21 Edgewood Avenue was built in 1837 as part of a wave of speculative building in the Dwight Street neighborhood. Its initial residents would have been workers in one of the many carriage shops located nearby. The house has a number of features which indicate its basis in the Greek Revival style. The gabled wood which sits atop paired brackets over the main facade’s door evokes a sort of pediment, and the soffits attached to the open gabled roof also suggest a large triangular pediment. Eventually as manufacturing left the Dwight Street neighborhood, 21 Edgewood was converted into apartments for student housing, one of which was inhabited by Bill and Hillary Clinton during their time at Yale Law School. 

Carriage Shop Workers, W.S. Wheeler (1911), Bill and Hillary Clinton (1973), Miscellaneous Yale Students

In an 1887 lecture, Col. Gardner Morse described the Dwight Street Historic District before the development that followed the arrival of industry as “little more than plain farmland and plain farm building” (2). The current site of 21 Edgewood would have been part of an expanse of flat, undeveloped land until the house was built in 1837. A group of African Americans who worked on farms in the district lived in meager housing nearby off of what is today Elm Street, but the area was not a residential one otherwise. Industry strengthened in New Haven following the War of 1812, which led to the construction of the nearby carriage shops. This boom in industry was followed by a population increase in New Haven, which speculators took advantage of by developing the Dwight Street District around the carriage shops to sell or rent to workers, and the construction of 21 Edgewood was part of this speculative development (2).

21 Edgewood was originally built when a group of speculators began buying large parcels of land west of York Street and laying streets in order to attract working class people who wished to live near the carriage shops where they worked (2). 21 Edgewood itself was a block away from 3 different carriage shops in 1886. In 1901 only one of these carriage shops remained, and it also disappeared by 1924. All manufacturing would leave the Dwight Street District shortly after (4, 5, 6, 7). 21 Edgewood’s transition from housing blue collar manufacturing workers to housing students mirrors the decline of industry in New Haven in the 20^th century. The house’s most famous tenants are undoubtedly Bill and Hillary Clinton, who inhabited the ground floor during their time at Yale Law School. In her memoir, Living History, Hillary Clinton described the house as a modest one with uneven floors and cracked walls that allowed the wind to blow through (1). In recent years, increased demand from Yale students for off campus housing has pushed up the value of 21 Edgewood and surrounding properties, leading to the appraisal of the land it sits on being raised from $23,000 to $230,000 (8).

: 21 Edgewood sits in an almost entirely residential area in the Dwight Street Historic District. It is one of a series of vernacular Greek Revival houses in the area which mimic the elaborate Greek Revival house at 91 Edgewood (2, 3). The Dwight Street District was originally home mostly to workers in the many carriage shops in the vicinity, but today all manufacturing has left the area and many of the houses in the blocks around 21 Edgewood have been converted to student housing (4,5,6,7). 21 Edgewood’s clapboard exterior stands in stark contrast to the houses with full masonry exteriors on Lynwood Place, which highlights the class differences between its blue collar inhabitants and the Yale faculty who lived on Lynwood in the late 1800s (2). 

Sanborn fire insurance maps going back to 1886 suggest that the building has never drastically changed from its original L shaped form, with dimensions of 27.5’ across its main façade and 109’ deep (8, 4, 5 ,6, 7). The house contains elements of both vernacular Italianate and Greek Revival architecture (2). The bracketed door holds and windows within the gable peaks both contribute to the house’s Italianate style, while the small pediments over the doors as well as the large ones suggested by the soffits attached to the open gabled roof are elements of Greek Revival architecture. These Greek Revival features were likely included in an attempt to mimic the more elaborate Greek Revival house built in 1835 at 91 Edgewood (2, 3). The property’s exterior is entirely clapboard except for half of the northern face, which is brick masonry. Originally constructed as a 3 family home, the boundaries between the apartments were eventually taken out to allow a larger group of students to share the space. Hillary Clinton wrote that she rented the ground floor in 1973 when it contained “a living room with a fireplace, one small bedroom, and third floor that served as both study ad dining area, a tiny bathroom and a primitive kitchen.” The bedroom has since been removed, and the ground floor now consists of two common spaces, a bathroom, and a kitchen, all of which are shared between the inhabitants of the house’s 7 bedrooms (1). 

1.      Hillary Rodham Clinton, “Living History” June 29, 2003, New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/books/chapters/living-history.html

2.      National Register of Historic Places Inventory, “Dwight Street Historic District Nomination Form” 1938. Prepared by Alison Gilchrist, edited by John Herzen. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/6b2791c5-75bc-489c-8014-b573153116fb

3.      A. Gilchrist and T. Hahn, Photographs of the Dwight Street District, 1979. Accompaniment to the Dwight Street Historic District Nomination Form.

4.      Sanborn Map Company of New York, Insurance Maps of New Have Connecticut, Volume 2, 1886, 48.

5.      Sanborn Map Company of New York, Insurance Maps of New Have Connecticut, Volume 2, 1901, 147.

6.      Sanborn Map Company of New York, Insurance Maps of New Have Connecticut, Volume 2, 1924, 202.

7.      Sanborn Map Company of New York, Insurance Maps of New Have Connecticut, Volume 2, 1973, 202.

8.      City of New Haven, CT, “21 Edgewood Av,” from City of New Haven Online Assessment Database, http://gis.vgsi.com/newhavenct/Parcel.aspx?Pid=16828

9.      Cassuis W. Kelly, “Atlas of New Haven, Connecticut,” 1911.