Armsmear, the meadow of arms, was Samuel Colt's family home, and the firearm manufacturer's stone villa faces you here at 80 Wethersfield Avenue. It was planned for Colt’s 1856 marriage to Elizabeth Hart Jarvis and constructed in 1856, set on grounds overlooking the recently completed Colt Armory. The house may have been designed by local architect Octavius Jordan or factory engineer H. A. G. Pomeroy.
A contemporary called it "an Italian villa in stone, massive, noble, refined, yet not carrying out any decided principle of architecture, it is like its originator, bold and unusual in its combinations. Take in those details now: the low‑pitched roof, heavy bracketed cornice, round‑arched doors and windows, iron balconies, the Italianate tower and details, even the Turkish domes and pinnacles. The Colts moved in in 1857 and immediately began to shape the surrounding gardens, using plans by landscape architects Cleveland and Copeland.
Armsmear was later recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1976, and that designation was expanded in 2008 to form the Coltsville Historic District. Notice the Italianate tower and Turkish domes overhead, then picture the gardens sloping down toward the Colt Armory below.