| Saint Luke's Home for Destitute and Aged Women | |
| Location: | 135 Pearl St., Middletown, Connecticut |
| Coordinates: | 41.5617°N -72.6549°W |
| Built: | 1892 |
| Architecture: | Victorian Institutional, Academic Classicism details with Brick walls, Brownstone Foundation, and a Slate Roof |
| Added: | April 29, 1982 |
| Refnum: | 82004337 |
St. Luke's Home for Destitute and Aged Women was incorporated by an act of the Connecticut State Assembly on June 22, 1865. For twenty-seven years the home was conducted in an old house on the southwest corner of Court and Pearl Street. in 1892 a large legacy enabled a new home to be erected at the present site at Pearl and Lincoln Streets. Comfortable quarters are provided for fourteen women. Members of the Church of the Holy Trinity played a large part in establishing the endowment; frequently the current rector of that church serves as president of the Board of Trustees.
The substantial brick building looks like a carefully designed apartment house, rather than an institution. At three-and-a-half stories tall, the first floor is partly below ground level. A long run of brownstone steps leads to a center entrance door on the second floor level. Two bay window piers flank the front entrance, capped off above the roof line by gable-roofed dormers. Decorative elements such as the wrought iron fence, ivy on the facade, and quoin-like brick projections on all corners add a picturesque quality to the building.[1]
The large brick institutional building dominates the area by its mass and corner siting at Pearl and Lincoln Streets in Middletown's residential North End. It forms a dividing line between large structures to the south towards Washington Street and more modest late Victorian era worker homes to the north.