The architectural design of Saint Clements began with the 16th century castles of Europe.  Centuries later, a New York architect named Sidney Algernon Bell incorporated several interesting features in the manor house, which include the long balcony modeled after the Inn of William the Conqueror at Divers, France, and the Art Gallery which was modeled after the Great Hall of the Chateau of Langeais.  The two Norman towers add a distinctive feature to the French Tudor entrance.
The 17th century saw the rapid growth of the Connecticut River towns.  In the Middletown area, the Taylor family settled to become farmers, ministers and barristers.  Many years later, Howard Taylor, while working as a Solicitor, secured a large sum of money and, together with his wife Gertrude, proceeded and began building the now historic Saint Clements Castle in 1898.
Granite blocks for the walls were brought to the site by oxen.  The wood is chestnut and oak, which were plentiful and nearly indestructible.
The actual construction of the Castle was handled by workmen from the Middletown/ Portland area.  Many were Italian and Irish immigrants who walked to work each day.  Evidence of their careful craftsmanship is still visible in the woodwork and masonry.  Notice, especially, the towers and exterior garden wall.
The Saint Clements Foundation​
In 1993, the historic Saint Clements Castle was gifted to the Saint Clements Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization formulated for the preservation of the Castle, its gardens and art treasures.  The Trustees began a detailed restoration of the gables, walkways, balconies and the courtyards.​​
The Trustees love for art, antiques and historical appreciation is now evident in the Art Gallery and throughout the Estate.
Saint Clements Estate and Marina, with over one mile of riverfront has become a developer's dream, and are now preserved for future generations.
From it's inception, the Foundation has supported Charities for the Homeless, Hospice Care and Programs for the local Children.
Roncalli Charities
From its inception, the Foundation has supported Charities for the Homeless, Hospice Care and programs for the local Children.  Our charity work is possible through the Evangelistic Communications Systems made through the generosity of countless supporters who share our catholic mission. We have promoted and defended faithful Catholic education for 45 years! Please support our successful work by making a donation today.
https://www.saintclementscastle.com/

Saint Clements Castle

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Gillette Castle State Park straddles the towns of East Haddam and Lyme, Connecticut in the United States, sitting high above the Connecticut River. The castle was originally a private residence commissioned and designed by William Gillette, an American actor who is most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on stage. Gillette lived at this estate from 1919–1937. The estate was purchased by the state of Connecticut in 1943 for a price of $5,000.
Location
The park is located at 67 River Road in East Haddam and consists of the castle (located in Lyme) and its grounds. It receives 350,000 annual visitors. It reopened in 2002 after a four-year, $11 million restoration. It now includes a visitors' center and museum, hiking trails, and a picnic area.
History
William Gillette's "castle", called Seventh Sister and renamed "Gillette Castle" by Connecticut State in 1943, was built between 1914 and 1919 with an addition completed in 1924 on a 184-acre (74 ha) tract at the top of the southernmost of a chain of hills known as the Seven Sisters. Gillette died having no children, and his will precluded the possession of his home by any "blithering sap-head who has no conception of where he is or with what surrounded". The State of Connecticut took over the property in 1943, renaming it Gillette Castle State Park. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
Gillette originally planned to build his retirement home on Long Island until he discovered the cliffs of the Seven Sisters while traversing the Connecticut River in his houseboat, "Aunt Polly".
Gillette designed the home and personally overlooked every phase of the construction. Construction was performed by the Porteus-Walker Company, a leading contracting and wood-working firm based in Hartford, Connecticut founded by Gillette's childhood friend, Robert Porteus. It has been described as being designed in a medieval gothic, or an "American fairy tale mixed with European flair" style, or as "a weird blending of Victorian and Arts and Crafts". In the past, it had even been described as "Gillette's Folly".
The 3-story-plus-tower, 24-room, 14,000 sq ft home was built of wood, cement, and local Connecticut field stone, supported by a steel framework. The exterior of the home is covered in field stone. Woodwork within the home is hand-hewn southern white oak. In some places, beams were set directly into the stones, anchored only by cement. The walls, in particular, were constructed similarly to a stage set, lacking two-by-four studs and mortar in critical places. It has been noted it was "a wonder the building didn't collapse" before the castle's multimillion-dollar restoration. Insulation included seaweed and paper. It took 20 workers from 1914–1919 (5 years) to complete the construction totaling a cost of over $1 million at the time. In the years Gillette lived in the home, he led and supervised thousands of refinements by local craftsmen.
