Hillhouse Avenue

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hillhouse Avenue, described, according to tradition, by both Charles Dickens and Mark Twain as "the most beautiful street in America," ^[1], is in New Haven, Connecticut and is home to many nineteenth century mansions including the president's house at Yale University.

The avenue is named for James Hillhouse (1743-1832) (and his son James Abraham Hillhouse, 1789-1841), innovator in land use in New Haven, who began the program of tree planting that gave New Haven its nickname, The Elm City, and who laid out the Trumbull Plan for Yale College and the Grove Street Cemetery.

Hillhouse Avenue was initially called Temple Avenue, and was staked out, 150 feet wide, by Hillhouse employee, and later Yale president, Jeremiah Day, in 1792. The avenue ran from the Green at Temple Street to a hilltop location where James Abraham Hillhouse built the family mansion, Highwood (later called Sachem's Wood), in 1828. The houses along the wide avenue were set back with room for trees creating a park-like effect. The elms which once shaded the street were lost to Dutch Elm disease, but mature oak trees have largely taken their place.

The avenue was privately owned until 1862. Because of the nature of the street, its lots, and its orientation to the nine-square-grid of New Haven (the nation's first planned city), Hillhouse Avenue is sometimes considered to be the first suburb in the United States.

The Hillhouse mansion was razed in 1942 by the will of James Abraham's daughter, Isaphene. In time, Hillhouse Avenue came to be divided into an upper, residential area, and a lower portion for public buildings and the Farmington Canal. It is now just two blocks long, running from Grove to Sachem. The area is now designated the Hillhouse Avenue National Historic District.

Yale now owns all of the properties on Hillhouse except for St. Mary's Church and its parish house. Many of the mansions of the upper area have been converted for use by the School of Management and other academic departments. Lower Hillhouse primarily includes university buildings, a number of them formerly part of the Sheffield Scientific School. There are several houses designed by architects Ithiel Town, Henry Austin and Alexander Jackson Davis. The area of Hillhouse's mansion at the end of the avenue is now a section of Yale's campus known as Science Hill.

[edit] Selected Structures on Hillhouse Avenue

• Kirtland Hall, Dunham Laboratory, Mason Laboratory, Leet Oliver Hall. Yale University buildings originally part of the Sheffield Scientific School.
• St. Mary's Church and parish house.
• James Dwight Dana House, Henry Austin, 1845-1848. Now home to the Yale Statistics Department.
• Sheffield-Town Mansion. Ithiel Town, 1836. Additions for Joseph Earl Sheffield by Henry Austin in 1859. Razed in 1957.
• Yale University Collection of Musical Instruments, 1895. Romanesque structure built originally for the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.
• Henry Farnum House, Russell Sturgis, 1871. Redesigned with Victorian features removed in 1934. It has been the home of Yale's presidents since 1937.
• John Pitkin Norton House (Steinbach Hall, Yale School of Management), 1849, Tuscan/Italian Villa on Hillhouse Avenue.
• Charles Henry Farnam House, J. Cleaveland Cady, 1884. Queen Anne style.
• Pelitiah Perit (Horchow Hall, Yale School of Management), Sidney Mason Stone, 1859. Renaissance revival/Tuscan.
• Apthorp House (Evans Hall, Yale School of Management), Town and Davis, 1836 (with extensive subsequent remodeling).
• Skinner House (Yale International Center of Finance), Town and Davis, 1832. Landmark Greek Revival.
• Graves-Gilman House (now 37 Hillhouse), 1866. Victorian Italian Villa. Home of Sheffield professor, Daniel Coit Gilman. Converted into apartments for married Yale students (1946-1957). George H. W. Bush lived here while he was a student and his son lived here until the age of two. Now used by the Yale Department of Economics.

[edit] References

• Holden, Reuben A., Yale: A Pictorial History, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967.
• Pinnell, Patrick L., Yale University: The Campus Guide, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1999.
• Kelley, Brooks Mather, New Haven Heritage, New Haven Preservation Trust, 1974.
• Hillhouse Avenue Historic District, New Haven Preservation Trust