The earliest residences in the
Prospect Hill neighborhood were built in the 1860s, when
Oliver Winchester,
Othneil Marsh, and John M. Davies all built mansions on the same block north of Edwards Street. Winchester, founder of the
Winchester Repeating Arms Company located just down the hill, was the first to complete his mansion, an Italian villa designed by
Henry Austin, which was later replaced by the
Sterling Divinity Quadrangle. In 1867, Davies acquired seven acres to its south and commissioned Austin to design a second mansion at the highest point on the hill. An 1885 home was then completed to the mansion's south, later occupied by
William Howard Taft after his term as
President of the United States. When Davies died in 1871, the property passed to his wife, Alice, then to Thomas Wallace Jr. in 1911, who redecorated much of the interior. in 1964 The Davies House became an academic building when
Katharine Angell, wife of
Yale President James Rowland Angell, helped establish the
Culinary Institute of America in New Haven in 1946. With assistance from Angell and Yale University, the school purchased the Davies estate in 1947 as a facility for culinary instruction, and later purchased the adjoining Taft mansion. After its purchase by Yale, the house remained vacant for nearly thirty years. Because of its high maintenance costs, university administrators proposed to demolish the mansion in 1980, but were rebuffed by students and preservationists who fought for its restoration, and the university instead accepted a developer's proposal to convert the mansion to an inn. These plans were never brought to fruition; Davies House was not restored, and some of its interior decor was looted. In 2009, a conference center connected to Betts House via an enclosed
arcade was completed, designed by the firm of
Robert A. M. Stern. ==Building==