188 Whitfield St Guilford, Ct

Whitfield Street

Whitfield Street, one of the town’s original streets, was first known as South Lane. At one time it was also called Hog Lane for reasons we can only guess at today. Perhaps hogs were driven down the lane to be loaded on boats and taken to market. Later, because it led to the sluice and the docks, it was named Harbor Street. In 1885, in anticipation of Guilford’s 250th anniversary celebration, a committee renamed the street for Henry Whitfield, leader of the original settlers, and urged that other streets be given historically important names—Desborough, Chittenden, Leete—-but nothing more came of the idea.

William Faulkner, 186-188 Whitfield Street, Villa Style, c1850

Although double houses were built fairly often in New Haven, they were rare in Guilford. This house may have been designed by New Haven architect Henry Austin or built from one of his plans. With its porch extending across the whole front, paired steps, and line of prominent columns, the design is particularly successful at bringing two small parts together and making them into one substantial whole. The windows on the first level are floor length and their eared surrounds both up and down are a charming touch. An unexpected detail, according to Elizabeth Mills Brown writing in the Guilford Survey, is “the porch rail which is a copy in wood of the iron fence around the New Haven Green.” The house was restored in 1975 and painted its original color. William Faulkner, who was born in Guilford in 1808, was for many years the publisher of The News in Norwich, Connecticut, and for a time published a morning paper in New Haven also called The News. He moved to Oakland, California, where he continued his career as a newspaper publisher and died there in 1898.

Work has just started, we will add weekly updates.

We are in the beginning stages of Rehabilitation

To Rehabilitate a house means to make it useful and functional for contemporary living while preserving important historic and architectural features.

Beginning stages of Rehabilitation

Installing Microllam LVL Beams

We are uncovering much of the original Post & Beam Construction a traditional method of building using wooden joinery held together with pegs, typical of a home built in 1800's

An example of a Hand hewn post and beam with original joinery pocket

The next step is to level the 160 year old floor and then laying a new subfloor which is the base for the new finished floor.

Removing the chimneys. They run through the roof, down 2 floors and into the basement.

Moving outside to take advantage of the nice weather. Removing roofs to prepare for a second floor addition that will span the entire rear section of the house.