The style of the home's interior reflects craftsman aesthetic popularized by Gustave Stickley. A number of oddities exist inside the home that were personally designed by Gillette and said to be examples of his "creative genius". These include:
47 unique doors and door locks throughout the castle. Each door is equipped with an external Steampunk-like latch intricately carved of wood. Trick locks made unlocking these doors a puzzle.
Unique furnishings including built-in couches and a movable table on tracks.
Light switches of carved wood.
A grand upper-floor balcony running the length of the downstairs main room. The walls on the second floor are notably short. This architectural feature is theorized to have been used to enhance Gillette's stature, making him appear taller to guests looking up at him from below.
A hand-carved bar, which opened with a secret latch.
A series of mirrors above the great hall allowing him to view visitors from his bedroom. This design is thought to have helped Gillette spy on guests and make dramatic entrances.
A fire suppression system complete with a water tower, integrated into the home's design, that feed a unique manual fire sprinkler on the second floor overlooking the living room.
Secret doors, passageway, and room. A secret door near the staircase leading to the rest of the home allowed Gillette to swiftly, unexpectedly, and theatrically appear to welcome or startle his guests. The secret room is only accessible by a staircase revealed after pulling down a handle. The room is small, and contains a fireplace.
A grand wooden staircase to the upper floors.
The home was notably decorated with a number of Tiffany lamps made of broken bottle fragments. It also had a heated bed. At one time, Gillette shared his home with up to 17 cats. For them, he designed finely crafted cat toys.
Gillette was particularly fond of his 3-mile-long narrow gauge railroad with an elaborate system of switches, trestles, bridges, turnouts, and a tunnel. Visitors, which reportedly included Albert Einstein, Helen Hayes, and Charlie Chaplin, could ride the railroad around the estate and speed along the 100-foot-plus cliffs of the Connecticut River. The railroad was complete with steam engine and an electric engine, and were later purchased by Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut. The remaining tracks were pulled up and the roadbed converted into walking trails. The engines were donated to the park in 1992, and are now on display at the Visitors' Center on the grounds. Gillette's "Grand Central Station" train stop still remains along with a replica on its roof of a metal cat figure.
The grounds also contained a root cellar, walking paths with near-vertical steps, a two-story gable-ended vernacular dwelling for servants, a small period barn, stone-arch bridges, wooded trestles spanning up to 40 ft (12 m), and fish pond.

Gillette Castle

Castle Craig, located on East Peak in the Hanging Hills, is constructed of trap rock and is 32 feet (10 m) in height and has a base 58 feet (18 m) in circumference . A metal interior stairway is used to ascend the observation deck on top. It stands 976 feet (297 m) above sea level and provides an expansive view of the greater Meriden, Connecticut area.
Origin and details
Castle Craig, dedicated October 29, 1900 and given to the people of Meriden, Connecticut by Walter Hubbard is part of the 1,800-acre (7.3 km2) Hubbard Park named after Hubbard. There are hiking trails to the tower (most notably the 62-mile (100 km) Metacomet Trail) as well as Reservoir Road which is open for vehicular traffic from May 1 to October 31 - 10 AM to 4:45 PM. Walkers and joggers are allowed use of this road 365 days of the year during normal park operating hours which is basically sunrise to sunset. From the top of the observation tower, 1,002 feet (305 m) elevation, it is possible to see New Haven and Long Island Sound 25 miles (40 km) to the south. To the west, the foothills of the Berkshires are visible; to the north, the Hartford skyline as well as the summit of Mount Tom in Massachusetts.
The inspiration for the tower's design has been disputed for years. Some say Walter Hubbard, a world traveler, was inspired by a Norman French tower; others by a 12th Century Turkish tower on the Danube; still others maintain that it was patterned upon an ancient tower in Craigellachie, Scotland.
Dedication of Tower
On October 29, 1900 dedicatory exercises were held at which Mr. Hubbard formally presented the Tower to the City of Meriden. According to a local newspaper,
A large number of members of the Court of Common Council, together with other dignitaries attended an oyster roast in the shadow of the Tower. Westbound trolleys were crowded with citizens who used this form of transportation to bring them to the park area from where they had a long, arduous trek, on foot, to the Tower. There were also a number of persons who drove to the top of the mountain in their own carriages. At two o'clock, it was estimated that approximately 250 guests were in attendance. Their genial host, Mr. Hubbard, had provided six barrels of clams. These were roasted over a big fire under the direction of C.W.F. Pardee of the Winthrop Hotel and P.J. Quigley, a local contractor, with the assistance of twelve men. The Tower itself was the center of attraction and nearly everyone had something to say concerning the beautiful scenery and Mr. Hubbard's benevolence. During the afternoon, several group photographs were taken. Three cheers were given to Mr. Hubbard by the visitors. They were called for by Judge Wilbur F. Davis, who acclaimed Mr. Hubbard as the "first citizen of Meriden".A large flag was raised on the tower at noon by Contractor Quigley and as it floated to the breeze three rousing cheers were given.
