"Octavius Jordon was the first trained architect to reside in Hartford. The 1850 census lists him, age 25, birthplace London; his wife, Margaret, age 23; and their son, Thomas B., nine months, birthplace New York. What brought the young family to Hartford is unknown.

"Jordan designed in the Gothic Revival, Second Empire, and Italianate styles. Among his best known works are four Picturesque villas in the manner of A. J. Downing and Calvert Vaux. Coming from England, Jordan might have had the benefit of the same sources from Picturesque as did Vaux, whose drawings for Downing's books did much to popularize the mode in the United States.

"The four homes Jordan designed, all associated with the Beecher family, are the Thomas Clap and Mary Beecher Perkins house (Katharine Hepburn later lived there); Harriet Beecher Stowe's Oakholm, her first Hartford home; the John and Isabella Beecher Hooker house; and a house for Charles Enoch Perkins, son of Thomas Clap and Mary Beecher Perkins. All featured typically steeply pitched gables with elaborate bargeboards and pointed-arch windows with hoodmolds. Two are stucco, and two were built of red brick."