Colin M. Ingersoll House

The Colin M. Ingersoll House is a dramatic, colorful, and asymmetrical Chateauesque building that is currently used as law offices but was formerly a private residence. It has a number of bold features including a turret topped with a conical roof, a copper gabled dormer, and brightly colored brick walls, which all add to a thoroughly playful and vibrant aesthetic. It is one of the many grand homes that was built on Whitney Avenue around the end of the 19^thand beginning of the 20^thcentury for wealthy families, and has remained a stable presence as the area has become slightly more commercial and more heavily populated by apartment complexes and multi-family homes. 

Ingersoll family from 1896 until approximately 1910-11

William N. Parker from then until 1917

Vacant 1918

Linahan Family 1919-1967

Veronica Tus 1968-1969

Vacant 1970

Pellegrino Law Firm 1971-present day

Before the Ingersoll House was built, the site it now occupies was part of the much larger Stephen Whitney Estate, which stretched all the way from Lawrence Street to Canner Street in one direction and from Whitney to Livingstone in the other.[i]Since the construction of the house, the building and its site have remained much the same, with the exception of some small repairs and renovations like the replacement of the porch roof.[ii]Its current owners, who have held the building since 1971, appear to want to preserve the building’s original design and have primarily requested building permits in order to execute repairs or to modify the outbuilding.[iii]

[i]G.M Hopkins and Co. Hopkins Atlas of New Haven, Connecticut[map]. New Haven, CT. G.M Hopkins and Co., 1888.

[ii]August 11, 2017 “City of New Haven Permit to Build—475 Whitney”, Records of the Building Department, New Haven Building Department, New Haven.

[iii]Ibid

Colin Macrae Ingersoll, Jr. (1858-1948), the head engineer of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford railroad, had this house designed and built for him by the Bridgeport architect Joseph W. Northrup (1860-1940) in 1896.[i]^,[ii]Northrup, who is described as an “accomplished and eclectic architect,” was “thoroughly conversant” with the architectural trends of the time, apparently taking design cues for this home from the Chateauesque designs of Richard Morris Hunt.[iii]His other buildings include the Taylor Memorial Library in Milford, CT and the First Baptist Church in Bridgeport, CT.[iv]Ingersoll belonged to a prominent New Haven family: his farther was Colin M. Ingersoll, Sr., who served in the US House of Representatives for two terms.[v]Ingersoll Jr. was evidently respected and liked both in his professional and his personal life, with a newspaper at the time describing him both as “one of the most efficient and successful engineers in the country” and as “a genial, courteous gentleman”.[vi]Ingersoll did not remain in this home for very long, however, leaving for New York City by 1912. At this point William N. Parker took residence in the building.[vii]

When this home was built, Whitney Avenue was quickly becoming one of the more luxurious residential neighborhoods in New Haven.[viii]The advent of the sewer and the horsecar allowed Whitney to be significantly more accessible to downtown than ever before, causing the area to explode with “great brick houses and baronial castles”.[ix]The enormous Antebellum estates that had previously populated the area were divided into lots with large lawns that allowed wealthy individuals like Ingersoll to commission the construction of elaborate personalized homes, often in the Queen Anne style, such as the Richard Everit House at 641 Whitney.[x]Much of Whitney thus became a “patrician showcase”.[xi]During the late 19^thand early 20^thcentury cities were often perceived as crowded, dirty, and dangerous, and presumably Whitney Avenue provided a convenient and fashionable balance between access to the denser, thriving center of New Haven and removal from its perceived dinginess and disorder to create a neighborhood filled with privileged families who built homes to reflect their worldly sensibilities and large paychecks.

In the early 20^thcentury, Whitney’s desirability grew as it was considered to be one of the “healthiest and most advantageous” areas of the city thanks to the picturesque lawns and beautiful houses that came out of the early 1900s building boom.[xii]Homes built during this time were often praised as being highly attractive, but no single style entirely prevailed.[xiii]The Ingersoll House was occupied by several different families during the 20^thcentury but was held for the longest by the Linahans, who owned it for almost 50 years.[xiv]Approaching the 1950s, Whitney (especially north of Canner) became more of a middle class neighborhood as apartments and simpler, more affordable homes were built and businesses started to appear further and further north. As this process continued into the second half of the 1900s, a number of homes built around the turn of the century were demolished in order to make way for modern commercial buildings, more apartments, smaller homes, and additional community buildings like churches.[xv]This was reflected in the commercializing of the Ingersoll House, which was acquired by the Pellegrino Law Firm in 1971 to be used as its offices.[xvi]

