Sparks House
- Property Overview
- Inventory List
- Property Map
- Historic/Common Name:
- Jonas Sparks House
- Address:
- 150 Phoenix Street
- Town:
- Vernon »
- Year:
- 1810
- Notes on Establishment:
Approved by CCT on 12/6/2000, Established on 4/17/2001
- Historic Designation:
- LHP, SR
- Property Authority:
- Vernon Historic Properties Commission
- Features:
Building with garage
- Historic Use:
- Residential
- Present Use:
- Residential
- Architectural Style:
Georgian
- Era:
- Early 19th Century
- Map:
- {# if eligible_for_tax_credits}
- Eligible for Historic Home tax credits:
- Yes {/if #}
- General description:
This vernacular Georgian house has a rectangular plan with a center chimney featuring original fireplaces on both floors. Its nine-window facade features a center entry flanked by glazed side lights and a transom. Its two-over-two windows appear to date from the early twentieth century. The one story ell at the rear of the house encloses a two-car garage and features the original dug well. The interior of the house maintains the five-room floor plan, typical of the colonial period, and features a large keeping room fireplace with a bake oven and the original stone hearth. The living and the dining rooms retain their original fireplaces. Exposed timber posts are boxed at the corners and exhibit a beaded edge detail at the center bays. Windows and the original four-panel doors are cased with flat stock with edge moldings. Original wainscoting remains at the keeping room. At the second floor, doors, windows and fireplace fronts receive simpler treatment. Plank doors, flat casings and a plain fireplace surround reflect the utilitarian nature of these rooms.
- Significance of the property:
In 1808, Jonas Sparks, one of the 108 freemen who incorporated the town of Vernon in that same year, purchased 35 acres of land near the Phoenix mill in the southwest district of Vernon, and built a clapboard-sided farm house with a central brick chimney. The spacious two-story, Georgian-style farmhouse reflects the prosperity noted by Timothy Dwight when he passed through Vernon on the newly opened Tolland Turnpike in 1807. Dwight remarked on the fertility of the soil, the quality of the grazing land, and the 'comfortable and thriving circumstances' of the farmers.
- Relationship with the Surroundings:
Located on feeder road with ridge parallel to the road; set back from the street with mixed residential development on both sides of the road.
- Ownership:
- Private
- Owner:
- Stever Jeffrey J
- Sources:
[1] Property information retrieved from the town of Fairfield website http://www.vernon-ct.gov/.
[2]Report of the Vernon Historic Properties Study Committee, 2000, SHPO Library, Hartford.
Assessor and GIS information retrieved from the website http://gis.vernon-ct.gov/newviewer/.
[SR]Jonas Sparks House, Historic Resource Inventory, Attached with the Study Committee report, SHPO Library, Hartford.- Date of Compilation:
- 11/30/2011
- Compiler:
- Manjusha Patnaik, CT Trust for Historic Preservation
Map of the local historic property retrieved from Vernon Historic Properties Study Committee Report, 2000, SHPO Library, Hartford.
View photo