Built in 1922, this brick Georgian Revival house was the home of inventor and machinist Charles Hotchkiss Norton (1851–1942), a Plainville native, from 1922 until his death.

The door is topped by a half-round transom window, and is sheltered by a gable-roof portico supported by columns and pilasters.

[3][4] Charles Norton was born in Plainville to a cabinetmaker in 1851, and apprenticed at the Seth Thomas Clock Company at age 15.

He was then employed in Providence, Rhode Island at Brown & Sharpe, where he mastered the manufacture of precision grinding equipment.

In his later years he applied this expertise broadly to all manner of manufacturing processes, with particular emphasis on the nascent automobile industry in the early decades of the 20th century.