The Milford Point Hotel is a former hotel building at 1 Milford Point Road in

Milford, Connecticut Milford is a coastal city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, located between New Haven and Bridgeport. The population was 50,558 at the 2020 United States Census. The city includes the village of Devon and the borough of Woodmont. ...

. Built in 1847, it is one of the oldest surviving seaside coastal hotel buildings in the state. 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 1988. It now serves as the visitors center for the

Connecticut Audubon Society Coastal Center at Milford Point The Connecticut Audubon Society Coastal Center at Milford Point is a nature center and bird sanctuary in Milford, Connecticut, established in 1995. Over 300 different species of bird have been observed at this location. The Coastal Center is locat ...

Description and history

The former Milford Point Hotel is located near the tip of Milford Point, the most southwesterly part of the city. The point forms the eastern edge of the mouth of the

Housatonic River The Housatonic River ( ) is a river, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 in western Massachusetts and western Connecticut in the United S ...

, and is an area of conservation and wildlife management lands owned by the state and the

Connecticut Audubon Society The Connecticut Audubon Society, founded in 1898 and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to "conserving Connecticut’s environment through science-based education and advocacy focused on the state’s bir ...

. The hotel building is a 2-1/2 story wood frame structure, with a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior, set on a raised foundation obscured by latticework. A single-story shed-roofed porch extends across the front, with Italianate square posts rising to jigsawn brackets. The interior retains much of its original layout, with three main public chambers on the first floor, and a corridor providing access to small guest rooms on the second. The hotel was built in 1847 by George T. Smith, and provided a seaside vacation experience to travelers arriving on the recently completed railroad which ran along the coast. This type of small boarding house was once a common sight on Connecticut's coast, but is now rarely seen. Its current setting, well back from the shoreline of

Long Island Sound Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches from the Eas ...

, is the result of natural sand deposition. Its Italianate features are probably the result of a major update of the property that took place in 1875. In the 1930s, the hotel and surround land were given to the state, which formed the wildlife management and nature preserve areas where it now stands. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the building was used as a military lookout station. It now houses the visitors center of the Connecticut Audubon Society's Coastal Center at Milford Point.

References

External links

Connecticut Audubon Society Coastal Center
{{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in New Haven County, Connecticut Italianate architecture in Connecticut Hotel buildings completed in 1847 Milford, Connecticut Connecticut Audubon Society Tourist attractions in New Haven County, Connecticut

Description and history

See also

References

External links