Contributed Photo
When a young couple bought a Quinnipiac Avenue house in 2010, they thought they’d found a bargain. Then they peeled off the vinyl siding and realized they also had a chance to bring a historic home back to life.
Thomas MacMillan Photo
Four years later, in City Hall on Tuesday, that young couple received an award from the New Haven Preservation Trust (NHPT) for their revitalization of the “Justin Kimberly House,” an 1828 Federal-style home at 624 Quinnipiac Ave.
Bridget Suma (pictured) and Sean Hundtofte, the young couple, received one of three awards bestowed Tuesday by the NHPT. The trust also gave plaques to the Yale Art and Architecture building and a building at 38 Crown St. (pictured below).
This is the first year in over a decade that the NHPT has given out the awards. Bruce Peabody, an NHPT board member, said the organization had simply fallen out of the habit of handing them out. The awards recognize that preservation of single buildings leads to neighborhood preservation and eventually citywide care of the buildings that make New Haven a unique community.
“The Trust reminds us that we have neither inherited this city from our predecessors nor are we simply caretakers for those to follow: We are both,” said Mayor Toni Harp (pictured with Peabody and NHPT’s Duo Dickinson, who oversaw the award committee).
After receiving her award, Suma, who’s 31, explained how she came to be the owner of an award-winning historic home.
Suma and Hundtofte moved to town in 2010 so that Hundtofte could get his Ph.D. in financial economics. The couple had moved around a lot. Arriving in New Haven was the first time they found it cheaper to buy than to rent. Hundtofte, who had worked in “distressed debt,” decided they should buy a house in a “short sale,” in which property is sold for less than the outstanding debt on the property.
When they bought 624 Quinnipiac Ave., the house had been converted into a two-family and chopped up into a variety of new rooms, “like a rabbit warren.” Suma and Hundtofte decided to convert it back into a single-family house.
They hired restoration contractor Chris Wuerth (pictured), who stripped off the vinyl siding to find asphalt shingles and, under those, the original pine clapboards. Wuerth took the building down to the original post-and-beam construction.
Wuerth discovered that the front door, then on one side of the house, had been moved from the center. Suma and Hundtofte moved it back, then built a new staircase in the center of the house, replacing a narrow ladder-like staircase on one side.
“We bought it for $189,000,” Suma said, “and put about that much into it.”
After nine months of renovation, Suma and Hundtofte moved in. They were married in 2011 in the backyard.
Suma said she’s not sure yet where she’ll put her new plaque; maybe on the right side of the house, where the old door used to be.