Hidden History: Before Kelson Row

by Robert Herron

Town Historian Emeritus

Submitted photos

A person driving down Main Street these days can’t help but notice that a huge real estate development is underway. This is Kelson Row. It is intended primarily as a residential development with shops on the lower floors.

While growth and progress are inevitable, this location has an interesting history and we shouldn’t lose sight of it.

From far back in Rocky Hill’s history, the Bulkley family has been laying the foundation for our town. Gershom Bulkley, the minister of the Wethersfield Congregational Church, was granted the right to operate a grist mill in what was to become Dividend Industrial Park in 1661. It provided cornmeal to the town and provisioned passing ships with corn cakes.

The Dividend Brook area developed into the water-driven Dividend Industrial Area that is today’s Dividend Park. This Gershom was the progenitor of a Bulkley line which has made many significant contributions to the town. Among them was settling the land that is Kelson Row today.

Land records show that Henry Bulkley owned the mansion and the 12 adjoining acres in 1862 that are the Kelson Row site. Henry was Gershom Bulkley’s second great-grandson. This site stayed with the Bulkley family until 1919 when Joseph Bulkley moved to New York and sold the property to Edward Stevens, who owned the Champion Manufacturing Co. on the Connecticut River.

It should be noted that Joseph Bulkley made several contributions to the town including Bulkley Park and the Bulkley Flagpole on Veteran’s Memorial Green. He may have donated the land that became Veteran’s Memorial Green, although we have yet to find definitive proof of this.

He donated Bulkley Park with the understanding that it would never be developed or improved. As of 2026, it has not.

In 1957, Edward Stevens deeded some of this land to Connecticut Valley Hardware. This seems to be the beginning of subdividing the property into smaller units of usage.

The mansion deteriorated over time despite efforts to save it, including turning the mansion building into Rocky Hill’s town hall. The end came for the mansion in 1965 when it was razed.

The site became a shopping plaza with W.T. Grant, a one-story department store, as its anchor store in 1971. This was one of more than 1,100 stores in the Grant’s chain.

It was a versatile outlet that sold many products. A major feature of the store was an automobile center that sold tires and other auto supplies as well as tune-ups and repairs. The site became known as Grant’s Plaza.

The main problem with the plaza seemed to have been that it was in an inconvenient, out-of-the-way location and incapable of supporting the added automobile traffic the plaza created. The owners of the plaza contributed very little to its promotion and upkeep.

Harold Konover was the plaza’s owner at the time. Konover was constantly at odds with town officials and potential tenants demurred to move in because of the condition of the site. The tenants of the plaza, Finast, Centercrest Dry Cleaning, Grant’s and Berlin Savings, sent letters to the property owner in 1973 threatening to withhold rent.

They complained about litter blowing around in the parking lot, obscene graffiti on the buildings and obviously vacant stores. Unsavory people had begun to use the vacant buildings and surrounding spaces as places for surreptitious partying.

Tenants began to abandon the plaza. W.T. Grant moved out in 1973 leaving the Berlin Saving Bank and the post office annex as the only tenants. In 1975 the current post office opened at 32 Church St. and its facilities on Main Street closed.

Ames moved to this Rocky Hill site in 1975 and operated here until 2002 when the business failed.

It began as a family affair run by the Gilman brothers. In 1958 Milton Gilman, a former executive of G. Fox & Co. in Hartford, and his brother Irving opened their first store in the Ames Worsted Textile Co. mill in Southbridge, Mass. They named the company Ames Department Stores after the old mill.

Their goal was to bring discount merchandise, which had until then been targeted to populous areas, to small towns in the Northeast. As the business grew the company moved to the Fuller Brush Building in Hartford. They went public in 1967 with 12 stores. By 1972 Ames had 36 stores. They began trading on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol ADD.

Ames owned stores around the country and its strategy was to acquire and absorb similar companies. In 1983 it acquired the 25 stores of the King Department Stores chain. Ames closed unprofitable stores and combined Ames and King stores that served the same areas.