Plaque
A plaque at the bottom of the tower reads as follows:
Castle Craig
Dedicated October 29. 1900
Castle Craig Tower stands 32 feet (9.8 m) high on 976-foot (297 m) east peak in Meriden's Olmsted designed Hubbard Park. It has the distinction of being the highest point within 25 miles (40 km) of the coast from Maine to Florida. Its design origins are clouded. Some say its native trap rock construction resembles Norman watchtowers on Europe's Rhine River while others claim it was modeled and named after an ancient castle in Scotland.
Meriden industrialist Walter Hubbard donated the tower and the surrounding park, which a grateful Meriden named after him. The tower is one of the highlights of the 1,800-acre (7.3 km2) park from its observation deck. Looking south one can observe Long Island Sound and on a clear day, the outline of Long Island itself. To the north, Southern Massachusetts Berkshire Hills come into view. Hubbard Park is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Although the plaque indicates that East Peak is "the highest point within 25 miles (40 km) of the coast from Maine to Florida," West Peak, just 2,000 feet (610 m) to the west, at 1,024 feet (312 m), is higher than both East Peak and the tower. Both East and West Peak are lower than a number of mountains in the Downeast coastal region of Maine.

Castle Craig

The Wadsworth Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wadsworth is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, ancient Egyptian and Classical bronzes, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as collections of early American furniture and decorative arts.
Founded in 1842 and opened in 1844, it is the oldest continually operating public art museum in the United States.
The museum is located at 600 Main Street in a distinctive castle-like building in downtown Hartford, Connecticut, the state's capital. With 75,000 square feet (7,000 m2) of exhibition space,[6] the museum is the largest art museum in the state of Connecticut. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums program.
Museum history
Namesake
The Wadsworth, as it is most commonly known, was constructed on the site of the family home of Daniel Wadsworth in the heart of downtown Hartford. Its architects were Alexander Jackson Davis and Ithiel Town, who designed the "castle" that is the Atheneum's oldest building. Construction began in 1842 after the museum was incorporated on June 1 of that year. The museum opened on July 31, 1844 and has operated continuously since then.
The Wadsworth family, being one of the oldest and most affluent in the city, contributed numerous valuable pieces of art to be displayed at the time the museum opened. The first collection consisted of 78 paintings, two marble busts, one portrait miniature, and one bronze sculpture. In addition to the fine arts collection, the original building housed the forerunners of the Hartford Public Library and Connecticut Historical Society, giving rise to the name "Atheneum," an institution broadly devoted to culture and learning. In light of that public role, the Wadsworth has, since its founding, played host to a wide variety of cultural and community activities, including dramatic and dance performances, exhibits of historical artifacts, social functions, and benefits.
Modern history
Building on the Wadsworth family's largess, generations of more recent donors have added to the museum's collections and resources. Foremost among them are Elizabeth Jarvis Colt, widow of firearms magnate Samuel Colt, and financier and Hartford native John Pierpont Morgan. They each contributed more than 1,000 objects to the museum's collections, the former a significant group of Hudson River School landscapes and the Colt firearms collection, the latter an assemblage of priceless Renaissance decorative arts and Colonial-era American furniture. Samuel P. Avery donated works ranging from a Babylonian clay tablet to Chinese Qing Dynasty porcelain and mid-19th century French sculpture, as well as funds for new construction, producing the country's first museum interior designed in the International Style.
In 1927, the museum received a million-dollar bequest (about $20 million today in inflation-adjusted terms) from banker Frank Sumner, establishing a sizable acquisitions endowment. In the hands of forward-thinking museum directors, particularly A. Everett 'Chick' Austin and Charles Cunningham, the fund has enabled the purchase of major works by masters including Caravaggio, Dalí, Gauguin, Miró, Strozzi, Tintoretto, Van Dyck, and Zurbarán.
In the 1940s and 1950s, bequests by Clara Hinton Gould and Anne Parrish Titzell enriched the museum's holdings of Hudson River School and Impressionist paintings, with celebrated pieces by Church, Cole, Gifford, Monet, and Renoir entering the collection. In the same period, artwork and funds bequeathed to the museum by Henry Schnakenberg led to the acquisition of a group of Cypriot, Egyptian, and Greek antiquities as well as paintings by modernists including Peter Blume, Stuart Davis, and Reginald Marsh. It is also in the 1940s that the museum becomes the haunt of Marguerite Yourcenar as she is writing the Memoirs of Hadrian.
