The boutique hotel offering in Litchfield, Conn., continues to grow. The team behind the Hudson Valley hotel Troutbeck has opened their second property, called Belden House & Mews, in the heart of Litchfield.
The hotel reimagines the 1888 home of Dr. Charles Belden with 10 guest rooms inside the original home, with an additional 21 additional rooms in the Mews, a 1960s modernist wing. On offer across the 31 rooms is butler service, a bathhouse with treatments and fitness, a seasonal outdoor pool and lawn club and a dining room and a bar.
Co-owner Anthony Champalimaud relocated to Litchfield from New York roughly 10 years ago, and had noticed in recent years that the Belden House sat derelict. He purchased the property in 2021, and while properties like the Abner Hotel and Lost Fox Inn have opened in the last year, at the time Litchfield’s hotel scene was quiet.
“Litchfield hasn’t had a hotel since the 1890s, so it seemed like a pretty exciting opportunity if we could make it work,” Champalimaud says.
Belden House dining room.
Belden House is designed by Champalimaud’s family design company Champalimaud Design, which is responsible for hotels like Raffles in Singapore, the Bel-Air Hotel, the Beverly Hills Hotel and The Plaza in New York City.
“It’s our sincere hope that what we’re doing more than anything else is holding up a mirror to Litchfield and giving people an opportunity to inhabit Litchfield without it being overly narrative and prescriptive. It is to some degree the way we think we live. It’s comfortable, it’s eclectic, it’s assembled, as Troutbeck is, in terms of its decor,” Champalimaud says. “We’re not hanging our hat on one period versus another. We are interested in telling the story of the architectural history of Litchfield, which is pretty profound. I think you have a quintessential New England town here that has an exceptionally significant historical narrative that can and should be appreciated.”
Belden House mews garden room.
The team has acquired the historial Litchfield Firehouse, next to Belden House, and will integrate that in the coming months. Features of the property include a three-bedroom, 2,100-square-foot penthouse, sleeping six, which takes up an entire floor of the house and has a rooftop terrace, private living and dining rooms and direct access to the kitchen via a dumbwaiter. Butler service is available to all rooms 16 hours a day.
Over at the Bathhouse, like at Troutbeck’s wellness barn, there will be Pilates and floor exercise classes, as well as a dry sauna, a steam room, a 225-gallon Japanese Ofuro tub for hydrotherapies and cold plunges, as well as treatment rooms.
Belden House guest room.
Champalimaud will stay busy in the coming months, with plans to take Troutbeck from 37 guest rooms to 69. Unlike Troutbeck, which is more rural and spacious, Belden is right in the center of the town of Litchfield. Champalimaud is hoping guests will become fans of both properties: they are roughly 30 minutes apart, and Champalimaud recommends a bike ride between the two.
“You have to compare. This is like a town and country thing now,” he says.
Belden House library.
