Samuel Farnsworth House

Samuel Farnsworth House
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
41°46′50″N 72°45′59″W / 41.78056°N 72.76639°W / 41.78056; -72.76639
Area	1.6 acres (0.65 ha)
Built	1790 (1790)
Architectural style	Colonial
MPS	Eighteenth-Century Houses of West Hartford TR
NRHP reference No.	86001990[1]
Added to NRHP	September 10, 1986

The Samuel Farnsworth House is a historic house at 537 Mountain Road in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States. Probably built about 1797, it is one of West Hartford's few surviving 18th-century buildings, and a particularly rare example of a small vernacular single-story cottage. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 10, 1986.^[1]

The Samuel Farnsworth House is located in northwestern West Hartford, on the west side of Mountain Road, a busy local north–south main road. It is set on a rise above the road, the lot fronted by a dry-laid brownstone retaining wall. It is a 1+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure with a front gable roof and central brick chimney. Its front facade is three bays wide, with two windows placed asymmetrically on either side of the entrance, which is slightly off-center. The rear roof face has a flare, extending the building to the rear, and there is a secondary entrance on the south side. Trim is limited to simple corner boards.^[2]

Although the house is placarded 1807, it was probably built in 1797 by Samuel Farnsworth, and is one of the only two-room cottages from the period to survive. The land was acquired by Samuel Farnsworth in 1790 from his father-in-law, Morgan Goodwin. He sold it in 1797, with dwelling and other outbuildings, to Titus Goodwin. The house remained in the Goodwin family for many years.^[2]

• National Register of Historic Places listings in West Hartford, Connecticut