The City of Hartford told us that our house was built in 1910. It says so right on our property data card on their online database. Given that it’s 2010, we thought it would only be proper to throw our house a 100-year birthday party bash this year. I blogged about it a few months ago on our home ownership anniversary.
I’ve been happily planning this party in my head for months now. It would take place on a Saturday in September. There would be a very large cake. Lots of balloons. Maybe some bows for the house to dress up its columns in the front. A piñata. Truthfully, the piñata is more for me than the house. But I digress.
Unfortunately, much to my dismay and chagrin, someone rained on my parade quite recently and there will be no party this year.
You see, one of those industrious employees, who shall remain nameless, at the Hartford Preservation Alliance tromped their way down into the bowels of Hartford’s property records division and started searching in their really old files for information on our house. Like the really, really old files that contain yellow, crumbly paper. And lo and behold, what did they find? The original building permit filed for our house. This industrious employee made a copy of the lengthy permit and happily delivered it to Kyle at an event they both attended.
And when was it filed you ask? Well, 1911.
Yes, the building permit for our house was filed in 1911 which of course means that our house was not built in 1910 as the City says, but in 1911 or some point thereafter. So there goes the 100-year birthday party in September. No balloons or cake or bows or piñatas. My apologies to those that would have been invited but are now forced to wait another year until 2011.
I will admit that the permit information the HPA person dug up was pretty interesting. It spec’d out how the house was to be built, the types of building materials used, and the total estimated cost of a whopping $8,000 to construct the house. It also had some funky 1900s penmanship.
I should have known the City’s build date of 1910 was suspect. The industrious individual told me previously that whenever the City had a question about the true build year of a property it was most likely just given 1910. But now we have confirmation. Thank you Hartford Preservation Alliance for keeping it real and true. You will still get an invite to our party next year, but may receive a smaller piece of cake than the other guests…