The post-war and contemporary division has benefited from the generosity of Tony Smith and Susan Morse Hilles, whose gifts include groundbreaking works by Josef Albers, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg, and Mark Rothko. With funds given by the Archibald, Goodwin, Keney, and Smith families, and by Alexander Goldfarb and Charles Schwartz, the museum has acquired valuable pieces by Alexander Calder, Artemisia Gentileschi, Cindy Sherman, Bill Viola, and Kara Walker. A 2004 gift of 125 photographs from Janice and Mickey Cartin Collection includes works by On Kawara, Ed Ruscha, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Arnold Odermatt, Lucinda Devlin, Joe Ovelman, Jonathan Monk, Frank Breuer, Malick Sidibé, and more.
In 2001, the museum announced a large-scale $100 million expansion designed by the Amsterdam-based architects UNStudio; the architects were chosen from a short list of innovative design teams, including Zaha Hadid, Thom Mayne, and Brad Cloepfil. The design required demolishing the Goodwin Building, put up in 1969, and enclosing the Avery Courtyard. However, the proposal was scrapped in 2003 due to fundraising difficulties and changes in the museum's leadership. A later plan to expand into the former Hartford Times building was also abandoned due to cost concerns. In March 2010, the museum announced the start of a comprehensive renovation project across all five of the museum's buildings, which at completion resulted in the addition of 16,000 square feet (1,500 m2) of refurbished gallery space and the complete reinstallation of the museum's permanent collections of European art, European decorative arts, and contemporary art. The $33 million renovation, designed by the Hartford-based architecture firm Smith Edwards McCoy, was completed in 2015, garnering praise from local and national art critics.
Structure and contents
The structure itself consists of the original, castle-like building, plus four wings that have been added during the intervening years, in styles ranging from Tudor Revival and Renaissance Revival to International. The museum is home to approximately 50,000 objects, including ancient Roman, Greek, and Egyptian bronzes; paintings from the Renaissance, Baroque, and French and American Impressionist eras, among others; 18th-century German and French porcelains (including Meissen and Sèvres); Hudson River School landscapes; early American clothing and decorations; early African-American art and historical artifacts; and more. The collections span more than 5,000 years of world history.
Just outside the "castle" is an 1899 statue of Nathan Hale, by Enoch S. Woods. A short distance away, within the Connecticut State Capitol is another, better-known sculpture of Hale by Bela Pratt, a copy of his original at Yale University.
The Atheneum also owns the A. Everett Austin House, a National Historic Landmark and home of one of the museum's most distinguished directors. The house, located in Hartford's historic West End, is open to the public as a museum.
Museum firsts
Since its beginning, the Wadsworth has had a long tradition of "firsts".
In 1933, the Wadsworth sponsored George Balanchine's immigration to the United States from the Soviet Union. Shortly after his immigration, Balanchine founded the School of American Ballet, which led to the formation of the New York City Ballet. He then chose to have the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet's first performances at the Avery Memorial Theatre of Wadsworth in December 1934, including his first ballet choreographed in America, Serenade.
The museum was the first in America to acquire pieces by Salvador Dalí, Balthus, Frederic Church, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Piet Mondrian, and many other famous artists. Under the directorship of Arthur Everett Austin, Jr., the first American exhibition of surrealism was shown at the Wadsworth in 1931, and the first major U.S. Pablo Picasso retrospective was held in 1934. Also in 1934, the world premiere of the opera Four Saints in Three Acts by Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson was held at the Atheneum.

Wadsworth Atheneum

The Connecticut State Capitol is located north of Capitol Avenue and south of Bushnell Park in Hartford, the capital of Connecticut. The building houses the Connecticut General Assembly; the upper house, the State Senate, and lower house, the House of Representatives, as well as the office of the Governor of the State of Connecticut. The Connecticut Supreme Court occupies a building (built 1908–1910) across Capitol Avenue.
History
The current building is the third capitol building for the State of Connecticut since the American Revolution.
The General Assembly of Connecticut (state legislature) met alternately in Hartford and New Haven since before the American Revolution. When in Hartford, the General Assembly met in the Old State House, designed in 1792 by Charles Bulfinch, and when sitting in New Haven, in a State House designed in 1827 by Ithiel Town. After the Civil War, the complications of this plan began to be evident, and both Hartford and New Haven competed to be sole state capital. Hartford won, and the new sole capital needed one central capitol building. The General Assembly authorized a million dollar project, and two competitors, James G. Batterson and Richard M. Upjohn, vied to be awarded the project. Upjohn won, but Batterson, a stone importer and merchant and not an architect, was named the building contractor. Batterson then continually revised the Upjohn plan to more and more closely resemble his own plan. The central tower, for example, is Batterson's, not Upjohn's. Batterson's extensive elaboration of Upjohn's plan ended up more than doubling the cost to over $2,500,000.
