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Architectural
Development
Sharon's earliest surviving framed habitations
fell into one of the three most common 18th century housing
styles, the Cape Cod, the Saltbox and the New England Farmhouse.
Sharon possesses a number of fine early Cape Cods, situated
in nearly all corners of the town. Examples of the Cape Cod
would include the circa 1754 Wood/White House at 121 White
Hollow Road (IF#155), and the circa 1760 Daniel St. John House
at 6 Old Sharon Road #1 (IF#116). Larger more elaborate examples
include the circa 1760 gambrel-roofed John/Jonathan Sprague
House at 257 Gay Street (IF#73).
Examples of the Saltbox, a home that usually
contained at least two chambers on the second floor and additional
storage space under the rear roof, include the circa 1756
Peter Cartwright House at 124 East Street (IF#54). Examples
of the typical New England Farmhouse include the circa 1750
Youngs/Peck House at 3 Dunbar Road (IF#46) and its near neighbor,
the circa 1748 Jonathan Lord House at 13 Dunbar Road (IF#50).
12 Old Sharon Road #1 was built in the 1760s by Deacon Silas
St. John (IF#117), while portions of 130 Sharon Mountain Road,
the home of John Swain, may date to circa 1745 (IF#128). 316
Gay Street, the circa 1765 Amos Marchant House, is a particularly
fine example built of brick masonry, one of only a few such
structures in the entire town (IF#75).
The Federal, Greek Revival and Gothic
styles of architecture dominated the period between 1780 and
1860. The Dr. John Sears House at 70 Jackson Hill Road (IF#81)
is one of the best surviving examples of the Federal style,
exhibiting a high level of decorative detail. Two other excellent
examples are the circa 1802-1808 Caleb Cole House at 28 Cole
Road (IF#29) and the circa 1815 Samuel Roberts House at 128
Caulkinstown Road (IF#24). By 1830 Federal architecture began
giving way to buildings designed in the newer Greek Revival
idiom. There are many examples of Greek Revival style in Sharon,
including the particularly lovely home at 90 Caulkinstown
Road, with a wonderful recessed entry, built of brick for
Hiram Weed circa 1850 (IF#22). More modest versions of the
revival style are seen in cottages throughout Sharon built
between 1840-1855. The William Northrop House at 31 Northrop
Road in Ellsworth (IF#115) is one such good example.
Evidence of the Gothic style of architecture
is illustrated in Sharon's Episcopal Church, completed in
1819, and incorporating pointed-arch windows in the nave;
while the circa 1863 offices of the Sharon Valley Iron Company
feature quatrefoil ornaments in the gable peak, a steeply
pitched cross-gable roof, molded window caps, and an open
porch with cusped bargeboard.
Many vernacular Victorian-era homes were
built in Sharon after 1880. Nice examples include the circa
1888 Henry Worrell at 105 Amenia Road (IF#2), and the circa
1893 Robert Harris House at 40 Gay Street (IF#63). These houses
exhibit the elaborate porches, decorative shingle work, and
bay windows characteristic of the Victorian style. The handsome
Hotchkiss Library is a stunning example of the Romanesque
style popularized by Boston architect H.H. Richardson. Built
in 1893, the Hotchkiss Library was the work of architect Bruce
Price (1845-1903), designer of Tuxedo Park. It is defined
by its random rock-faced ashlar masonry and rounded entry
arch. The nearby Wheeler memorial clock tower is also of Romanesque
style.
Litchfield County was a bastion of Colonial
Revival architecture and Sharon was favored by this school
of architecture based on American architectural precedents
of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The South
Green in Sharon contains approximately two dozen contiguous
Colonial Revival-style estates, many begun as farmhouses generations
earlier, but enlarged and remodeled circa 1890-1920 with ornate
Georgian doorways, broken scroll pediments, elaborate porticos,
and ornate gateposts.
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