Rock Hall, a New B&B in Connecticut's Litchfield County

by Alison Wellner (RSS feed)
Jun 7th 2009 at 11:01AM

Rock Hall, a four-room B&B in Colebrook, CT, is now open for its first summer season, and it's a great New England getaway for fans of Florida, architecture, or just an unusual story.

Rock Hall was built in 1912 by Addison Mizner, the architect whose Mediterranean Revival style was behind the development of Boca Raton as a resort community. Mizner built this 10,000 square foot home some six years before he went to Florida -- where he'd eventually go bankrupt and die.

But before all that, in Connecticut's Litchfield Hills, Mizner received this commission for Jerome Alexandre, a bond trader. Alexandre was heir to the Alexandre Steam Ship Lines fortune, a company which once sailed between New York and Mexico -- perhaps explaining Alexandre's taste for Spanish-style architecture?

Anyway, fast forward to present times, Rock Hall was bought as a country home by another bond trader, Michael Somers, managing director of Dillon Read and Company (most recently a part of UBS) and his wife Stella, a designer. Let's just say that investment banking isn't what it once was, and so late last winter, Michael became an innkeeper. The Somers transformed their country manor into a B&B and have repaired to an apartment on the top floor of the home. (Their former master suite, now Chamber #2, would be the room to reserve.) Stella is a delightful hostess, and Michael has channeled his energies into his long-time hobby, cooking -- he makes a mean house-cured gravlax.

Tags: architecture, bedandbreakfast, boca raton, BocaRaton, connecticut, florida, investmentbanking