St. Elmo Society

This two story house on Lynwood Place, is much simpler than its neighbors. It has a rectangular, boxy form that doesn’t take many risks. This theme is continued with four windows framed by gentle, friendly curves on their top side. The dark brick and simple wooden Italianate entry, make for a handsome, but simple design. 

EA Burritt, Patrick R. Duffy, St. Elmo Society

The land on Lynwood Place was originally sold by the Hooker and Osborne Company throughout the early 1880s.[1] After it was bought by one of the family’s to build their home at 35 Lynwood it passed on through different owners. While it is not known exactly who owned this site, it is likely that the home was leased to different owners associated with Yale University. The home was purchased by the board of the St. Elmo Society in 1985, 100 years after it was originally built.[2] St. Elmo’s now uses the first floor of the home while leasing out the second floor space as a single apartment unit.

[1] National Register of Historic Places Inventory.

[2] Interview with anonymous society member. 

Built in 1885 as a single-family home, 35 Lynwood is a shining example of the expansion of New Haven’s residential area in the late 19^th century. When the development of Lynwood started to occur in the 1880’s, its single-family homes were occupied by the successful professionals who either owned businesses in New Haven or were associated with Yale. Lynwood place and its homes were an outlier in the original development of the Dwight Neighborhood, as it was traditionally working class.[1] These new Lynwood Place homes were primarily brick, to comply with the city’s new fire codes.[2] While these homes were originally, single family, the nature of the street changed again as the dense urban area of New Haven spread.

           The nicest homes on Lynwood remained private residences, while the smaller brick homes like 35 Lynwood became leased apartments, frequently for people associated with Yale. The major change for 35 Lynwood came in 1985, when the St. Elmo Society Alumni board purchased the house. St. Elmo Society had been founded in 1889 as one of the Sheffield Scientific School Societies, similarly to Book and Snake and Berzelius.[3] It was originally open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, until roughly the 1960s, after the Sheffield School became officially a part of Yale, changed its membership process. Elmo’s then became a senior society that operated in the traditional manner of Yale senior societies. Originally, the St. Elmo’s tomb was located at 111 Grove Street and was built in 1885, until moved to a new tomb right next door at 109 Grove Street, what was then known as St. Elmo’s hall and now known as Rosenfeld Hall. The building was designed and built by Kenneth Murchison and reflected an Elizabethan style.[4]

           The original arrangement at St. Elmo hall, was that the society leased dormitory space to the Yale. That changed in 1962 when the University purchased the building from St. Elmo and began leasing the University’s space to the society. The final chapter of the story began when in 1985 Yale opted not to renew St. Elmo’s lease on the space in what had been renamed Rosenfeld Hall. It was then that the St. Elmo’s alumni corporation purchased the new tomb at 35 Lynwood Place. To this day, the mission of St Elmo is to “shape the lives of its members, providing a close knit community and sense of fellowship, and facilitating their personal development so that they go on to make positive and profound impacts in their communities and the world at large."[5] The story of the St. Elmo’s tomb speaks to a larger shift of the University purchasing senior society tombs and repurposing them to fit the larger needs of the University. While some societies like Skull and Bones, Berzelius, Book and Snake, Scroll and Key, and Wolf’s Head still have ostentatious, architecturally impressive tombs, most have moved on to simpler more residential homes to conduct their society meetings.

[1] US Dept. of the Interior. National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Dwight Street Historic District.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Interview with anonymous society member.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

35 Lynwood Pl is surrounded by other residential houses. Many of these homes were built in the late 19^th century as the residential area of New Haven expanded out from the green. This urban development is shown by the 1879 and 1889 Sanborn Maps. Most houses on the street are designed in Italianate or Greek revival style with the ornamentation that alludes to the wealthy families that would have been moving into the houses when they were built. The house is also less than a block from the commercial district of Broadway, giving it increasing value as a quiet residential street in an ideal location. 

35 Lynwood Place uses a medium to dark brick to create a straightforward Italianate home. It is clearly a intended as a residential structure as the small wooden stoop and sharp triangular cover over the entryway that is commonly seen in both Italianate and Queen Anne style architecture (the other source of inspiration for the house). Apart from the humbly ornamented entryway, the front of the house is completely flat with three windows. The windows are framed with white wood, and there is a bending curve in the border along the top edge of each of the windows. These gentle arcs lend themselves to the general theme of humility among more complex architectural structures on the street. The roof of the house is also gabled, but in a way that is difficult to see from the street level. The roof adds to the idea that the architect or family commissioning its construction intended to draw less attention to home than its neighbors. But despite its simple themes and details, the house and the small garden immediately in front of it are handsome and there is nothing garish or unpleasant about them.