Hull's Art Supply & Framing

According to the New Haven assessor’s office, the structure at 1144 Chapel was built in 1850. Records from the law firm of White Brothers, Clark, Hall and Peck in Sterling library’s Manuscripts and Archives give a conflicting date of 1849. The structure was residential, and remained so until the last records show that Gustave Stattig bequeathed this house in his will to various family members in 1950. The original footprint of the 1850 house is apparent from the roofline; a hip roof covers a square portion of the building corresponding to the Casablanca store and the second floor above it. Sanborn maps from 1901, 1911 and 1924 show that the house was enlarged in the back prior to 1901. I could not find further records in Sterling for post-1950, but in speaking with Steve Kovel, the owner of Hull’s University Art Supply and Framing, I learned that sometime in the 1950s Sid Bruskin set up a bicycle shop in the space, which remained for about thirty years under several owners, until it finally went bankrupt in the 1980s. The 1973 Sanborn map shows that the original structure width had been expanded to the size it is today, and various out-buildings had been attached. The assessor’s record lists the building’s “Effectual Year Built” as 1961, so the major expansion probably occurred at that time. Today, the Hull’s store occupies the entire first floor of this expanded half. This portion of the building was the bicycle shop until it went out of business, and then remained empty until 1999 when Steve Kovel bought the space and had Dean Sakamoto remodel it. A bicycle sign remains on the side of the building near the Casablanca store. The recent tenants of the other parts of the building, besides Casablanca, have all been architectural- and design-oriented. A small architectural firm had the back office on the second floor until the 1980s; when Dean Sakamoto renovated the building he connected this back office with the front office and set up his own firm in the expanded space in 2000. Prior to that time, Alec Purves rented the front office as a “retreat” from the A+A. Strong Cohen, a graphic design firm, has the third office space over the Hull’s store; Tom Strong of Strong Cohen was responsible for the graphics in the Hull’s renovation. Recently, Dean Sakamoto left the upstairs space, and Steve Kovel has been using the front portion as his office.