This home renovation in Hartford's Frog Hollow was a labor of love

This 19th-century row house in Hartford's Frog Hollow has been lovingly restored to its former glory.

A few years ago, Carey Shea took a month off work, leaving her brownstone in Harlem to care for her ailing mother in Bloomfield. While in Connecticut, she saw an adorable abandoned house in Hartford when helping her friend find a new house. Located in the Frog Hollow neighborhood, the English-style row house with its brick-and-shingle exterior and charming wooden porch spoke to both of them, despite needing restoration. So, when her friend ultimately decided not to take on the rehab project, Carey and her husband, Calvin Parker, did, leaving the Big Apple behind for urban living on a smaller scale.

"One of the first things I noticed when I came back to Hartford was that people were walking their dogs and living downtown," remembers Carey. "I grew up in Bloomfield, studied at Albano Ballet, and was in and out of Hartford all the time. I used to go to the Hartford Stage Company, visit Constitution Plaza to see the tree lighting, and shop at G. Fox department store with my grandmother, who worked there. I thought of downtown as a place for commerce, never as a residential place, so it was good to see."

Carey Shea and Calvin Parker poured their heart and soul into their run-down row house, including recreating the original intricate latticework and spindles of the front porch, what Shea calls the "jewelry of the house."

Built in the 1880s, the 2,500-square-foot, three-floor house is among those that line both sides of Columbia Street, named for Columbia Bicycles, the manufacturer who originally owned the street and built the modest, single-family homes for its management. Shea says the homes, each designed slightly differently by architect George Keller — who also designed the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch and Union Station in Hartford — and now part of the George Keller Historic District, continue to be maintained mostly as single-family homes or are owner-occupied with a renter on the third floor.

While many might shy away from such a lofty rehab project, the couple had done this many times before. A couple of years after Carey and Calvin married, when finishing the restoration of their 5,000-square-foot Harlem brownstone, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Not having children to uproot, they decided to be part of its recovery. Carey, who was working at Habitat for Humanity in New York City, took a job with the Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing the citywide recovery-planning process, while Calvin, who was assistant commissioner for housing policy in New York City, went to work for the state of Louisiana, leading a multimillion-dollar program to help owners of small rental properties rehab and reoccupy them.

A dropped ceiling on the third floorwas removed to create a vaulted space above the bed.

"I left the Rockefeller Foundation to work for Len Riggio, the founder of Barnes & Noble, and his wife, Louise, running their effort to build 100 houses for people who had lost their homes in the storm," says Carey, who says the couple still owns the modern two-family house they built for themselves in one of the neighborhoods there. "And we actually ended up building more than 200 houses to give away to people. It was a great experience."

After first seeing the Hartford house in January 2019, Carey and Calvin closed on it 30 days later. The renovation began that April, and in March 2020 they moved in, with their Harlem property selling in April. Having lived and worked in Harlem for about 20 years, they were both excited for the next adventure. When living in New Orleans, Carey says that they came to appreciate and understand the accessibility, ease and charm of smaller cities, and looked forward to living in Hartford.

Since Carey grew up in Bloomfield, she already knew who to contact in the construction trades, and right away got to work assembling a team for the renovation, including Robert Melanson, who ran the job and did all the carpentry work on the interior and exterior. In addition, she tapped Tim Brannack of Brannack Electric, who grew up across the street from her in Bloomfield.

She also applied and qualified for a program run by the state of Connecticut that awards a tax credit up to $30,000 to people who are doing renovations to historic homes. The state sells the tax credit to a corporate partner and uses the proceeds to make a grant to the homeowner. The program, she says, helped to reduce the gap between what they spent on the renovation and the home's current value.

"I think it's important to not think like an investor when you’re talking about your primary residence," she says. "For us, it was about doing a quality renovation and loving where we live."

Formerly located on the second floor, a claw-foot tub was moved to the third-floor master bath.

They saved everything historic in the four-bedroom, 2½-bath house, with one bedroom used as a study and the other as a sewing room. The bathrooms were all gutted and a claw-foot tub from the second floor was moved to the third-floor master bath. All the existing molding and trim was removed, stripped and reinstalled, with Carey stripping it herself in her mother's basement. New crown molding was added in the kitchen/dining area and second floor.

Carey spends a good deal of time in the third-floor sewing room. The decor here is a good example of her philosophy to source items from a variety of places, including Ikea, Goodwill and tag sales.

Solid brass fixtures and solid-wood doors were restored. In several of the rooms, plaster walls were taken down to track and stud and all new electric and plumbing were installed. An HVAC system with central air conditioning was added. And a neighbor, Victor Guzmán, reglazed and repainted the old windows.

Outside, the front porch was in bad shape, and was reconstructed from the top of the rail down, with the original spindles and lattice recreated.

"I believe that the porches on these 1800s houses in Frog Hollow are sort of the jewelry of the house," says Carey, a commissioner of Hartford's Historic Preservation Commission. "It's the porches that make our houses so beautiful, and I think they are really important to save. Officially, they are all protected because they are all within the historic district, but too many people don't understand that they can't remove or renovate their porches without going to the Historic Preservation Commission first. We work hard to educate people about their front porches. Often on surrounding blocks, property owners send a crew and rip off a front porch and replace it with backyard decking material. In a historic district, that's a violation."

On the back of the house, the fire escape was taken down as fire laws no longer apply now that they were returning the house to single-family living. Doors to the fire escape were turned into windows, and a mudroom and pantry, which were at one time added to the back of the building, were removed, allowing light to fill the home.

Out back, removing a fire escape allowed the patio space to be rejuvenated into a cozy green oasis.

"With these historic buildings, you have to take away what's been added since they were originally built, and then they reveal themselves to you," Carey says. "And this building was no different."

The kitchen and dining rooms are now light and bright. An opening between the two was enlarged, and the rooms’ locations were flipped for a better traffic pattern. The back door now opens into the dining area instead of the kitchen, which is fully outfitted from Lowe's including appliances and cabinets. "It's economical, looks good, and is appropriate to the house. Even the range hood is from Lowe's. That was my splurge," Carey says.

Shea didn't splurge on the kitchen — most pieces are from Lowe's and Ikea — but she still pulled off a high-end look that is also fits with the home's historic character.

The dining room includes plates as wall art (some from Europe, others from Goodwill), a mantel from a house in Harlem that was being gutted, and a tablecloth that Shea made from African fabric.

Instead of a tile backsplash, shiplap with a high-gloss paint the exact color of the cabinets was used. Carey made the curtains from an old shower curtain and a tablecloth from African fabric from MC Varieties in East Hartford. Wood floors were redone here and throughout the home, kitchen lighting is from Ikea, and the island stools Carey found in New York City.

"When we moved here, it was great to discover that I can walk to downtown Hartford in 15 minutes and the bakeries and restaurants on Park Street in five," says Carey, whose best friend from her earlier years, and whom she hadn't seen in 40 years, just happened to find an apartment on the same block. "And it's a beautiful walk up Capitol Avenue with the big state library and then the Capitol building and then a walk through Bushnell Park, which is just stunning. I go to the Bushnell more than I went to Broadway because it's more accessible. Although it's a small city, Hartford offers a very urban, walkable lifestyle.

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