The Mather Homestead is a historic house at 2 Mahl Avenue in
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...
. Built about 1835, it is a rare surviving example of a 19th-century farmstead in the city. Its adaptive reuse over time is also indicative of the transformation of its surrounds by increasing urbanization. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1982.
It is now home to a chapter of
Masons.
Description and history
The Mather Homestead is located in the Clay-Arsenal neighborhood on Hartford's north side, on the north side of Mahl Avenue just west of Main Street, the historic main road between downtown Hartford and
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
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**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
. It is a two-story brick building, covered by a low-pitch hip roof. Its main facade faces south, and is asymmetrically arranged, with three closely spaced windows at the center of the second floor and one at the left end. The first floor is sheltered by a full-width porch with six Doric columns, and has a center entrance. An ell extends to the left side at a recess.
The house was built sometime between 1835 and 1843 by William Mather. It remained an agricultural property until 1893, when the farm was subdivided for residential development. The house originally had a Main Street address, which changed when Mahl Avenue was opened in that year. After a period of domestic use, it was converted into a
synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
in 1926, and was acquired by what is now known as the Esp Masonic Lodge in 1954. The lodge, chartered in 1859, is one of the oldest African-American civic organizations in the city.
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See also
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References
{{National Register of Historic Places
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Connecticut
National Register of Historic Places in Hartford, Connecticut
Greek Revival architecture in Connecticut
Houses completed in 1835
Houses in Hartford, Connecticut
Former synagogues in Connecticut
Masonic buildings in Connecticut