Experience a different kind of cabin fever with this story from 2017.
You can find them in New Haven on Alden Avenue and Cleveland Road, on Chapel Street and Vista Terrace. There are dozens in Hamden, but youโll find a handful as well in Cheshire and North Haven, Woodbridge and Orange.
Built between 1919 and 1933, theyโre houses that represent the story of the improbable architect Alice Washburnโa woman who, at the age of 49 and with no formal training, began a career in which she would come to design and supervise the construction of nearly 90 local homes. These โAlice Washburnsโ are still considered by many to be among the most beautifully designed houses in the state.
โSheโs part of this great blossoming of the suburbs that begins in the 1920s with the spread of the automobile and a period of builders who werenโt formally trained but had good eyes,โ says Christopher Wigren, deputy director of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation. โSheโs, on one level, representative of a broader trend and, on the other, has a degree of quality that makes her stand out from her peers.โ
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Among her trademarks are oversized windows, which arenโt always obvious from the curb. โSometimes you get inside these houses and the windows surprise you because they seem so much bigger from inside than outside,โ Wigren notes.
Washburn homeowner Sara Reifler recalls such a surprise when she saw her house for the first time: โ
Also endemic to Washburnโs style are โquality details,โ Wigren says. A 1990 booklet written by Martha Finder Yellig, published in conjunction with a Washburn exhibit that year at the Eli Whitney Museum, cites โthe ornamentation of doors, windows and cornicesโ as well as โthe way the houses were sited on the newly plotted suburban lots.โ Theyโre built low to the ground so their foundations donโt show and often include porches, sunrooms or terraces. โFormal fronts lead gracefully to more informal rear areas,โ Yellig writes.
Nearly all of Washburnโs details are drawn from โearly American house styles,โ according to a pamphlet, also written in 1990, by William Stubbs and Charlotte R. Hitchcock for the New Haven Preservation Trust. Washburn put them together with โan unerring sense of style but a fine disregard for the historical accuracy of the ensemble.โ
One of Washburnโs canvases was Westville, where she designed and built 10 homes between 1924 and 1930. Stubbs and Hitchcock refer to the neighborhood as โa garden suburb,โ created after the death of Donald Grant Mitchell, whose farm, called โEdgewood,โ was subdivided into lots for new homes. Washburn was in the right place at the right time to take advantage of that housing boom.
But the bulk of her homes can be found in Hamdenโs Spring Glen neighborhood, 46 in all. Washburn homeowner Joshua Levitt of Spring Glen points out one quirky detail in his house: a small pass-through with three narrow, arched doorways and a surprise arched ceiling above them. The stairway is decorated with a scrollwork motif and a decorative newel post that matches the one in neighbor Sara Reiflerโs house. The front door is flanked by leaded glass sidelights and topped with a transom window in a leaded glass fan design. All classic Washburn.
As beloved as they are, over the course of 90 years, many Washburns have been modified. Levittโs house now sports a large addition and is missing detailsโbuilt-in cupboards, an original mantelโthat heโs seen in older photographs. When he dug out the hearth to restore it closer to its original look, he found a surprise: workmen had carved the timingโAugust 1921โinto the stone. Theyโd also left hand-rolled cigarettes tucked into the mortar.
The average cost of a new Washburn house was $6,500. With her husband, Edward, Washburn purchased several lots offered during the suburban boom and built homes on speculation. Later, with her reputation growing, she was commissioned to design and build others. Perhaps her most famous client was the writer Thornton Wilder, for whom she built a home on Deepwood Drive in Hamden. (According to a 1991 article in Yankee magazine, the house was โbuilt largely with proceeds from The Bridge of San Luis Rey,โ his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel published in 1927.)
Washburn was particular about her projects. Martha Yellig writes that she was โwell-knownโฆfor her close supervision of every facet of the construction process, including the interior decoration and landscaping. She even climbed ladders to inspect workmanship.โ
In fact, Washburn was so attentive to her vision of what a house could be that when homeowners refused a detail due to the cost, she reportedly often included it anyway, at her own expense. This may be one reason why her business didnโt survive the Depression. Washburn declared bankruptcy in 1931 at the age of 61. By then, her husband had died, and she was forced to sell her own home and move into an apartment in Cheshire with her sister. She died in 1958, aged 88, without acknowledgment of her contribution to the local housing landscape.
But many of those who live in her light, graceful houses havenโt forgotten her. A standing room-only crowd attended a 2014 lecture on Washburn at the New Haven Museum, and homeowners are eager to talk about what makes their houses special. Both Levitt and Reifler have artifactsโbooks, photographs, a commemorative blanketโthat โcame with the house.โ
Elements of Washburnโs work may be bricked over, altered or torn out, but her legacy is still standing.
Written by Kathy Leonard Czepiel. Photos 2-4 by Kathy Leonard Czepiel. Image 1, a scan of what โmay be the only known photograph of Alice Washburn,โ according to the Cheshire Historical Society, was originally provided to Martha Finder Yellig courtesy of Ann Farist Butler. Image 2 depicts Joshua Levittโs home; image 3 depicts an early photo of Sara Reiflerโs home; and image 4 depicts Reiflerโs home as it looked in 2017. This story originally published on December 13, 2017.