Branford House UConn Avery Point

The Branford House is an historic mansion on the UConn Avery Point Campus in Groton, Connecticut. Morton Freeman Plant (1852-1918), a prosperous businessman living in the area, decided to build the Branford House for 3 million dollars to use as his family’s summer home. He named the house after Branford, the Connecticut shoreline town which was his beloved childhood home. Plant’s wife, Nellie originally designed the home and trusted Robert W. Gibson to implement her design. The house was built in 1903 in the Tudor style. The interior, however, was designed in a handful of styles under Mrs. Plant’s instructions including Baroque, Classical, Flemish, Gothic, and Renaissance. The original construction of the estate included beautiful gardens and reflection pools. Unfortunately, after the United States Coast Guard purchased the property in the 1940s, the gardens and pool were removed to make room for barracks to aid in the war effort. The Branford House and the surrounding buildings, including the Avery Point Lighthouse and the research facility which we also restored, are all presently owned and operated by the University of Connecticut. KSR restored the entire exterior of the Branford House including cleaning, repointing and structural repair to all masonry walls, as well as replacing 150 windows with historically accurate reproductions. We performed dismantling, lead abatement, painting, and reinstalling of the historic decorative woodwork, as well as interior decorative plaster restoration.