Curtis Fairchild House, Durham, Connecticut:
At the corner of Main Street and Route 68 is a Federal style home with a Greek Revival style pediment crowning a red double door. The house was constructed in 1741 for Curtis Fairchild, who sold it a few years later to John Jones. Then the property was inherited by an indebted John Jones, Jr. – who by 1767, fled from his creditors. Title ended up in the hands of Phineas Spelman.
Spelman turned the house into a tavern and inn at the urging of the town. He was reluctant at first to start a business during the Revolutionary War – when inflation had made local currency almost worthless – but he opened his doors as a hotel nonetheless. When Spelman died in 1783, his widow Elizabeth Spelman operated Spelman Hotel until it was closed by the town ten years later. The town was unwilling to license Mrs. Spelman because there were several taverns in Durham and town officials feared the erosion of local morality.
The house transferred to Daniel Bates and then by Parsons Coe. Coe who updated his home with Greek Revival details. He replaced the original gambrel roof with a gable roof. A front porch with six square columns were added and the house was attached to a smaller, adjacent house.
The Coe family owned the parcel until 1898. The Harvey family took over from 1902 to 1954. Then it became the property of Durham’s First Congregational Church. The house has recently been restored to its eighteenth century appearance, including the removal of the porch and the return of the gambrel roof.
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