Restoration Planned for Historic Belden Street Houses

A team of developers operating collectively as Belden Development LLC plans to begin restoration next month on five boarded-up, 19th-century houses on Belden Street, in the city's North End, according to the Hartford Courant. The houses are located at 22, 28, 32, 38 and 44 Belden St. The city acquired them through foreclosure in 2002; it's now selling them to the developers, who include the Milano Corp., the Broad-Park Development Corp. Inc., the Corporation for Independent Living Inc., the Greater Hartford Realty Management Corp., and the Hopgood Group LLC. The Courant says this is "essentially the same group" that completed the Mortson-Putnam Heights project in the Frog Hollow neighborhood.

Three of the buildings -- 28, 32, and 38 -- are described in "Structures and Styles: Guided Tours of Hartford Architecture," a 1988 book by Gregory E. Andrews and David F. Ransom. The authors say the three brick houses "document the North End's development before 1890, when the Second Empire and Italianate styles were in vogue. Brownstone lintels and sills, in many shapes and textures, often incised with delicate, floral Neo-Grec designs, prevailed."