Sidney Mason Stone (May 8, 1803 – August 10, 1882) was a prominent Connecticut architect and builder known for designs of churches, institutional buildings and residences.

He served in several civic capacities in the city of New Haven and statewide and as mentor to Yale students prior to the establishment of that university's School of Architecture.

In her later years she confided that when she first learned she was to become a published author she decided to use a pen name in deference to her father who she said “looked with disfavor on young women who wrote for publication”.

[17] Since, at the time, the school had no other faculty teaching architecture or related subjects, the conclusion can be drawn that Stone studied under Douglass who, along with Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis, also contributed to the building designs for NYU.

Luckes went on to describe Stone as, "Still young looking and active, and as erect as when he carried a sword in front of the Grays many years ago.

Although Stone's name has been given as "probable architect" of the Center Congregational Church in Meriden (1830) citing the influence of Ithiel Town's sensibilities on the design as justification for the attribution,[23] it is unlikely that Stone would have assumed the responsibilities of architect for such an ambitious project this early in his career, particularly given the fact that it was not until two years later—in 1832—that he attended NYU to, in his own words, "prepare himself" for such duties.

It was also not until 1832 that advertisements first began to appear in the local newspapers offering Stone's services as an architect which superseded his earlier (1829 and 1830) listings as joiner/builder.

[24] Stone went on to design the Congregational Church, Enfield, CT(1848) which was set on cut brownstone foundations, constructed of wood in the Greek Revival style with a portico of six Ionic columns.

[29] Although a new site for the Hartford church was eventually secured on Albany Avenue, the building that was erected there in 1913 retained the steeple, portico and doors from Stone's original edifice.

[41] It was originally designed by Ebenezer Johnson and built by David Hoadley in 1814 [42] Stone's modifications included the construction of the apse in which the pulpit stands.

[52] The school building later housed the Shoreline Times offices and was recently converted to luxury condominiums called The Lofts at Griffings Square″ The renovated property has retained much of Stone's original styling including the signature Italianate cupola.

[56] Stone's plans for the New Haven City Jail (1857)[57] which featured an Italianate tower rising from the center of the structure were executed at a site on Whalley Avenue.

[66] His palatial summer residence was sited in the area that would become known as City Point and designed by Stone to emulate Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, England.

Also of note, the modes Stone used for heating, ventilation and distribution of water in the Shaw House (1862) at 119 Greene Street were lauded at the time as “admirable and worthy of observation by persons intending to build".

[88] In 1870 the CT House of Representatives requested that Stone and Austin prepare a cost estimate for a proposed extension of the Insane Hospital and State Prison.

[90] The drive and ambition that brought Stone to New Haven and motivated him to work his way up from journeyman to architect seems to have also fueled his business acumen.

Snow, in his research notes, points to the fact that as a young man in 1826 Stone participated in a shooting competition in an area of Fair Haven known as Barnesville.

[92] In 1834, only two years after he had begun to advertise his architectural services, he placed an ad in The Connecticut Herald offering a house for sale on Broadway in New Haven.

In 1839 Stone's advertisements began to list commercial rentals, in both New Haven and Milford, including in the Phoenix Block at 812 Chapel Street where he had, by that time, established his own office.

In December 1843 he purchased property from Horace Thompson [94] at the corner of New Haven's Olive and Lyon Streets where he built the home in which his own growing family would live between 1849 and 1854.

Stone…apparently began to build a few houses in this area on the speculative basis during the 1860s; however, the bulk of his holdings would not be developed until the last quarter of the 19th century.” But of particular interest among Stone's real estate dealings is a property in Milford where verd antique marble had been discovered in 1811 by Benjamin Silliman.

In 1836 they sold a 2/3rds ownership of that land along with additional Milford property that contained the Marble Manufactory buildings to Theodore Shelton of New York City for the price of $10,000.

Even so, enough of the prized Milford verde-antique marble was acquired to supply the mineral for decorative use throughout the country, including in the U.S. Capitol Building, the White House and the Smithsonian Institution.

[101] In 1877 Stone received an award for the marble and “its adaptation to interior decoration” from the U.S. Centennial Commission at the International Exhibition in Philadelphia.

Although six of his original drawings were anonymously donated to the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in 2000, and his front elevation of the Roger Sherman Baldwin House, New Haven is in the collection of the Carnegie Art Museum in Pittsburg,[102] after his death, according to Seymour, "An immense pile of his drawings was sold for old paper" and "his working library was sold as being of no particular value" while a number of rare volumes—some possibly purchased at the 1844 sale of Ithiel Town's library—remained in the family.

Stone's reputation became such that by the 1830s Yale College which at the time had not yet established its School of Architecture, referred students interested in that profession to him for tutelage.

[107] The short-lived architectural firm formed by Landra Beach Platt & Francis Benne that is currently credited with designing the Richard Alsop IV House (1838–39) in Middletown, Connecticut “came together under the professional aegis" of Stone.

[109][110] In recent years, curiosity has been raised about Stone's relationship to his contemporary, Henry Austin,[111] but little documentation has thus far been discovered that lends itself to such an inquiry.

Harriett and her husband, Daniel Lothrop, purchased The Wayside, former home of Nathaniel Hawthorne in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1883 (the year after Stone's death).