147 Years Later, Mansion Returns To Its Roots

If Samuel Merwin’s ghost returns to haunt Orange Street, he may not recognize the rooms of his former mansion, but he will find people sleeping there again — not signing a will, taking methadone, or bowling with Hibernians.

Merwin, a former Civil War general and lieutenant governor, built a mansion for himself at 412 Orange St. in 1865.

Like many mansions on the block near the intersection of Orange and Trumbull, his home ended up converted into office space more than a century later.

Now a pair of Hamden developers is returning the Italianate house to its original residential use. In keeping with modern times, it will be split up into condos instead of reserved for one wealthy family.

The three-story house most recently served as the law offices of Jonathan Einhorn, who bought it in 1984. With a heavy heart, Einhorn sold it last month for $725,000. He said the building needed ​“substantial renovations,” more than he could take on.

“I sold the building because sometimes as buildings get older, they get tired,” Einhorn said. ​“This building wasn’t just tired, it was exhausted.”

The new owners, Gil Marshak and Oren Bitman, plan to spend ​“a few hundred” thousand dollars modernizing the building and splitting it up into six or seven condos.

Einhorn predicted it will become part of a new trend of mansions in that neighborhood converting back to residential use. The stretch of Orange between Trumbull and Audubon became rundown in the 1970s, he said. ​“There were bums and derelicts living in those buildings.”

“In the early 1980s, the area became gentrified, and lawyers and doctors started to buy those buildings,” Einhorn recalled.

When Einhorn bought 412 Orange, the large mansion rooms had been subdivided for a methadone clinic. The house ​“had a large number of smaller rooms, drop ceilings,” and ​“hidden fireplaces.” Einhorn revealed the fireplaces and restored the decorated plaster ceilings.

He kept the first floor as offices for his law practice. He began to convert some of the office space into apartments, in the basement, second and third floors. Completing the conversion to residential ​“makes sense” for the neighborhood, he said.

“If you look at that neighborhood, it is so inundated with Yale graduate students that you can pretty much rent any space” for apartments, Einhorn said. Yet in a poor economy, ​“office space is difficult to rent.”

“Right now, the trend is to go back to residential,” Einhorn predicted.

Owners Bitman and Marshak (pictured), who have been redeveloping rundown houses in Fair Haven, have quick work toward the conversion. On Thursday, just a few weeks after buying the property, they had already torn down walls to make way for more spacious rooms, more in keeping with the original building.

The duo plans to keep the original fireplaces and the basement brickwork. The ornate plaster ceilings, however, were going to be modernized.

Worker Gilbert Pabon (pictured) tore out the ceiling on the second floor. The plaster ceilings there were falling apart, according to Bitman. Plaster is hard to maintain and doesn’t last long, he said.

He said he hadn’t decided yet whether to keep the ceiling in the front room, which was in better shape.

“It breaks my heart to see that building modernized, because it’s only one of a handful of buildings that still maintains the 18th century charm,” Einhorn said. ​“But time marches on.”

The 8,500-square-foot building used to have a garden out back and two carriage houses. The garden has been paved over and the carriage houses converted into homes.

Einhorn said 412 Orange was once home to the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Einhorn said historical records show the group once had a bowling alley there, though he never figured out where.

Einhorn said he feels a special bond with the home’s original owner: Before becoming lieutenant governor, Merwin ran for mayor of New Haven on the Republican ticket — just as Einhorn did in 1991. Like Merwin, Einhorn lost the election.

The house still has a widow’s watch from which to look out over the harbor.

Bitman said he hopes to restore the room. He plans to turn the windows in the attic into functional skylights.

“It’s going to be a beautiful apartment,” Bitman said.

He hopes to convert the basement into an extension of the first-floor condos. Renovations should be complete in six to eight months.

No word yet on whether any future condo owners will run for mayor.