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Jonathan Sturges House

historic house in Connecticut, United States

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authorityQ6274546
Source-derived summary

The Jonathan Sturges House is a historic house at 449 Mill Plain Road in Fairfield, Connecticut. Built in 1840 to a design by Joseph Collins Wells, it is one of the oldest-known and best-documented examples of architect-designed Gothic Revival architecture. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1994 for its architectural significance. It was designed and built for Jonathan Sturges (1802–74), a New York City businessman and patron of the arts, in whose family the property remains.

Description

The Sturges House is a rambling wood-frame structure, with more than 30 rooms and 11 staircases. It was built in four stages between 1840 and 1895, and has seen relatively little alteration since then. The exterior is almost entirely clad in board-and batten siding, except for some gable ends which are clapboarded. The gables are typically steeply pitched, and are all decorated with bargeboard, pendants and finials. The single-story porch consists of segmented-arch sections decorated with latticework trim. The house's chimneys are topped by decorative pots or brickwork.

Editorial summary

“Jonathan Sturges House” enters the record as historic house in Connecticut, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jonathan, Sturges and House can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1840, 1994, 1802, 1895—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Jonathan, Sturges and House.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Jonathan Sturges House” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Jonathan, Sturges and House provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6274546. Authority coordinates are 41.147, -73.267. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1840, 1994, 1802 and 1895.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Jonathan Sturges House primary sources, Jonathan Sturges House archive and Jonathan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Jonathan Sturges House” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.