Unitarian Meeting House History(2)

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utilizing its Steinway concert grand piano. The ambulatory walls provide excellent exhibition space for artists, and portions of the building are regularly utilized by outside organizations for meetings and other activities.

When opened in 1964, the lower (or basement) level was left unfinished. Classrooms were separated from Fellowship Hall by furniture. Over the years a kitchen was installed and classroom partitions were added, all according to the architect's original plans. On the ground floor, carpeting added color and reduced the noise from foot traffic. In 1994 the building was made accessible to the physically handicapped through the addition of an elevator, linking the two floors.

The building grows organically out of the slope of the earth and its cedar roof soars towards the center above the sanctuary. The concrete piers and cedar roof add to the warm organic atmosphere. The entrance of sunlight from unexpected clerestory windows allow light and warmth into the center of the building, which would otherwise be oppressive. Since the roof is supported by bridge cables and the clerestory (as well as other windows) is made of plexiglass, the roof and windows move with the wind, thus generating creaking sounds that give the impression that the building is alive.

Architect Roy Cook notes that Lundy adhered in principle to Frank Lloyd Wright's philosophy of "enhancing" nature. "Because of how the glass and plexiglass windows meet the concrete piers and roof," Cook says, "the outside grass and trees and inside carpet and furniture flow in and out of the building. It is hard to tell what is inside and outside because you can see the piers and roof flow through the outside wall."

Church Office

Interior view of church office, showing how concrete
piers organically unite interior and exterior.

Exterior view, showing Memorial Garden.

Unitarianism has existed in Hartford since 1830 when the Rev. Samuel Joseph May, pastor of the state's only Unitarian church (in Brooklyn), preached three sermons at Allyn's Hall on Jan. 24 to a total of seven hundred people. But not until 1844 was the First Unitarian Congregational Society actually formed. ^[1]

Within months the Society's leaders had contacted New York City architect Minard Lafever (1798-1854) ^[2] about drawing up plans for a church building. Hartford Unitarians hoped to raise $5,000 and were relying on an oral promise from the American Unitarian Association (AUA) to match that amount. Lafever agreed to prepare designs for such a church, but noted sarcastically that "the small amount of money which you propose to appropriate to the erection of your edifice will render the duties of the Architect decidedly more difficult than one that would cost double the amount, provided he produced an agreeable design." ^[3] Design and construction costs ultimately exceeded $20,000.

Lafever's design for the Church of the Saviour was erected on the northeast corner of Asylum and Trumbull Streets in downtown Hartford. The cornerstone of the brownstone Gothic Revival structure was laid on May 24, 1845, and the building was dedicated on April 22, 1846. ^[4] Responding to AUA charges that Hartford Unitarians were being extravagant, the Society's first settled pastor, the Rev. Joseph Harrington, chided the Boston bureaucrats. "We must remember what Hartford is: Its antiquity...its wealth, its habits, its respectability, its tastes,-- and we must have a church there in keeping with these things." Defending the unexpected final cost of the building, Rev. Harrington added that

...a sum that may seem extravagant under some circumstances, may seem almost niggardly under others.... Among all the places where I have ministered, I have found no where so noble a zeal...have no where witnessed so generous pecuniary sacrifices. ^[5]

But while Hartford Unitarians were able to raise $7,000, the AUA provided only $900. ^[6] In June 1852, Rev. Harrington resigned and moved to San Francisco. Debts related to the building's cost contributed greatly to the Society's decline, during the next five years. In 1857 the Society voted to suspend ecclesiastical services indefinitely. By the end of the 1850s the Society owed its creditors about $4,000.

Church of our Saviour 1846-1860)

The Church of Our Saviour, Corner of Asylum and
Trumbull Streets, hartford, CT (1846-1860)

At the 1860 annual meeting the trustees voted to sell the building and property to the Charter Oak Bank of Hartford, the proceeds of ==>

Footnotes

[1]. Brett, Connecticut Yesterday and Today, 109.

[2]. Richards, Who's Who in Architecture: From 1400 to the Present, 170; Ransom, Biographical Dictionary of Hartford Architects, 68-69; Withey and Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (Deceased), 359. According to the Witheys, Lafever's fame rests on several splendid Gothic Revival churches in Brooklyn, NY, outstanding examples of which were First Unitarian, dedicated as the Church of the Saviour (1841); Holy Trinity (1844-47), considered by many his architectural masterpiece; and Pierpont Street Baptist (1843-44). Although Ransom noted that Lafever was active in Hartford, providing interior alterations to South Congregational Church (1853), and designing the Pearl Street Congregational Church (1851-1898), he seems unaware that Lafever was architect of the Church of the Saviour.

[3]. Meyer, Hartford Unitarianism, 9.

[4]. Meyer, 10.

[5]. Letter from Joseph Harrington to ??????, mm/dd/yy.

[6]. Meyer, 12.

Let us know of any comments, errors and corrections - thanks (prepared 6/25/02)