Elm Street between Church Street and Temple Street -North Side

Sanborn 1886 Map:

1879 Bird's Eye View:

This is perhaps New Haven's most famous and lamented block, the so-called "Quality Row", named for the four impressive mansions along the block. Two of these houses, 57 and 51 were designed by David Hoadley, New Haven's most prominent Federal architect, and demonstrate both his creativity as well as his attention to more urbane designs from Boston. These were all demolished in the early 20th century for the construction of the current library and courthouse. A general view can be seen here.

51 Elm Street

Status: Demolished, 1908

Built for: David DeForest, 1822 by David Hoadley

This is potentially Hoadley's domestic masterpiece and is very much a unique design. The house is four bays with two bays occupying gently swelling bow fronts. On the first two floors, there was a two story porch with spindly, double height Corinthian columns (pilasters at the ends of the house framed the whole). A strong, archaeologically correct entablature topped the porch. On the third floor, the bays continued with a small modillion cornice. The whole was topped by an open balustrade with a solid central panel that featured a carved swag. The roof had a monitor at the center with a Chippendale balustrade above. Interestingly, the entrance was from the side through a low Corinthian columned porch. The side facade featured a simpler brick design with a palladian window over the entrance and the rear had a raised two story columned porch. The central cube seems to have been the original design. The house was extended with as many as two additions, one which replicated the side facade, filling in the back porch and adding pilasters to the design, and a third addition, probably in the 1870s, which resulted in a large Renaissance tower with palladian windows and pilasters, making it a gargantuan house, probably one of the largest in the city. Some of the pilasters survive on the house at the corner of Hillhouse and Sachem. Overall images can be seen here and here. A garden gate and the greenhouse to the rear can be seen here. A view from the porch can be found here.

57 Elm Street

Status: Demolished, 1908

Built for: Nathan Smith, 1818 by David Hoadley

Perhaps one of New Haven's most grandiose Federal designs, as well as one of its most high style houses, it was built for Nathan Smith, a medical practitioner and major influence on medicine at Yale and in New Haven. It was a five bay house with a series of Doric pilasters around the central three bays joined by a pediment, following a similar arrangement as the Bishop house further down Elm Street. This arrangement divided the façade into a classical temple façade with two flanking bays. The cornice on the side bays consisted of a simple band with small backets, but the central three bays feature a full, correct Doric cornice with all the bells and whistles, triglyphs and metopes. The whole was topped by a grand balustrade. Unlike the Bishop house, however, the Smith house featured a strongly differentiated first floor, projecting in the center with blind arches around the windows and doors, a Palladian design from the English Renaissance. Hoadley especially seems fond of blind arches surrounding the windows. Two low pavilions, deeply recessed, flanked the house, with jutting Doric porches. Doric architecture was rare in New Haven, since the general preference was for Corinthian or Ionic classical orders, so the Smith house was unique in its time. Images can be seen here, here, here, and here. The only surviving pieces of the house after its demolition in 1911 for the current occupant of the site, the New Haven courthouse, are the two iron urns that originally flanked the entrance, now found in front of the New Haven Colony Historical Society.

59 Elm Street

Status: Demolished, 1912

Built for: Thomas Trowbridge, 1851

This was an impressive Italianate/Greek Revival house, a five bay symmetrical plan, built for Thomas Trowbridge, a descendant of one of New Haven's most important families. It replaced a house that was identical to 69 Elm Street (except for the central bay which featured a broken pediment and palladian window) built in 1801. This was the last house of Quality Row to be demolished, surviving for an uneasy period between the library and the courthouse. The actual body of the house is very simple, of straight brick with simple stone lintel moldings over the plain windows. Rather, the house draws its magnetism from the impressive four column Corinthian portico and balustrade, which echoed the Nathan Smith house next door in framing the central bays of the façade (minus the pediment). Also of note is the iron balcony that ran across the central three bays on the second floor. Italianate details abounded on the sides, with arched windows on the bay to the left and the oriole window to the right. Further, a more stylistically Italianate cupola with large brackets topped the whole design. The house, used as a library annex, was demolished to provide a park space, now a garage entrance and extension to the library. A side view of the house can be seen here. 

69 Elm Street

Status: Demolished, 1907

Built for: William Bristol, 1801 
The Bristol house was the oldest on the block and was a rather unique design to New Haven. It was a five bay, ridge front, Federal Style house with a central triple window and an open pediment porch. Above, a balustrade with alternately paneled and balustraded sections crowned the whole. The odd feature are the two three bay, gable front wings, connected by low single story hyphens. The three bay wings include center entrances (another odd feature) with pediments above and a semi-circular window in the gable. At 59 Elm Street, where the Trowbridge house was built, was originally a copy of the Bristol house, built for the Daggett family. The only difference was that the center bay of the Daggett house had an engaged gable with a palladian window, typical of the central pediment five bay design in New Haven. The side pavilions were the same. They must have made a sprawling pair!
The Bristol house can be seen here and here. It was demolished to make way for the New Haven Free Public Library of 1908 designed by Cass Gilbert. 

Block Survival Rate: 0/4: 0%