41°46′4.3"N 72°40′22.1"W

The R. and F. Cheney Building, also known as the Brown Thomson Building, is a commercial building designed by noted American architect H. H. Richardson

Henry Hobson Richardson

Henry Hobson Richardson was a prominent American architect who designed buildings in Albany, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and other cities. The style he popularized is named for him: Richardsonian Romanesque...

. It is located at 942 Main Street, Hartford, Connecticut

Hartford, Connecticut

Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...

, and is now on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

.

The Cheney Building was constructed 1875-1876 for the Cheney Brothers silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...

 manufacturers in Manchester, Connecticut

Manchester, Connecticut

Manchester is a township and city in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 58,241.- History :...

. It was originally a multipurpose structure with five small shops on the ground floor, and offices and apartments above. For many years it housed Brown Thomson's department store, and later the G. Fox and Company. As of 2007 it has been renamed the Richardson Building, and is now a residence hotel, offices, stores, restaurants, and rehearsal space for The Hartford Stage

Hartford Stage

Hartford Stage, located in Hartford, Connecticut, is one of the leading resident theatres in the United States, known internationally for entertaining and enlightening audiences with a wide range of the best of world drama, from classics to provocative new plays and musicals and neglected works...

 Company.

The building dominates its corner location and, with towers and attic, is various described as containing five, six, or seven stories. Its facade is organized into three heavy, horizontal tiers of roughly cut, reddish brownstone

Brownstone

Brownstone is a brown Triassic or Jurassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also used in the United States to refer to a terraced house clad in this material.-Types:-Apostle Island brownstone:...

 punctuated with much lighter Berea limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

trim. The lowest tier is defined by a series of huge round arches in striking polychrome bands, a motif repeated in the stories above at an increasingly smaller scale. The ground-floor tier on the Main Street facade features five broad arches above shop windows and doors, the second a two-story arcade of 10 major openings, and the third a single-story arcade of 14 openings.

The building is crowned with low, asymmetric towers at its Main Street corners. The street corner tower was earlier topped by a pyramidal roof.