William Pinto House, New Haven

The William Pinto House, also known as William Pinto-Eli Whitney House, is a Federal-style building of post-and-beam construction, and was built in 1810 for John Cook, a merchant. It is rare and unusual for its design, which places the gable end facing the street, rather than to the side as was more typical in the Federal period. It is historically notable for its second owner, William Pinto, a member of one of New Haven's leading Jewish families, and for its third occupant, Eli Whitney, who leased the house from Pinto in the later years of his life. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

When this house was built in 1810, Orange Street was a fashionable upper-class residential area; it has since been transformed into a largely commercial district of the city's downtown. It was built for John Cook, a prominent local merchant, who sold it in 1812 to William Pinto, a member of one of the first Jewish families to settled in New Haven. Pinto served in the state militia during the American Revolutionary War, and was one of its most successful West Indies merchants.

Pinto rented the house to inventor Eli Whitney in 1819. Eli Whitney was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South. Eli Whitney lived in the house until his death in 1825. Architecturally, the house is a rare surviving example of a Federal style house with a front-facing gable.