The Skinner-Hammond House is located in the historical central village of the town of Vernon known as Vernon Center. The land on which the house is sited was drawn by Thomas Pitkin, one of the original proprietors of Bolton, in the second division of Bolton in 1722. The present structure probably dates from about 1790 and was built by Reuben Skinner. Whether remnants of an earlier structure remain within the house is not determined but the character and the significance of the present building derive from the c 1790 period. The Country Palladian was the house type preferred by prosperous post-Revolutionary merchants and professionals of the Connecticut Valley. The presence of such a house in the rural town of Vernon is an indication of the socio-economic status of the Skinner family. The house far surpasses in grandeur any of the houses which remain from this period in Vernon. The Skinner-Hammond house is a primary document in the post-Revolutionary architectural renaissance of the Connecticut Valley, and evidence of the vigor and broad diffusion of the movement.

The architectural significance of the Skinner-Hammond House lies in its distinctive combination of materials, construction methods, and decorative features or details, alluding to it major periods of construction and reconstruction, c.1790, c.1830 and c.1890. As such, the house documents regional construction techniques of the eighteenth and nineteenth century as well as the history of its Vernon Center neighborhood. Its connection to the work of Elisha Scott is significant for its potential to illuminate the post-revolutionary period in Connecticut's architectural history. [2]

[1] Property information retrieved from the town of Fairfield website http://www.vernon-ct.gov/.
[2]Skinner Hammond House, Report of the Vernon Historic Properties Study Committee, 1989, SHPO Library, Hartford.
Assessor and GIS information retrieved from the website http://gis.vernon-ct.gov/newviewer/.