In 1983 Ames controlled 154 stores. Its acquisition strategy for future chains was the same as for King Stores. In 1985 Ames acquired Murphy Department Stores with 463 outlets.

This rapid growth came at a cost. In 1987 a physical count at their Secaucus, N.J., distribution facility revealed a staggering inventory shortage. All signs pointed to it being due to theft at this facility. The value of the company’s stock fell $1.75 per share to $23.12 per share.

Despite this setback, Ames continued to grow. In 1987, over the loud protests of neighboring residents and businesses, it added 116 parking spaces to the existing 570, exacerbating an already serious traffic problem in that part of town and contributing to the site’s becoming an eyesore.

By 1989 Ames was the second-most profitable company on the town’s Grand List. It opened an outlet on Waterchase Drive. Also in 1989, Ames acquired the Zayres discount store chain and converted all but 61 of the 316 Zayres stores to Ames.

The remaining 61 stores continued to operate as Zayres stores because this name was more recognizable in urban areas.

Acquisition of Zayres seems to have begun the decline of Ames. It had previously targeted rural areas with much success. Zayres was primarily urban, and Ames had no experience or brand recognition in that market. In contrast to prior acquisitions, this one caused a pronounced dip in profitability.

In 1990, Ames failed to pay its annual dividend due to financial setbacks. The company attributed its problems to a weak retail environment and problems with the Zayres acquisition. Eighty-five employees were laid off. The company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy so it could regroup from its financial setbacks.

As the company grew, the vision of the Gilman brothers fell by the wayside and professional managers took over. In 1992 Ames emerged from bankruptcy after a successful shopping season. Five of its directors were now from organizations that had lent it money. In 1995 Ames began to trade on NASDAQ.

In 1996 the stock traded at $1.50 a share. In January its price tripled. By year's end the company began an era of prosperity and growth.

Ames bought Hills Stores with 155 outlets in 1998. Hills was financially distressed and on the verge of collapse. The CEO and its chief merchandising officer had resigned.

Ames believed that Hills’ problems were the result of poor management and merchandising decisions and that the Ames model would restore profitability. It had hoped that acquiring Hills Stores, which had a similar business, would open up new markets in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Indiana. The acquisition made Ames the fourth-largest U.S. discounter.

 None of this worked. The debt load became untenable and vendors became reluctant to do business with Ames. The company filed for bankruptcy again in 2001. It closed all stores and went out of business in 2002.

Discussions began to raze the Ames building and construct what became Kelson Row. Hamden-based Belfonti began demolition on the old building and construction of Kelson Row in 2022. The development is now nearing completion. The complex will contain 213 apartments, making it one of the largest housing projects in the state – 93 one-bedroom and 120 two-bedroom apartments, 11,000 feet of commercial space, 10,000 feet of commercial or restaurant space.

Some green space, a pocket park and sidewalks are planned. The impression one gets driving by is of a small town within a small town.

People who have lived in town for any length of time are aware of some other eyesores in town and how hard it is to rectify these situations. Some examples are the factory property at the end of Glastonbury Avenue and the poorly capped landfill in the meadows that still threatens the ecology of the meadows and the Connecticut River.

It is encouraging to see action being taken to remediate the eyesore that was the Ames Property. Having said that, it should be noted that the name Kelson Row alludes to the keel of a ship. Apparently, marketing people wanted to associate the real estate project with our town’s somewhat glamorous maritime history.

It has been suggested that Kelson Row could become the center of town with development envisioned to connect it to the Connecticut River. Local historians have reservations about this idea because much of the town’s most interesting history occurred on the east side of town and real estate development without reference and research into our history might obscure, or even obliterate, our town’s unique past.

We tried to find a connection between the plot of land that is Kelson Row and Rocky Hill’s maritime history but, to date, have found none. There is a fear that our real history will be obscured by real estate marketing and politics. RHL