A series of entries designed to capture the ongoing adventures of NINA! See how we came to be where we are today, and follow along as we enter the new century of social media!
Page: 30
As we’re starting to get toward the end of the line on 52 Huntington Street, we’ve started preparing to enshrine 52 Huntington Street both here on our web site on its dedicated project page and also there on presentations and reports we’ll make for current and future funders. This is always a fun process as we go through the photos, see how the project progressed, and assemble the best of them here and there.
Our houses on Huntington Street, however, don’t really have great before shots, since “before” they were just a vacant lot. Before that, though, they were a very large building of condominiums, and what do you know, we found a picture of that! If you look closely, you can match up the driveway in this picture with the current driveway for 52 Huntington Street – that’s the best landmark, because we used the existing curb cut for our driveway.
But that tree with the yellow leaves is much, much more interesting – it marks the northern boundary of what is now 54 Huntington Street, and if you go back and look at some of the photos of 54 Huntington we’ve put online, not only is the tree still there, but so is the right angle in the tree!
As for the condos, there was a fire, which led to the condition of the buidling seen in this photo, and then the building was demolished by the City. After that, it was bought by a local non-profit, Broad-Park Development Corporation, which planned to develop it but ultimately sold it to the Asylum Hill Congregational Church. AHCC then donated it to NINA, but we've already covered that!
We poked up on a Saturday to get you an update on how the painting is going. The homeowner has selected more interior colors, and we've also started to construct the front porch. And, we included a view of the seldom seen rear of the house!
A quick peek inside -- more paint, and we also opened up the study on the first floor to let more sunlight in.
In bloom and gorgeous! It completely obscures that beautiful house we built at 33 Sargeant, but it goes without saying that we were totally right to work hard to protect this magnolia while we were building the house. Totally worth it!
We were down at 80 Hawthorn today, snapping some photos to serve as before shots to go with some of our newest architectural renderings for the site. We decided to post them because of the view of 140 Hawthorn Street, that marvelous brick mansion in the background. That house, which is officially called the John and Isabella Beecher Hooker House, is the inspiration for our proposed designed for the town homes that we will build here, but it’s also a little more than that.
Way back when, Sam Olivia Clemens moved to Hartford, but they arrived before their famous house (i.e., the Mark Twain House) was finished. The Clemenses needed a place to stay, and the Hookers (yes, you read that right) offered their house as temporary quarters for Sam and Livy. Thus, 140 Hawthorn Street became the “first” Mark Twain House in Hartford!
It’s hard to picture it now, but once upon a time the Hooker House (yes, you’ve still read that right) commanded the heights and held an impressive view of the Park River and the whole Nook Farm section of Asylum Hill. Isabella, by the way, was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s sister, and John Hooker was a descendant of Thomas Hooker, who intrepidly led a band of settlers into Hartford back in 1636.
An updated look at 52 Huntington, 52 Huntington, and 181 Collins Street.
With the west gable installed, 52 Huntington Street looks more and more like its next door neighbor, 54 Huntington Street.
Our new homeowner has made her first selections on interior paint colors, and we started applying paint at the very top of the house, in the stairwell up on the third floor.
The woodwork has been installed in the south gable. Next up is the west gable. And sure, I'll admit it, there's actually two gables to go, but the one on the north side is impossible to photograph!
We took the sign down from in front of 115 Sigourney Street, and we gave it a new home outside our office in Veeder Place.