Today, the Ingersoll House continues to act as the offices of the Pellegrino Law Firm and the neighborhood around it remains mostly residential with some assorted businesses. Not too far south, though, the opposite is true, with restaurants, businesses, and University buildings outnumbering residential buildings. The house is remarkably well kept, and a number of other houses constructed around the same time are looked after with equal care in recognition of both their historical and architectural significance and their aesthetic value. Others were unfortunately less looked after and have fallen into disrepair.[xvii]Over time the Ingersoll House has acted as a historical marker: while the surrounding neighborhood has changed in many ways since 1896, becoming more accessible to middle class home buyers and more fully integrated into the urban fabric with sidewalks and bus lines, the eclectic mix of architecture and tree-lined roads have stayed the same. The area finds unity in its variety.

[i]"Colin M. Ingersoll, A Leading Engineer" New York Times (New York), April 8, 1948. Accessed February 26, 2018. https://search.proquest.com/docview/108358927?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=15172.

[ii]"The Colin M. Ingersoll House (1896)." Historic Buildings of Connecticut. February 17, 2010. Accessed February 20, 2018. http://historicbuildingsct.com/?p=2826.

[iii]New Haven Historic Resources Inventory. Phase I, Volume: VII.

[iv]"First Baptist Church of Bridgeport (1893).” Historic Buildings of Connecticut. February 17, 2010. Accessed February 20, 2018. http://historicbuildingsct.com/?p=12080.

[v]"Colin M. Ingersoll, A Leading Engineer", 1948

[vi]Dana, Arnold G., comp. New Haven Old and New. 1922-1947, 37.

[vii]New Haven Directories(New Haven: Price and Lee Co., 1897-1972).

[viii]New Haven Historic Resources Inventory. Phase I, Volume: Essays. New Haven, CT: New Haven Preservation Trust, 1982, 58-64.

[ix]Brown, Elizabeth M. New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design, 44.

[x]New Haven Historic Resources Inventory. Phase I, Volume: Essays, 58-64.

[xi]Ibid

[xii]Dana, Arnold G., comp. New Haven Old and New. 1922-1947, 37.

[xiii]New Haven Historic Resources Inventory. Phase I, Volume: Essays, 58-64.

[xiv]New Haven Directories(New Haven: Price and Lee Co., 1897-1972).

[xv]Ibid 

[xvi]"History of The Pellegrino Law Firm." The Pellegrino Law Firm P.C. Accessed February 22, 2018. http://www.pellegrinolawfirm.com/Firm-Overview/History.shtml.

[xvii]New Haven Historic Resources Inventory. Phase I, Volume: Essays, 58-64.

The building is situated on Whitney Avenue by its intersection with Willow Street in a neighborhood that is largely residential but incorporates some commercial establishments. To the north of the Ingersoll House is a funeral home, while apartments, houses, and multi-family complexes surround it on other sides. The styles used in this assortment of buildings vary widely from Queen Anne to Shingle Style to Tudor Revival, and in the vicinity there remain several other Chateauesque buildings from the late 19^thcentury such as 375 Whitney, which now contains the headquarters of the Daughters of Isabella organization. Many of the buildings situated on this segment of Whitney Avenue are grand and distinguished residences that once belonged to the wealthiest businessmen of New Haven and are either single or multi-family homes today, so the Ingersoll House fits in quite well. Each home has shrubs, hedges, or trees that contribute to the widespread presence of greenery. Gables are a common stylistic theme to many of these buildings, as are dignified Doric columns to support front porch roofs, and there is generally a great variety of color in the buildings that brings playfulness and liveliness to the neighborhood. 

Whitney Avenue is a busy thoroughfare with wide streets and a steady flow of traffic, but in moments when the traffic ebbs there are brief moments of relative quiet accompanied by the calls and chirps of birds residing in mossy trees that arch over the sidewalks at regular intervals. These sidewalks are an integral part of the neighborhood and are constantly populated with people biking, walking, and jogging up and down both sides. While it is certainly a somewhat urban area with frequent bus stops and post office boxes on corners, the mainly residential side streets invite the casual passer-by into their quieter nooks. Cars on these streets are often parked quietly and add to a sense of removal from the city proper.