Doctor Mason's Hospital (and update) by Pete Zizka and Tom Beardsley 5-27-2023

Twenty years ago, Tom Beardsley wrote the following story. “Remember  Dr. Mason's Hospital?” Since even today, thoughts of this building, also known as the Spector Mansion, evoke memories and stories on a local FB site, we’ll reprint the story today.… It was the big house which stood on the hill in the Oaks, on Fairview Avenue.  A generation of Coventry and Willimantic residents had been brought into the world by Dr. Louis Irving Mason (1865-1930). He practiced medicine in Coventry until 1909. His Coventry practice was highly successful, but Mason saw the need to expand; particularly after the death of Willimantic’s leading medical practitioner, Thomas Morton Hills (1839-1909), a town doctor since 1866.  Mason moved into the rambling eclectic, Elizabethan mansion in Willimantic which had been built in 1881 by William Eliot Barrows, President of the Willimantic Linen Company. Barrows had built this mansion from leftover materials used in the construction of the vast Mill No. 4. The building had been inspired by Mark Twain’s house in Hartford. The rooms had chestnut paneling and fireplaces built with tiles imported from England. Barrows left Willimantic in 1883, but he used his home in Willirnantjc as a summer residence until his. death in 1901.  Louis Mason organized surgeries in the Fairview Avenue building, and in 1911 a three-story extension was added which housed operating rooms, kitchens and convalescent rooms, transforming the old Barrows mansion into a modern hospital which, along with St. Joseph's Hospital and the Hills Hospital on North Street served the growing community of Willimantic in the years before Windham Community Memorial  Hospital was formed in the 1930s.  Dr. Mason was appointed as Windham’s medical examiner shortly after his arrival in town. He went to Europe during World War I, where he was commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel, and given charge of a hospital.  He returned to Windham in 1920 and reopened his hospital in the Oaks.  It was badly damaged by a lire in September 1924, and Mason was appointed as a surgeon at the 42-bed St.Joseph's Hospital on Jackson Street. But he continued to taking private patients at his Fairview Avenue hospital, after repairs were made to the fire-damaged building. In September 1930, Mason was working in his laboratory and accidentally inhaled bromide fumes. He died a week later alter contracting pneumonia. His wife, Mary Mason, continued to live in the house until her death in December 1939 at age 68. The old house was then purchased by the Spector family. In the 1950s, it served as the base for an open-air summer theater, performed by the Fairview players. The old mansion and hospital was eventually torn down in the late 1970.” In answer to Tom’s question, MANY people said they remember the mansion and it is frequently discussed on a local FB page. Some remembered visiting when the Spector family lived there. Others remember it from the days when the theater operated and others remember it in its time of decay. Here are a few comments. “I remember going there as a teenager, just t was still there in the early 70s. We had Mushroom coffee house events there. Jen Spector was a member, and her Dad allowed us to use the place. Cool place.” “I don't remember a clinic but do remember the outdoor stage and they would put on public performances with the Windham Players. We had many enjoyable days playing in the house and the outside grounds, they were wonderful times.” “we used to go there and try on all the costumes. It was an unbelievable place to “play”. I remember being told it was haunted. That didn’t stop us.” “Loved going up there as a kid and daring each other to go up to the front porch. Part of it was caved in and dangerous but I lived on Quercus Avenue, played up there all the time, lots of fireplaces , creepy place, but that was the thrill we were kids. What did we know!”  It certainly is interesting to learn the history of yet another Willimantic landmark and its impact on people for several generations.

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