The Calhoun-Ives Street Historic District includes the properties that make up thewell-preserved agricultural landscape centered on Calhoun Street and Ives Road in theWashington Depot section of the Town of Washington, Connecticut. The district is rural, characterized by narrow roadway flanked by stone walls and 19th-century frame farmhouses and their outbuildings. Nine properties are larger than 10 acres, two larger than 40 acres. While farming continues to be a major pursuit, several houses now are second homes for owners whose principal residences are elsewhere. [NR]

Agriculture, Architecture- The Calhoun-Ives Historic District is significant historically and architecturally because it documents the farming practices and building designs of a well-preserved rural agricultural community from the 1730s to the 20th century. The agricultural landscape, consisting of houses and outbuildings which form farmsteads, and their related cultivated and open fields remain largely intact. The Calhoun-Ives Historic District is significant historically because of the record it provides of the evolution of farming in northwestern Connecticut, particularly during the 19th century. The area was settled, ca.1730s, when the district was partially in the Town of Woodbury and partially in the Town of Kent. Land was purchased from Native Americans and subsistence farming begun. The Calhoun, Ives, and Averill families were among the early arrivals. The Calhoun-Ives Historic District is significant architecturally because it contains well-preserved examples of farmhouses and their outbuildings, largely from the 19th century, and their accompanying agricultural landscape. The houses and outbuildings display the design and details of farm architecture in their original condition and in their original relationship to one another, set in a well-preserved agricultural landscape. [NR]

[1] District information retrieved from the town website http://www.washingtonct.org/.
[2] Calhoun-Ives Historic District, Report of the Historic District Study Committee, 1989, SHPO Library, Hartford.
[3] Study Committee Report and historic district map referred from the town website.
[4] Assessors information and Parcel IDs retrieved from the website http://www.my-tax-bill.info/cgi-local/grandlook.pl.
[NR] Cunningham Jan, Calhoun-Ives Historic District, National Register Nomination Number- 95001344 NRIS, National Park Service, 1995 - http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/95001344.pdf; http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Photos/95001344.pdf.

The local historic district and the National Register historic district are not co-terminus.