James Merrill House

The James Merrill House at 107 Water Street in Stonington, Connecticut, was the longtime home of James Ingram Merrill (1926-1995), an acclaimed American poet who was openly gay and shared much of his life with his partner David Jackson. Merrill's work, including the long visionary poem The Changing Light at Sandover, is central to twentieth-century American poetry. He bought the property in 1956 and left it to the Stonington Village Improvement Association at his death. Since 1995 the house has run a writer-in-residence program, hosting more than a hundred writers in Merrill's preserved apartment, and it is designated a National Historic Landmark honoring his literary legacy.