Dead over 70 years, I feel as if I’ve met Stratford, Connecticut’s Boothe Brothers. As I walked through their 32-acre family farm become a public park, their collection of eclectic and eccentric structures on a grassy hillside above the Housatonic River radiated like remnant fragments of their large-than-life personalities. I found humor in a miniature lighthouse, spirituality in an outdoor basilica, playfulness in a 44-sided blacksmith shop, and something inscrutable in a redwood-log building called the Technocratic Cathedral. Mix an offbeat Sturbridge Village with a good dose of Disneyland showmanship and you have Boothe Memorial Park.
On a sun-washed August day, my wife Mary and I entered the grounds through a rose garden kaleidoscopic with blooms and sweetly scented. The brothers are said to have loved flowers, and this garden planted by the park friends group memorializes their passion for roses.
Walking across a lawn dotted with trees, we were utterly gobsmacked by a two-tiered structure of squared 4x6 redwood timbers with glass block widows and a pagoda-like flared roof—the Technocratic Cathedral. A monumental building unlike anything we’d ever seen, it was part Asian temple, part seventeenth century colonial fort. The walls reminded me of childhood Lincoln Log constructions. We stood silently a few long moments taking it in.
Built in the mid-1930s, it gave jobs to unemployed workers and paid homage to the then popular technocracy movement which held that social ills could be solved by application of scientific and technical methods. Eye-catchingly unique and idiosyncratic, the building was born of an odd mix of philanthropy and philosophy.
Born in the 1860s and living on a farm in the family for generations, Stephen and David Boothe began as farmers, sold farm equipment, and became rich in insurance and real estate. Their wealth set them free to pursue a passion for architecture and local history in unusually clever, witty, and sometimes mischievous ways. Proud of their lineage, they claimed to live in the “oldest homestead in America” because it was built on the foundation of a house built in 1663. Seeking acknowledgement, they wrote to President Roosevelt. When no response came, they vowed to vote Republican forever. The brothers could be gregarious, opening their place to visitors for strolling, entertainment, and even outdoor religious services attracting thousands. When they died in the late 1940s, they left their property to the town as a park.
As we walked the grounds, Mary and I felt as if we were in a fairyland of enchanted buildings, each one a visual juxtaposition revealing another aspect of the Boothes’ indomitable imaginations. There are over twenty structures, each opening a vista into the brothers’ sense of whimsy combining elements of Greek revival, Queen Anne, and shingle architectural styles along with their own unconventional notions.
A clapboard frame building with 44 sides, the poly-angled Blacksmith Shop is topped with three wedge-shaped spires. It’s looks like a three-dimensional puzzle. Apparently the Boothes wanted ten times as many sides to their shop as Henry Ford had at his Greenfield Village blacksmith shop in Michigan. Although equipped with enough equipment for five blacksmiths, the building was never intended as more than a static exhibit.
The church-like Clocktower Museum showcases the brothers’ collections of historic objects. Starting out as a simple haybarn, they added eave brackets, a covered entry with fluted columns, circular stained-glass windows in the gable, and a clock tower salvaged from a Massachusetts church, supposedly exchanged for an electric carpet sweeper. The tower bells, said to be engraved with the brothers’ genealogy, sound beautiful and are loud. Legend has it that Stratford taxed the tower after neighbors complained that the ringing bothered their chickens. Afterward, the brothers swore they’d never again give the town the time of day.
Basilicas are usually large buildings, but leave it to the Boothe brothers to turn the idea inside out by creating an outdoor version styled like a stone-wall enclosed sunken garden. At one end is a pulpit of stone behind which is a decoratively shingled structure housing an organ. In 1938, 4,000 people attended worship and had breakfast. During our brief stop, just a few visitors were passing through. Still, the sound of wind in the trees and birdsong seemed as good as any religious hymn.
The grounds are dotted with a variety of other buildings, but the small whimsical structures that were erected for fun as architectural jokes or puns proved our favorites. Among them were an elfin lighthouse and keepers castle of stone cobbles surrounded by a shallow pool. The brothers quipped that it was the only lighthouse that did not received government supplies. A miniature shingled windmill surrounded by red and white impatiens and blue ageratum was fitted with 700 colored lights when the brothers hosted events. There’s also a small finial-topped octagonal trolly station and an outhouse. Clearly, the brothers enjoyed a little levity.
The quirky Boothe spirit continues today with a few newer additions. Among them are the rustic style Merritt Parkway toll plaza that once stood at the Housatonic River crossing, and the 1844 Greek revival Putney Chapel with its crenelated belfry bearing pinnacles at the corners. The brothers would no doubt have delighted in the presence of the radio club, astronomical society and its observatory, model railroaders, and an aviary filled with parakeets.
Boothe Memorial Park isn’t just a fascinating collection of unusual structures. To spend time here is to enter the very imaginations of two dynamically creative individuals. The architecture is a pure expression of unconventional and fun-loving off-center genius. It’s an inspiration for out-of-the-box thinking, a place to gather energy for doing things differently. As Mary and I drove away, I was seized by a strong desire to meet the brothers. Just before reaching home, I realized that, in a significant way, I had.
