HISTORY OF THE HOUSE
James Merrill's residence from 1955 to 1995
The James Merrill House is located on a late-Victorian commercial/residential block in Stonington Borough, a picturesque maritime village set on a narrow, 170-acre peninsula in the southeastern corner of Connecticut near the Rhode Island border.
Significant for its close, forty-one-year association with American poet James Ingram Merrill (1926–1995), the eclectically styled, shingle-clad building at 107 Water Street originally contained street-level retail space, second-floor clubrooms and third-floor living quarters. Since its construction in 1906, the building has undergone relatively few alterations.
In 1956, Merrill purchased the property with his partner David Noyes Jackson (1922– 2001). They used the third floor as their private living and guest space. Adding an attic studio and rooftop deck, the men transformed their quarters with a distinctively quirky décor that remains largely intact today.
Merrill produced virtually all his major writing during his ownership of 107 Water Street, between 1956 and 1995, and the village came to play a vital role in the poet’s life. The apartment was a magnet for leading intellectuals and cultural figures of the day, while Merrill’s poetry increasingly resonated with references to the pleasures and peccadilloes of life in this close-knit community.
Merrill’s impressive canon of work garnered nearly every major award in his field, including the Pulitzer Prize; two National Book Awards in Poetry; the National Book Critics Circle Award; the Library of Congress’s first Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry; Yale’s Bollingen Prize for Poetry; and the Medal of Honor for Literature from the National Arts Club. The multilingual author also translated dozens of works of other poets into French, Portuguese, Dutch and modern Greek, and contributed countless introductions, forewords, and afterwards to the publications of his colleagues.
When Merrill died in 1995, he left his home at 107 Water Street to the Stonington Village Improvement Association (SVIA). Under their stewardship, the house and its programs have served as a historical and literary hub in the community. In 2024, the SVIA generously donated the house and its contents to the newly formed James Merrill House LLC, which is wholly owned by the James Merrill House Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which manages an endowment for the organization.
Along with a full-time director and two part-time staff members, the JMH LLC Board oversees the house and its contents, as well as the Writer-in-Residence Program. To support the mission of the organization, the Board leases out two ground-floor retail spaces and two one-bedroom apartments on the second floor of the building, which was named a National Historic Landmark in 2016.
One of the ground-floor units, which was previously occupied by the Village Barbershop for over 50 years, was converted into the JMH Visitors Center in 2022. With a floor-to-ceiling mural replicating the famous dining room where Merrill and Jackson communicated with the spirit world via Ouija board, the Visitors Center offers an enticing glimpse of the third-floor apartment where one of America’s great poets lived and worked for four decades. The Visitors Center also serves as an administrative meeting place for JMH staff, and as a welcome center for visitors from near and far. Guests can browse and purchase books by current and former fellows, and view the current exhibit, which showcases aspects of Merrill’s life, work, and living space in Stonington.
The entire third floor and attic studio are reserved for use by visiting scholars as part of the JMH Writer-in-Residence Program. The JMH hosts public open houses throughout the year, allowing scores of visitors (and often, unsuspecting locals) to experience the time capsule that is the James Merrill apartment.
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To see a virtual tour of the Merrill apartment, click here.
To see a virtual tour of the Jackson apartment, click here.
