Seaside Tuberculosis Sanatorium: Part 1

In this episode Joe and Rob dive into the history of the Beautifully decaying Seaside Sanatorium of Waterford CT the first hospital in the country to use heliotherapy, exposure to sunlight and breezy air, for the treatment of glandular and bone tuberculosis in children. Rocked by allegations of abuse in the 70's and higher than normal death rates in the early 90's, seaside shuttered it's doors in 1996 and became a state park in 2014. 


https://www.damnedct.com/seaside-sanatorium-waterford/

https://buildingsofnewengland.com/tag/seaside-sanatorium/

https://hauntedus.com/connecticut/seaside-sanatorium-haunted/#:~:text=As%20a%20state%20park,%20Seaside%20Sanatorium%20has

Transcript

Seaside state Park

As you drive along shore rd. in Waterford Ct you’ll find a small brown sign that reads Seaside: a Connecticut state park. You pull in to find a small dirt parking lot to your left with two older brick buildings on either side. One looks like a very small house, maybe like a guard shack and the other is a garage. Just past the parking lot you’ll notice that the road continues toward the nearby ocean but it’s been gated off. More signs are there, open dawn to dusk, except for fishing. And one that reads this is a no drone zone. 

As you walk past the gate you find the road has a downward slope towards long Island sound, there’s a small empty paved lot on your right and a row of evergreens on your left. But as you continue a large building starts to make its appearance from behind the hedge row. This is the Nurses residence building, because what is now a beautiful 30 acre park, boasting sandy beaches, rocky jedis, and views of Fishers Island and Montauk New York, this was once home to the Seaside Sanitorium. 

In the early part of the 1900’s tuberculosis was one of the leading causes of death in Connecticut, claiming roughly 252 out of every 100,000 people living in the state. Or about one in every 20 funerals. The industrial boom and crowded cities gave way for the most common form, that affected the lungs, to spread quickly. In children a variant attacked the bones and crippled the body, as well as a glandular form that aggravated the lymphatic system. Doctors at the time were trying to find a cure. Some medical professionals believed that separation from the public and bed rest with proper nutrition worked best. Hospitals were built that tried to feel like large country estates and by 1930 four of these sanatoriums existed in Connecticut, one each in Hartford, Norwich, Shelton and Meriden. 

Dr Stephan J Maher, head of Connecticut’s Tuberculosis commission had campaigned in the early 1900’s to get children with non-pulmonary tuberculosis into separate institutions, research at the times had found that children with the bone and glandular forms responded best where they had plenty of direct sunlight and breezy, fresh air, typical of waterfront, or ocean side settings. This treatment was known as Heliotherapy. Maher and his associates planned a sanatorium on the coast and by 1918 opened the first campus at the former white beach hotel in East Lyme. The property was small at 2.5 acres with only 97 feet of beach front and was quickly found to be too small for the demand. 

The Great depression brought down the cost of property in the state and the tuberculosis commission  was able to purchase the former smith-grimes estate in Waterford. With over 30 acres to work with the commission hired nationally known architect Cass Gilbert to design the buildings with the intention of having an elegantly designed campus, rather that the hospital looking like an institution. 

Some of Cass Gilberts buildings are the Minnesota state capitol in St Paul, the Alexander Hamilton US custom house in Manhattan NY, Battle hall at the university of Texas in Austin, the Woolworth building in Manhattan (at the time of construction it was the tallest building in the world) The United States Chamber of Commerce headquarters in DC, the United States Supreme court building in DC as well as many, many others. 

The main building at the Hospital, the Maher building was built in the Tudor revival style in 1934, as opposed to the colonial or classic revival style favored at the time. The seaside included 195 beds a school, cafeteria and dormitories. Children staying there practiced sports, enjoyed music, took lessons and relaxed at the oceanfront. Most of the children stayed roughly 6- 12 months while rehabilitating. The building has a large courtyard facing the 1700 feet of sandy beach, and the stone wall along the ocean has several staircases for easy access to the water from the grounds. Two towers that resemble lighthouses made of brick flank the east and west wings, there’s terraces for open air and sun along either side. In the center of the main roof a spire stands above everything else. 

