The Lost Asylum
Fairfield Hills State Hospital was a very large Psychiatric Hospital, which at it's peak housed over 4,000 patients. The Institution was an asylum for those who suffered from mental illness. The entire facility was owned and operated by the State of Connecticut. The State of Connecticut Department of Mental Health closed the hospital in 1996. The hospital grounds consisted of 770 acres of land, nestled in Newtown CT. The acreage consisted of large farm meadows and beautiful rolling hills of trees.

The noted architect Walter P. Crabtree, Sr, who specialized in colonial architecture, principally designed the campus-like facility. The main campus of 16 buildings was clustered on 100 acres. Dedicated to a common development theme, the institutional buildings were of a modified colonial style, faced with red brick, and attractively accented. Constructed largely in the early 1930's, the 2 and 3 story buildings ranged in size of 15,000 to more than 200,000 square feet, and every building being fireproof throughout. Some later constructed buildings were built during the 1940's and 1950's.

On the surface, a circular network of roads connected the buildings, but underground a vast network of concrete tunnels, enabled unseen movement of hospital patients, workers and even deceased patient corpses, between hospital buildings.

Since the State's 1996 closure of Fairfield Hills State Hospital, the Town of Newtown has purchased the closed facility, with 189 acres of grounds, from the State of Connecticut.