Norfolk Historical Society & Museum
Village Green, Norfolk, Connecticut
This house originally stood at the corner of Greenwoods Road and Station Place and was known as the Bellows Block. When the Royal Arcanum building (No. 50) was constructed in 1904, the house was moved to Maple Ave. and provided rooms for boarders.
E. H. Dennison built this store in 1814 just north of his residence. In the later 19th century the house was owned by William Scoville, who operated a furniture and undertaking business. In 1881 Isabella Eldridge opened a reading room in this house, before building the Norfolk Library in 1888.
Giles Thompson was the son of a tanner and shoemaker who married the daughter of tavern-keeper Giles Pettibone, Jr., and built this house by 1802. Maple Avenue was just beginning to be a residential street at the time, and the Thompson house is the first in a series of small vernacular houses that were built … Read more
Augustus Pettibone built his residence in 1802 when Maple Avenue was still a country lane connecting the meetinghouse green with Beech Flats (now Laurel Way). The front of this classic five-bay Georgian design faces south with later additions. Pettibone was a member of the State Legislature who helped draft the Constitution of Connecticut in 1818. … Read more
Built in 1794 by town leader Giles Pettibone, the house is a classic fivebay Georgian design with a symmetrical façade, center chimney, and classical door surround. With the opening of the Greenwoods Turnpike in 1800, the location of this house made it ideal for use as a tavern, operated by Giles Pettibone, Jr., and later … Read more
A Norfolk landmark for many years, the Inn was demolished in 1968. In the 1890’s it was known as the Stevens House and had the reputation of being one of the best-kept hostelries in New England. The Inn provided housing for an influx of summer visitors and contained fifty-seven rooms with accommodations for seventy-five guests. … Read more
One of the things that makes the Grant homestead unique among early Norfolk homes is how few families have lived there in its 262 years. Remarkably, the house stayed in the Grant family from the mid-1700s until the early 1900s, when it was bought by Hemlock Hill Farm, a land conservation effort of Helen Hartley … Read more
A tailor by trade, Joseph Jones had just finished framing his two-story house when he left Norfolk to join the Continental Army in 1776. Upon his return three years later, his financial circumstances required that he reduce his house to one story, cutting the posts to lower the roofline. In the mid-19th century, the house … Read more
Whitney built the house sometime in 1755 or 1756—the precise date is in question. Step inside that home today and you will find much evidence of its centuries-old lineage: massive wood beams, some with the bark still on them, held together by hand-hewn mortise and tenon joinery and ceilings at seven feet (if that) above … Read more
Built in 1806 by the son of one of the original proprietors of Norfolk, this house was later owned by Major James Shepard, who operated it as the Exchange Hotel and built a large addition. The north ell is original.