The Coe House stood on this property until 1907. Although long associated with the Coe family, the house was built about 1854 by its original owners, John and Charlotte Austin Hungerford, when John Hungerford was operating the brass mill in Torrington. In 1863, Lyman Coe came to Torrington to take charge of the brass mill, and that same year he and his wife Eliza purchased the house from the Hungerfords. The property remained the home of the Coe family for over 40 years, during which they greatly improved the grounds. The house became one of the most elegant in Torrington, with formal gardens, a massive greenhouse, a summer house, water gardens, and specimen plants. The last family member to live there was Eliza Coe, who died in 1905. Long before the Coe family lived here, the area looked very different: in 1740, tall pine trees covered this site and much of the surrounding land on both sides of the Naugatuck River. English settlers knew it as the pine timber or mast swamp. After the trees were felled, homes and water-powered factories such as the brass mill were built, creating a village that grew to become downtown Torrington.