District Overview Inventory List District Map

Sterling Hill Historic District

LHD boundaries as described are approximate and subject to change. Consult the LHD Study Report on file with the relevant local district commission or municipal authority to verify district boundaries and whether a specific property, particularly one in proximity of a boundary line, is within the district. Also note that LHD boundaries may differ from those of State or National Register Districts.

Town:
Sterling
Year of Establishment:
1991
District Authority:
Historic District Commission
Link to Commission or Municipal Website:
District Character:
Rural neighborhood
Features:

Buildings, Vacant Lots

Architectural Style:

Greek Revival, Federal, Georgian. Most of Sterling Hill's houses are typical of New England vernacular building practices in the 18th century. The traditional house form – gable roof with the ridgeline parallel to the road, a symmetrical five-bay facade with a central entry, and a large central chimney – is found throughout the district. Most have clapboarded exteriors, the most common type of exterior covering in the houses' period. Although most of the houses have been modified with later doorways and sash, they retain their characteristic form. [NR]

Era:
18th Century, 19th Century

The Sterling Hill Historic District is a group of 14 houses with related outbuildings and one church perched upon a broad ridge at the western edge of the Town of Sterling, bordering the town line of Plainfield. To the west the land slopes sharply downward toward the Ekonk section of Plainfield, while to the east the land drops off more gently. The principal road in the Sterling Hill Historic District is the east-west State Route 14A, known also as Plainfield Pike, with Green Lane running northward at the summit of the hill near the district's focal point, the Greek Revival style Sterling Hill Baptist Church. [NR]

The Sterling Hill Historic District is significant as a representative example of a particular 18th- and early 19th-century Connecticut settlement type, the upland-ridge village crossroads. Unlike many such centers, Sterling Hill was relatively unaffected by subsequent change in the 19th century or even in recent times, so that it retains much of the appearance it had in its earlier years, with a cluster of old houses, barns, a church, and open fields separated by stone walls. The houses on Sterling Hill are also significant because they embody the characteristic architecture of the period. There are the plain center-chimney houses typical of the 18th century, as well as the finely detailed, elegant dwellings which appeared in the Connecticut countryside in the Federal period. [NR]

[1] District information retrieved from the town website http://www.sterlingct.us/.
[2] Sterling Hill local historic district, Sterling Hill Historic District Study Committee, 1991, SHPO Library, Hartford.
[3] Parcel IDs retrieved from NRIS 86000152 and matched with the online assessors database for the street addresses (http://sterling.ias-clt.com/parcel.list.php).
[NR] Clouette Bruce and Roth Matthew, Sterling Hill Historic District, National Register Nomination Number- 86000152 NRIS, National Park Service, 1986 - http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/86000152.pdf; http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Photos/86000152.pdf.

The local historic district boundary is as per the boundary defined in the National Register nomination form filed with the Connecticut Historic Commission in 1985, relative to the Town of Sterling only. [2]The Sterling Hill historic district, bordering the town limits of Sterling and Plainfield, includes one property located in the town of Plainfield.

Date of Compilation:
10/31/11
Compiler:
Manjusha Patnaik, CT Trust for Historic Preservation