885 as a school for children of the glass factory workers, the building has been used over the decades as an American Legion hall, the office of the school superintendent and a community center.

There are commercial properties in the historic district, too. Below is the sign on side of the Sandwich Antiques Center, at the corner of Jarves Street and Route 6A.

The sign reads, in part, "On this site in the early 19th century stood dry and fancy goods stores and a barber shop." After a fire in 1869, the property was rebuilt and "became the home to the Victorian photograph studio of Miss Minnie Cook. For most of the 20th century these buildings housed the Yankee Clipper," a popular restaurant. The antiques center has been here for more than 20 years.

Across 6A, heading southwest, behind MacDonald's Sandwich Emporium, is a beatifully restored barn known historically as Quail Hollow Barn.

Built in 1845, this shingle-covered barn is one of the few buildings of its type and age still left in the area. I believe it is owned by the emporium.

Steps away on the same side of the street is an apartment building known as the 1883 Block.

Constructed on the site of a former hotel called Harpers (and also the Sandwich House), this place used to have retail on the ground floor. Around 1960, it was converted to all apartments, per MACRIS.

Next, a couple of related places that I look forward to patronizing whenever life returns to something approximating normal.

The Next Door Burger Bar is located in the former Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church Rectory. Built around 1880 as a private home, this Victorian Gothic Revival treasure has undergone significant change over the years. Many years ago, it was the first building of the complex that is now known as the Belfry Inn and Bistro. Opened in 1995, the place has changed names and layouts since, and today has guest rooms above the first-floor restaurant. Next door to Next Door is the former church for which the rectory once housed the priest and other church staff.

The Corpus Christi Roman Catholic Church rose in 1901, after its predecessor was damaged in a storm. In 1998, Belfry owner Christopher Wilson acquired this property from the New Bedford Diocese and began transforming it into the inn and bistro it is today. The resort is completed by the adjacent Village House.

Let's finish with a place that I plan to visit countless times over the next few decades.

The Sandwich Package Store sits along Route 6-A, within view of our house. I don't know what you call the architectural style, but I refer to it as Western storefront. The building dates to 1940, per MACRIS, and was formerly known as Arnold's Package Store.