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Sally Hart Lodge History

The Lodge was built in 1850 by Roderic Curtis, a descendent of one of the 38 founders of Wallingford, around the walls of the small white farmhouse dating from the early 1800s. Modeled after Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford in Scotland, with its diamond-paned casement windows, steep gables, and bracketed eaves, it is a fine example of Gothic Revival architecture.

Judge William Gardner Choate and his wife Mary Atwater Choate purchased it in 1906 for The Choate School. Two years later, it became the headmaster’s residence. Inspired by a building at Eton College in England, Headmaster George St. John named it “The Lodge” in the 1930s, but from 1973 to 2002 the Choate community knew it as Curtis House.

Sally Hart Portrait

Thanks to a generous gift from the late Larry Hart ’32, the Lodge was fully renovated as a guest house and alumni center in 2001-02. Its name honors both Mr. Hart’s late wife, Sally, and the name that students and faculty knew it by for 65 years. The restoration retained the significant architectural features inside and out. Notable are the columns at the south end of the living room, the mantle, and the ascanthus on the living room ceiling. Also notable are the staircase in the front hall and the graceful curved bookcases in the study.