Clapboard and twin chimneys at 396 Main Street mark the Butler-McCook Homestead, a historic house museum on the east side of Main Street at the Pulaski Mall, just south of downtown. Built in 1782, this is one of the city’s few surviving 18th-century houses, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Now operated as the Butler-McCook House & Garden by Connecticut Landmarks, the home still reads as a layered dwelling: a 2½-story wood-frame structure with a side-gable roof, clapboarded exterior, and twin interior chimneys.
The main facade is five bays wide, with a center entrance sheltered by a shallow projecting portico supported by round columns, a hip roof, and a projecting cornice. Look up to see the front roof face pierced by three dormers — two small ones flanking a larger central dormer. The rear contains a colonial kitchen on the first floor, while the second floor there was added in the 19th century.
The house stands on about 2 acres, part of which holds formal gardens created by Jacob Weidenman, principal designer of Hartford’s Bushnell Park. Notice the formal gardens stretching from the clapboard and portico toward the Pulaski Mall beyond.