The Russell House at 350 High Street is one of the most impressive Greek Revival houses in New England, built in 1828 to a design by architect Ithiel Town for the China trade merchant Samuel Wadsworth Russell. The house has a long colonnade facade of Ionic columns, a central octagonal cupola, and interior rooms that were designed to display the owner's wealth and taste. It is now owned by Wesleyan University and used for university functions.
The house is not regularly open to the public, but the exterior is freely visible from the street and the setting on High Street, surrounded by other 19th-century houses of comparable quality, makes this one of the most architecturally rewarding streets in Connecticut. The Russell house marks the upper end of a stretch of High Street that is worth walking for its concentration of historic architecture.