Overlook Historic District, Federal Hill, Bristol, Connecticut

After years of painstaking legwork, the City of Bristol adopted a Local Historic District on Federal Hill called the Overlook Local Historic District, so named due to the hilltop elevation of many of the industrialist mansions built in the period 1915-1930. It was adopted by the City of Bristol Feb 13, 2007.

Two of the Georgian Revivals shown here, the Townsend G. Treadway house and Marlborough House (Edward Ingraham mansion) were both designed by Madison Ave. firm Murphy & Dana in 1915 and 1918 respectively. Dana was a scion of noted men of letters Richard Henry Dana (author Two Years Before the Mast) and poet Henry Wordsworth Longfellow. The Treadway house was featured in Architecture (xxxv, May, 1917) and has a matching Carriage House. Treadway was a banker and Ingraham a mantel clock maker.

The white Neoclassical mansion featuring a colossal tetrastyle portico comprised of rare Scamozzi columns was built by Ernest R. Burwell (VP New Departure Co., manufacturer of bicycle bells) and designed by New Britain architect Walter Crabtree. It was featured in Modern Connecticut Homes and Homecrafts (1925).

The Tudor mansion (1930) is Chimney Crest (named for good reason as it features 4 massive corbelled chimneys) and was built by Harry Clarke Barnes at the height of the Depression and designed by New Britain firm Perry & Bishop. The adjacent Georgian Revival Copper Ledges (1924), home of Fuller Forbes Barnes, was the pièce de résistance of Bristol architect Harold Hayden and has a unique siting on top of what was once a copper mine. The dramatically situated pool is under repair (see loggia). The Barnes family was an early manufacturer of springs. The Barnes Co. was founded in 1857 and still exists today as Barnes Group Inc. with global operations in aerospace and industrial sectors.