Winthrop Terrace Apartments

Designed with motifs taken from an Italian Palazzo, with tan brick, heavy brackets, and other neoclassical details, Winthrop Terrace was built by George Ratner in 1920, giving a monumental character to Monitor Square, a triangular park at the intersection of Chapel Street and Winthrop Avenue. It took the place of the Elihu Sperry House, built in 1868.

The site of Winthrop Terrace was once occupied by Elihu Sperry's house, built in 1868 and subsequently owned by Hiram A. Bennett (1888) and E.M. Hotchkiss (1902) who added a two story bay window for $700.

In April of 1919 George Ratner received the building permit to build a forty family (plus janitor’s unit) brick apartment building, to be designed by J.M. Felsom at the cost of $115,000. The ground floor at times was used for commercial purposes, as in 1964 the owners at B. Estrin and Z. Telis converted the doctors’ offices into dwelling units.



In May of 1985, the owner M. Di Rienzo III paid $98,000 in alterations and repairs to the existing building. In September of the same year, Winthrop Limited obtained a variance to convert the building from 40 to 45 dwelling units, plus a janitors unit and 27 parking spaces. This was done by splitting five existing six-room apartments, one on each floor on the east side of the building, into ten three-room apartments. The building now has 45 dwelling units, plus one unit for the janitor/caretaker. Smaller cheaper apartments were apparently more profitable than expensive apartments, perhaps indicating a shift in the make-up of the local population.



The current owner is Menachem Gurevitch, of Mandy Management in Woodbridge, CT. In Feb 2008, Winthrop Terraces received notice of a fire hazard in failing to provide two means of egress from apartments 101B, 201B, 401B, and 501B (likely the extra apartments converted in 1985).

Winthrop Terrace Apartments sits at the northeast corner of Chapel Street and Winthrop Avenue overlooking Monitor Square, a triangular fenced park housing a monument to Cornelius Scranion Bushnell. The monument was designed by Charles A. Platt and Herbert Adams to commemorate Bushnell’s contribution to the construction of the ‘Monitor,’ a ship designed by John Ericsson.

The building was built in an Italian Palazzo Style and is five stories high, set 30 feet and 25 feet off the street. Heavy stone base, tan brick, and decorative parapet all give a neoclassical feel to this building from 1920.