Medical advances began making the treatments obsolete, and by the late 1940’s adults and patients with the pulmonary type began to fill the empty beds of the hospital. By the 1950’s tuberculosis had become largely curable, and with the use of newer x-ray machines, early detection decreased severe sickness so much that the facility was shuddered in 1958. 

From 1959 to 1961 the faculty was used as a geriatric center, then the Connecticut department of mental retardation used the building for it’s regional center starting in 1961, In the 1980’s activists pushed for the de-institutionalization of treatment for people with mental and emotional disabilities. And the seaside Sanatorium finally closed in 1996. 

In 2014 Connecticut designated the land as a state park, fencing off and locking the buildings, There have been many different plans proposed for the land and the buildings, but as the years pass and the structures suffer further damage, restoration costs increase, and any plans to move forward seem to stay in limbo. 

So back to the buildings, the nurses dormitory is usually the first building you see, as they wanted this hospital to not feel like and institution all the Tudor revival style buildings are beautifully ornate. This building seems blocky and plain from a distance, and especially compared to the Maher building but upon closer inspection its anything but. Its constructed mostly of brick with a polychrome slate roof, in the roof on each side, front and back are fifteen dormers of alternating size, with unique woodwork trim points at the ends. Between each of the second story windows are four different designs inlaid in the wall structure using varying shades of bricks. Large granite slabs lay above and below each window, as well as constructing the arch around the main entrance in the front, with several more arches at the ground level entrance to the basement. 

As you walk past the Nurses dorms you see the Maher building, although it looks big from the side, you really have to walk along the waters edge to take it all in. And even more so if you walk out onto the jedi to really see it all. Almost the entire first floor wall is made of granite archways, granite blocks lay the corners as the brickwork fills in the rest of the space. Both wings have two terraces for the second and third stories as well as the two lighthouse style towers rising on the far ends. In the center of the large roof there’s a spire above what looks like a church steeple, topped with a decorative weather vane. 

If instead of turning left at the nurse’s dorm you had turned right, you would see another driveway going towards the duplex residences, This was built for medical staff residences and has an interesting look, it has a symmetrical façade with two main entrances each with basket arched entrances that alternate with brick and granite, in slightly projecting pavilions. And on either side of the house are recessed sunrooms, again identical on each side. This building was put up in 1934 after Cass Gilberts death, but is believed to have been designed by him previous to his passing. Behind this building is a garage, it’s mostly overgrown, and was built with less beauty than the rest. 

In front of the duplex residences is the superintendents residence, built in 1936, this house was also built in the Tudor revival style and is credited to Cass Gilbert. This building has a garage wing in the back and has unobstructed views of long Island sound in the front. 

Even though the grounds around the buildings is open to the public, the buildings are all off limits, fences surround the Maher and the nurses dorm. The duplex, superintendents residence, the garage and the two buildings closer to the road you can walk up to, and peer into the un-boarded windows. But this limited access hasn’t kept people from finding spirits among these decrepit buildings. 

The most common type of hauntings reported are shadow figures and misty figures, often seen walking around the grounds as many patients would have during their stay. Some of the reports say the figures move from building to building, as in the course of a normal day, others say the figures are less vivid. Like mist in the distance. 

I read that some people, while taking pictures have inadvertently caught images of spirits on the grounds. I found one where there appears to be a translucent figure of a girl with long black hair in a pink dress inside one of the hallways. 

https://www.damnedct.com/seaside-sanatorium-waterford/

https://buildingsofnewengland.com/tag/seaside-sanatorium/

https://hauntedus.com/connecticut/seaside-sanatorium-haunted/#:~:text=As%20a%20state%20park,%20Seaside%20Sanatorium%20has