Richard M. Upjohn's design is in the Eastlake style, with French and Gothic Revival styled elements. Construction of the building began in 1871. The building was completed in 1878, and it opened for the session of the General Assembly of Connecticut in January 1879. The New York Times described the newly constructed building: "a vast mass of white marble (is) this imposing structure, and in the dazzling sunshine of a New-England Summer noon sparkles like a fairy palace of frost work."
The site of the Capitol was chosen since it is adjacent to Bushnell Park and had access to more surrounding open space than the older building in the immediate downtown. The site was originally the location of the old Trinity College and was then known as "Trinity Hill", and the city street to the immediate east is still named Trinity Street. (Trinity College relocated to a new campus south of the downtown.)
Some galleries on the building's main floor hold historical artifacts, principally battle standards of Civil War units. The flags were deposited with the state by 10,000 of the state's veterans, who formed a procession to the Capitol, and deposited 30 regimental flags on September 17, 1879. This action was taken to make the building a memorial to the Civil War.
The building suffered some crowding of offices, and the introduction of partition walls and other temporary expedients which detracted from the plan of the building up to 1979 and 1989 when efforts began at restoration.
The State Capitol was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1971.
Architecture
The building is one of the largest Eastlake style buildings. The exterior is of marble from East Canaan, Connecticut and granite from Westerly, Rhode Island. The building is roughly rectangular, the interior spaces organized around two open interior courts that run vertically to large skylights. In the center is a third circular open rotunda beneath the dome. The larger hall of the House of Representatives forms an extension on the south side.
The building's ornately decorated facades display statuary and include several statues, medallions and carved tympana over the doors (except the west, which only has statues). The statues are of politicians and other people important to the state's history, such as: the Reverend Thomas Hooker (1586–1647), Major John Mason (1600–1672), Governor John Winthrop Jr. (1605/1606–1676), Roger Sherman (1721–1793), Revolutionary War Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1710–1785), Noah Webster (1758–1843), General Joseph Hawley (1826–1905), Civil War Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles (1802–1878), and United States Senator Orville Hitchcock Platt (1827–1905). There are 24 niches for sculpture, eight of which are still empty. The last one added was that of Ella T. Grasso (b. 1919), the first female governor of the state, who died in 1981 of cancer shortly after resigning her office.
There are high relief scenes from the state's history in the 16 tympana above the doors, except for the carving above the main north door, which is of the state seal. The typanum of the main east door holds The Charter Oak by Charles Salewski, the first piece of sculpture created for the Capitol. The interior floors used white marble and red slate from Connecticut, and some of the colored marble is from Italy.
The statues, medallions, and tympana are grouped by period. The north facade has six statues, five tympana, and two medallions, and the carvings are of pre-Revolutionary War figures. The east and west facades contain people from the Revolutionary War or government service, and the south facade's figures are from the Civil War and onwards.
The central domed tower is distinctive. The dome itself is 32 ft (9.8 m) tall; on top of that is a cupola 55 ft (16.8 m) in height, and the drum below is 75 ft (22.9 m), making the drum taller than the 70 ft (21.3 m) height of the main walls. The overall height of the tower is 257 ft (78.3 m).
The building's dome originally had a large statue on top, named The Genius of Connecticut, which was taken down in 1938 after being damaged in the great hurricane of that year. The statue was cast in bronze from a plaster original, and was 17.833 ft (5.4 m) tall, and weighed 7,000 lb (3,175 kg). It was executed in Rome and was cast in Munich, Germany. During World War II, the piece was donated to the federal government and melted down as part of the war effort to make ammunition and machine parts. The original plaster statue is now at the capitol, and has been coated in bronze. In 2002, Proposed Bill No. 5273 before the General Assembly sought authorization to make a new casting of the statue to restore the design for the capitol dome. The project finally passed in 2009, and a new bronze cast has been made. It has not yet been mounted on the summit of the dome, awaiting an additional $200,000 in funding.
At the exterior base of the dome are 12 statues in six pairs representing Agriculture, Commerce, Education/Law, Force/War, Science/Justice, and Music.
The interior has two matching ornate open stairwells and all of the building interior is painted in a multi-colored scheme continuing the 1870s Eastlake design aesthetic throughout.
The Capitol Building is open to the public, with self-guided and guided tours available on weekdays. Guided tours begin inside the West Entrance of the Legislative Office Building.