UCONN Avery Point
For the 250th anniversary of the United States, I took a three-day patriotic trip to the Thames River National Heritage Park in Groton and New London, CT. I spent the morning touring Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park, which included its monument, museum, and the interior of the fort, followed by an early afternoon boat tour, and a visit to Avery-Copp House (first part, second part). After making several quick history stops around Groton, I went to UCONN Avery Point, a campus of the University of Connecticut. The property contains two buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the colonial revival style Avery Point Lighthouse constructed in 1943 by the Coast Guard during World War II, and massive Bradford House.
Avery Point was originally designed as a luxurious estate owned by Morton Freeman Plant. He served as the vice president of Plant Investment Company, the business of his father, Henry Bradley Plant, from 1884 to 1902, along with inheriting some of his father’s railroads and steamboats in 1899. Since Morton was known to spend lavishly, Henry had put in his will that Morton’s future eldest grandson would inherit the estate at age 21. Morton and his stepmother, Margaret Josephine Loughman (Plant) Graves, who happened to be Morton’s age, contested the will in court and won. Out of the $22 million fortune, Morton received two-thirds or about $14.7 million, and Margaret received one-third or about $7.3 million. Now flush with cash, Plant had Branford House constructed in 1903 for $3 million, approximately $114 million in 2026 dollars, yet stayed at the house only during the summer. He did turn out to be a good business man, more than doubling his fortune despite his spending by the time of his death in 1918 at age 67.
Branford House and its matching outbuildings, including a caretaker’s house, a barn, and a horse stable, were designed by collaboration between Morton’s second wife, Nellie Capron Plant, who had been an architecture student at Sorbonne University in France, and English architect Robert Williams Gibson, who usually worked in New York City. All of the buildings are Tudor Revival style, resembling late medieval buildings from England. Morton and Nellie’s son, another Henry Bradley Plant, inherited the property when he was only twenty-two years old, having married Amy Warren (Plant) Paterson the year before in 1917. However, Henry lived on his 140-foot yacht Mascot and spent much of his time around Miami, FL, where he caught sleeping sickness and died at age 42. Amy allegedly sold the property in an auction in 1939 for $55,000, when the State of Connecticut became the owner. The Coast Guard leased the property during World War II, while the campus became part of UCONN in 1967.
Today, art exhibits take place on the grounds. During my visit, I saw Open Air 26, the annual outdoor sculpture and installation experience which took place from June 11 to October 4, 2026. Galleries inside Bradford House are open from September through June, so I will have to return in the future. I had several favorite sculptures. Primum Mobile by Alvin Sher, a sculptor from Niantic, CT who passed away in 2022, is a steel hand holding an open globe. Mythic Mystery by Penny Kaplan is an aesthetically rusted steel sculpture shaped like an obelisk. Her daughter, June Kaplan, wrote a poem by the same name. Factory Windows by Paul Baylock was sculpted in 2018 from windows that once stood in the Landers, Frary & Clark factory of New Britain, CT. Azucar by Christopher Wynter looks like an alien spaceship on tall wheels. More abstract was Within You and Without You sculpted in 2015 by R. Douglass Rice, who cites the color red juxtaposing the green of the grass and trees along with the blue of the water and sky as "central to the experience of the work". Scrim Valley sculpted by Fritz Horstman in 2026 is a wood-and-fabric installation that is part of a series called U-Shaped Valley. Horstman was inspired by landscapes formed by ancient glaciers, just like the Thames River Valley, the Last Green Valley, and the Blackstone River Valley, to name the three in my region. While not an art piece, I found the burial site of Duffy, a mixed-breed bulldog who served as a United States Coast Guard mascot during the 1940s and was apparently given the rank of BM/1C (Boatswains Mate First Class).
The 82 acres of UCONN Avery Point are open to the public, which welcomes visitors to take walks along the shore, relax in the meditation garden, and visit the art gallery and book store when these are open during the school year. Parking is free on campus after 5:00 p.m. and on weekends. With a variety of relaxing activities and gorgeous views, this is the perfect way to end the first day of a history-filled trip in Thames River Heritage Park.
