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Connecticut College awarded $7,000 grant to study historic steel house on campus

November 05, 2007

NEW LONDON, Conn. - Connecticut College has been awarded a $7,000 Historic Preservation Technical Assistance Grant from the CT Trust for Historic Preservation to study the college´s notable steel house, purchased in 1933 by Winslow Ames, the founding director of New London´s Lyman Allyn Art Museum.

The grant, along with matching funds and in-kind services, will be used to develop a stabilization and reuse plan for the frameless steel-panel prefabricated house, as well as to analyze the building´s historic materials and prepare a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. Abigail Van Slyck, the Dayton Professor of Art History at the college, and Doug Royalty, a preservation specialist, will oversee the project.

Several prefabricated houses were displayed at the 1933 Chicago World´s Fair, where they were touted as the answer to the housing crisis of the Great Depression. Ames attended the fair and was fascinated by the steel "machine for living." Excited about the possibilities of prefabricated housing, he and his wife built the steel home, as well as another two-bedroom house assembled from panels of specially formulated asbestos cement, on two small lots on Mohegan Ave. Both were sold to Connecticut College in 1949.

The second house, now known as the Winslow Ames House, was rehabilitated in 1994 and is now used as office space by the college. The steel house, however, was used as faculty housing until 2004 and has remained largely unchanged. Recently, the house was listed on the State Register of Historic Places.

The public is invited to view the house Saturday, Nov. 10, from 2 - 4 p.m. This free event will include historic information; tours of the building´s exterior at 2:30, 3 and 3:30 p.m. and refreshments. The house is located next to the Winslow Ames House, bordering the college´s South Parking Lot.

Among the most selective private liberal arts colleges in the nation, Connecticut College enrolls 1,900 men and women from 41 states, the District of Columbia and 75 countries. The college is known for putting the liberal arts into action through interdisciplinary studies, international programs, funded internships, student-faculty research and service learning. Founded in 1911, the college operates under an 86-year-old honor code. The college is located at 270 Mohegan Ave, New London, about two hours by car from Boston and New York. The 750-acre campus is an arboretum overlooking Long Island Sound. For more information, visit www.connecticutcollege.edu.

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For more information contact: Amy Sullivan (860) 439-2526; amy.sullivan@conncoll.edu