Saint Luke's Home for Destitute and Aged Women
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[edit] Description
Address: 135 Pearl Street, Middletown, Connecticut
Style: Victorian Institutional; Academic Classicism details
Date of Construction: 1892
Materials: Brick walls; Brownstone Foundation; Slate Roof
Structural System: Load Bearing Masonry, with gable roof
Architect: Unknown
Builder: Unknown
Historic Use: Indigent Widow's Home
Current Use: Housing for elderly women
[edit] Relationship to Surroundings
This large brick institutional building dominates the area by its mass and corner siting at Pearl and Lincoln Streets in Middletown's residential North End. It forms a dividing line between large structures to the south towards Washington Street and more modest late Victorian era worker homes to the north.
[edit] Significance
St. Luke's Home for Destitute and Aged Women was incorporated by an act of the Connecticut State Assembly on June 22, 1865. For twenty-seven years the home was conducted in an old house on the southwest corner of Court and Pearl Street. in 1892 a large legacy enabled a new home to be erected at the present site at Pearl and Lincoln Streets. Comfortable quarters are provided for fourteen women. Members of the Church of the Holy Trinity played a large part in establishing the endowment; frequently the current rector of that church serves as president of the Board of Trustees.
This substantial brick building looks like a carefully-designed apartment house, rather than an institution. Three-and-a-half stories tall, the first floor is partly below ground level. A long run of brownstone steps leads to a center entrance door on the second floor level. Two bay window piers flank the front entrance, capped off above the roof line by gable-roofed dormers. Decorative elements such as the wrought iron fence, ivy on the facade, and quoin-like brick projections on all corners add a picturesque quality to the building.
[edit] Current Use and Condition
References Middletown, Connecticut Historical and Architectural Resources. Volume IV, Card Number 221. Roger Sherman. March, 1978.
