By Susan Godshall

Have you seen a classic firehouse that was turned into a residence or a restaurant? It’s likely to be an example of adaptive reuse.

Adaptive reuse refers to modifying a building for a purpose other than that for which it was originally built. It is a form of recycling and an effective strategy for preserving older structures.

The New Haven Preservation Trust celebrates the adaptive reuse of New Haven buildings, such as the conversion of a factory once humming with industry in the Winchester Repeating Arms complex, now reinvented as elegant apartments with modern amenities. Adaptive reuse is an attractive alternative to new construction in terms of sustainability, and it allows historic buildings to remain vital components of the streetscape.

Conversions such as the former Strouse Adler factory on Olive Street show the appeal of this approach. Other adaptive reuses in New Haven include schools (Prince Street, Scranton, Richard C. Lee), trolley barns, firehouses, and a brewery.

Perhaps the oldest example of adaptive reuse in New Haven is the Gaius Warner House, built in 1860 and now partially hidden behind the façade of the Union League Café. Gaius Fenn Warner was an early leader in the iron industry, turning his malleable iron castings business into one of the largest in the country. In 1860, he commissioned architect Henry Austin to design a house for him on a 1½ acre lot on Chapel Street, between College and High Streets.

The Warner House, shown left, was similar to Henry Austin designs at 42 Academy Street and 466 Orange Street.It had a double-bow front, an elaborate 2-story porch, and a delicate monitor on the roof, still in place (view it from Crown Street).Tall windows were topped with arched stone window headers, visible today on the east and west facades.Warner laid out his property with fruit trees, grape arbors and ornamental shrubs.

Gaius Warner died in October, 1870, and his house was purchased by Peter R. Carll, a U.S. Marshal who was responsible for protecting President U. S. Grant when he attended a convention in New Haven. Carll and his family lived in the house, but his passion was building a 2,800-seat opera house immediately to the rear, on the site of the previously landscaped grounds. The Opera House opened to great fanfare in September, 1880.

Despite the popularity of Carll’s Opera House, the debt incurred in its construction caused Carll to lose the property (and the house) in 1887. The theater, re-established as the Hyperion, and the Warner House thereafter went their separate ways. The house was purchased by the Republican League for use as a clubhouse. This excerpt from a 1886 Sanborn map shows the size and location of the two buildings.

Fifteen years later the Republican League changed its name to the Union League, and planned a large addition, absorbing the front of the Warner house and extending to the Chapel Street sidewalk. Designed by architect Richard Williams, the addition gave the club a large hall for banquets and political meetings. The cornerstone was laid in November, 1902, at a dignified ceremony attended by Governor-elect Abiram Chamberlain and civic leaders including Eli Whitney, Henry Warner (son of Gaius Warner), and Congressman Nehemiah Sperry.

Representatives of the Graduates Club and the Quinnipiack Club extended congratulations, commenting that Union Leagues of various cities “stand hand in hand for the support of those principles…. needed for the support of our union and its flag forever.” (New Haven Daily Morning Journal and Courier, November 19, 1902.)

The completed addition was dedicated in October, 1903 with more pomp and circumstance.

Sadly, after 60 years, the Union League was unable to maintain the building and put it up for sale in 1963 for $165,000, advertising the site as a prestige location “situated within the confines of the original layout of the City of New Haven.”

The building was still vacant in 1976, and Elizabeth Mills Brown, in her book New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design, lamented, “Another dignified, well-made building standing empty. Its design distinguished by a clean-cut layering of brick planes, this is the sort of undemonstrative but cultivated architecture that gives urbanity to city streets. When it was new it enhanced the whole block; it might still do so if it were cleaned up.”

The building was purchased by Ernest J. Nejame, who opened a restaurant named Sherman’s Taverne by the Green. Widely hailed for its elegance, the restaurant was given a 4-star rating by the New York Times in July 1977.

In 1979, once again on the market, 1032 Chapel and other nearby properties were bought by the Schiavone Realty and Development Corporation. Joel Schiavone turned the abandoned dining room into a luxurious office.

*Image courtesy of the Union League Cafe, undated.*

Schiavone told a reporter that he was trying to re-create an urban neighborhood, with a combination of apartments, shops, offices and entertainment. ‘To re-create an effective downtown, you need people to work and live and play downtown. We don’t do shopping centers. We do neighborhoods and try to create day life and night life.” (excerpt from the Washington Post, “Profile of Joel Schiavone,” by Steve Mufson, October 29, 1979.)

In 1985, the building was sold to Jo McKenzie, owner of the Copper Beech Inn in Ivoryton, CT, who created another fine French restaurant, Robert Henry’s. Its successor, the Union League Café, was founded by McKenzie’s son-in-law, Jean Pierre Vuillerment.

From a family house to a political club to Joel Schiavone’s luxurious office to award-winning French restaurants, the evolution of the Warner House is a prime example of adaptive reuse.

The below photos show the Chapel Street facade and the east and west sides, revealing the curious graft of contrasting architectural styles, one from 1860 and one from 1902.

Susan Godshall serves on the Board of Directors of the New Haven Preservation Trust.

162 Years of Adaptive Reuse