Cochran House at Fairfield Hills was named in the 1950s for Alice Cochran, who was once the Fairfield Hills state mental hospital's Board of Trustees chairman.

According to Town Historian Dan Cruson, "Cochran House was built in 1956 and named in honor of Mrs Alice Ross Cochran." He notes that she "was interested in the patients and the treatments that were used. She frequently made rounds, talking with both staff and patients." Her position and interest in the work is mentioned in The Mentally Ill in Connecticut: Changing Pattern of Care and The Evolution of Psychiatric Nursing 1636-1972, by Lois D. Heck, RN, BS, director of nursing education, Fairfield Hills Hospital. Chapter VII, pages 360-458, is titled "Fairfield Hills Hospital 1933-1972."

Longtime resident and former Fairfield Hills Authority chairman Bob Geckle said he recalls the building being named for Mrs Cochran, but he does not believe the Cochran family contributed to the cost of its construction. Mr Cruson agrees.

"The state always owned the building," the town historian said. "There was never any stipulation by the state, Mrs Cochran's relatives, or anyone else that it had to remain a medical facility, nor that if it wasn't it would revert to Mrs Cochran's heirs," as rumor and local lore sometimes allege. "It is now the property of Newtown and the town is free to do anything it wants to the building. It is the most recent [hospital] building on the campus, and the only one that was not named for a Connecticut town."

The Fairfield Hills campus was a state hospital from the 1930s through 1996, when the last hospital operations shut down. Land Use Director George Benson confirmed that several years later the town bought the property with "no liens and nothing encumbered. It was the state's property."

An online search found a reference in The Newtown Bee that states that "in November of 1956 a presentation of a portrait of Mrs Alice Russ Cochran, chairman of the Board of Trustees of Fairfield Hills Hospital, would take place by a group of her friends and associates as a tribute to her leadership in advancing the care and treatment of the mentally ill, at a brief ceremony held at Cochran House. The portrait has been placed in the entrance hall of Cochran House, the new admission and intensive treatment center."

Another past Newtown Bee reference also mentions Mrs Cochran as she presented awards to two other women: "Miss Isabel Bartram and Mrs Faye Turpening were honored at a tea held at the Fairfield State Hospital on Wednesday afternoon. They were presented with cash gifts from Miss Alice Cochran, chairman of the Board of Trustees."

First Selectman Pat Llodra started an online search where she found additional information at fairfieldstatehospital.com. According to the website: "The final treatment building opened in 1956, Cochran House, named after Alice Cochran who was a formal chairwoman of the Board of Trustees. This is the only building on campus named after a person."

A Glimpse Of Past Mental Health Practices

Also found on fairfieldstatehospital.com is a glimpse at past mental health practices at Fairfield Hills. A London physician named Dr Nadoo had joined the staff temporarily in 1955 and started a research study with a new drug, Reserpine. Dr Nadoo was familiar with Reserpine, commonly known as Indian snakeroot, and this was the first time a tranquilizing drug was used in a Connecticut institution.

One of the nurses, Leota Brinton in Bridgewater House, wrote a paper about the Reserpine study that was published in RN Magazine. Eighty chronically ill female patients who had been hospitalized for many years and had not responded to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) or lobotomies were involved in a double-blind study.

Ms Brinton wrote: "The research wards became quieter and cleaner; in fact, the atmosphere was so changed that they were no longer recognizable as wards for very disturbed schizophrenics. Activities such as church attendance, tea parties, sewing groups, walks, movies, and even bingo parties were now participated in by patients who were previously so disturbed and hyperactive that they required sedation and seclusion. For the first time in many years they were able to relax and enjoy what they were doing.

"The wards took on a more 'homelike' look with valances on the windows and the long wooden benches replaced by wooden chairs. Reading rooms were set up on each floor for the patients to enjoy. The staff took to calling Reserpine a 'miracle drug' and student nurses were invited to come back to these wards to help without fear. These 'back wards' were finally considered to be active treatment units. Dr Nadoo left after a five-month stay and wrote a paper for the Board of Trustees, The Effects of Reserpine on the Chronically Disturbed Patient."

The site offers additional background: "Cochran House was not built into the circular hospital plan and its entrance faced away from the rest of the hospital with its entrance on Mile High Hill Road. It was a more modern hospital building with twelve wards, each wing with treatment rooms for hydrotherapy, electric shock therapy, and psychotherapy. The center of the building contained x-ray rooms, offices, a medical library, and facilities for the Department of Nursing Education as well as its own kitchen. Because of the modern facilities and the patients of Cochran not mingling with other patients at the hospital it gained the nickname of 'Snob Hill.' It became the new admissions building."

Repurposing Buildings

Mr Benson said the town had initially hoped to preserve many of the buildings at Fairfield Hills. "We tried for ten years to redevelop them," he said, adding, "no takers or developers." Officials tried to market the real estate as a whole or by the building to developers interested in relocating to Fairfield Hills, and opening a business there. But the buildings contain lead and asbestos and costs of abatement and demolition are high. To sweeten any potential leases, Mr Benson said, "We hoped that for free-rent developers would do all demolition and abatement work." While several potential takers showed an interest in establishing a business at Fairfield Hills, many found it "wasn't worth the money they would have to spend, and building a new building somewhere else was much less than they would have to spend to abate and then build…the math doesn't add up," the land use director said.

The property simply has "a lot of environmental issues," according to Mr Benson. "We have tried and tried" to attract investors and developers, "but in the end it's more attractive to go somewhere else."

Deterioration also poses a hazard. "We felt we had to start moving to prevent deterioration," he said. Also, abatement costs, which the town must fund, rise annually.

Mr Benson said, "I started out wanting to save all of them, but there is little reuse potential. Reuse potential in some of the larger buildings is "nonexistent," he said. Other structures such as Stratford Hall, the duplexes, and other smaller buildings do present possible reuse possibilities. The town in the past has received grants to do remediation in several cases. One duplex is currently being refitted to house Newtown Parent Connection.

Fairfield Hills Authority Chairman Thomas Connors said the buildings "look great from the outside, the exterior and the bricks and way they were built is something we just don't see anymore. So, they look great, but inside, the water damage and age, and the neglect has a real impact on the interior." Prospective developers or anyone who has visited the campus who walk through get inside where "a majority of people realize you essentially have to gut the interior, nothing is reusable in the buildings."

"People have an emotional investment and still don't really have the perspective that those who have been working on the property for a long time have," he said. "There is a fantasy on the outside compared to the interior and that's the challenge. There are not a lot of people who can take on the investment and time and resources required to fix interiors."

It is unrealistic to think that any building could be reused without spending several million to fix it, he said. Mr Connors agrees, too, that some buildings were once dorms and are like a honeycomb, not lending themselves to reuse. "It's very difficult and expensive to gut the buildings."

What the town really has is land. "What we really got is 185 acres that we can figure out what to do with," Mr Connors said.

Anyone who spends a good amount of time on campus "can see the buildings aren't salvageable, and those folks understand that knocking them down will benefit the community much more than trying to save them," he said. "Any thought that we're just trying to knock them down because we don't like them is unfair and untrue."

Razing the buildings "is the smart thing to do. Maybe someone could now build onsite without costs of taking a building down," said the authority chairman.

There are no immediate plans for Cochran House. It is on the list for demolitions, and it "will be there a while," according to Mr Connors.

The master plan for reuse at Fairfield Hills also states that buildings should be scheduled for demolitions if there are no proposals to reuse the site. The master plan can be viewed at newtown-ct.gov.

Also see fairfieldhills.org for more information and background on the campus.