This week we look at houses on Prospect Avenue, the border between Hartford and West Hartford. An eclectic mix of large houses were constructed here in the later nineteenth century. One of the earliest is that of Burdett Loomis, an inventor and manufacturer of gas plant machinery. A civic leader in Hartford, in 1873 he also opened a trotting horse park on New Park Avenue. This would later evolve into Charter Oak Park, which early in the twentieth century would feature Luna Park, a popular amusement park. In the late nineteenth century, Prospect Avenue was considered to be in the countryside, and around 1885, Loomis bought a c. 1845 Greek Revival farmhouse and transformed it into his country estate by adding a new Queen Anne-style section on the front.