250 year old house torn down

It's sad that this house was torn down, and without any notice. Same developer that cut down all of those historic trees on Ridgewood Rd without a permit.  

From The Village Green:

 A 250-year old house on Parker Avenue in Maplewood was demolished the other day, much to the surprise and dismay of local residents.

“I was truly heartbroken to see this house gone,” said Johanna Karpf, who had first posted about the demolition on the private Facebook group SOMA Lounge. “The first time we found out anything was happening at the property was Tuesday afternoon at around 4 p.m., when we saw a backhoe taking down the northeast corner of the house. By Wednesday afternoon all that was left was the chimney and the stone foundation.”

The house, at 103 Parker Avenue between Baldwin and Burr, was built circa 1775 and has been known as both the Fleming House and the Smith-Taylor House, according to documents. It is one of 40 homes built in the town before 1860.

However, it was not designated by the Maplewood Historic Preservation Commission as a historic landmark. Such a designation, which the HPC currently gives to 12 properties in town, would mean that “any proposed demolition, relocation, significant exterior architectural changes, new construction, subdivision or variances must be reviewed by the Historic Preservation Commission prior to the issuance of permits and application approvals by other Boards,” according to the HPC website. See more information here.

The owner/developer is Isaac Lefkowitz of Ampere Properties — the same developer who purchased the historic Squier House property on N. Ridgewood Road in South Orange in 2021. After first winning praise for collaborating with local preservationists to save the historic portion of the existing house while subdividing the property to include two new homes, Lefkowitz was later criticized for clear-cutting dozens of historic trees— without warning or permits from the township and in violation of the planning board’s conditions of approval.

If you look at the results of the Maplewood Master Plan workshops, you'll see what participants have identified as their greatest concerns for the town going forward.  Very last on the list is historic preservation.  People simply don't care, until something like this happens.  Then there's a flurry of concern, which dies down.  It's tragic that these houses are being torn down, but I expect it to happen with increasing frequency.  

Unfortunately it all has to do with money. I'm sure Mr. Lefkowitz doesn't care. The real problem is  - what is the replacement going to look like? Does it fit in with our community? The building on St. Lawrence is still at a standstill. Why couldn't plans be checked before starting this monstrosity.

The house sold for $585,000 a month ago. None of the online listings showed any interior photos, nor any information about bedrooms and bathrooms. 

Those two factors lead me to believe the house was in poor condition. Does anyone know? Maybe the inside was beyond rehabilitation, or maybe there were major structural issues like termite or water damage. 

The house was not a historically designated building. There is no law (as far as I know) which requires neighborhood notification for demolition of a house in Maplewood. So should Maplewood residents campaign for such a law?  Should more houses be historically land marked?   Do we want more regulations about what people can and can’t do with private property?

 It doesn’t seem like anything illegal was done.   But making judgements about what was done here is hard when we don’t know everything. 

I've read the 400 post thread on Facebook about this.. what it makes clear to me is 1) How substantial and expensive the burden of owning a landmarked home can be. 2) How many people who don't live in them are eager to place unfunded mandates on the owners of the oldest few dozen homes in town.  3) That the only sure way to preserve the "run-of-the-mill" pre-Revolutionary homes (the ones that aren't first, largest, most historically significant) is for individuals with the means to buy them and make them expensive projects.

So, if you aspire to have every old home preserved, no matter what its size, condition or alignment with modern residential expectations, get out there and let a realtor know you are in the market for one.  Let aging neighbors in the oldest home on the street know that when they put their homes on the market, you and others like you will be there bidding for them, even if they aren't in good shape.  These homes will only survive to the extent that they are purchased by those ready to love them, no matter how much the people who didn't buy them tut, claim moral high ground, and cast shade on the owners who sold them to developers, and the developers who bought them.

Sorry if that sounds harsh.  I actually love history, and value our historic homes.  I'm also deeply unsuited to be the owner of one of them (my 93 year old home is just about more than I can handle!). I'm just not sure there are enough people out there with the desire and the means to take care of these homes the way their neighbors want them taken care of. 

Over the weekend I talked to an old friend who does historic preservation for a living. He was in Philadelphia during the battles over protections on the Rittenhouse Square area, and commented that everyone wants restrictions put on what their neighbor can do, but no one wants restrictions on what they can do with their own property. He also commented on how capricious the Board overseeing preservation can be (they fought someone replacing her very old shutters with identical shutters, in accordance with the rules, because they felt that her property should have louvered shutters on the second floor, rather than solid shutters on both floors). 

susan1014 said:

Over the weekend I talked to an old friend who does historic preservation for a living. He was in Philadelphia during the battles over protections on the Rittenhouse Square area, and commented that everyone wants restrictions put on what their neighbor can do, but no one wants restrictions on what they can do with their own property. He also commented on how capricious the Board overseeing preservation can be (they fought someone replacing her very old shutters with identical shutters, in accordance with the rules, because they felt that her property should have louvered shutters on the second floor, rather than solid shutters on both floors).

As a homeowner in the Rittenhouse area at the time, I saw the merits of a historic district and didn’t object to it. (Though nobody asked me or any other resident before it was established without a community vote.) But your example points to a flaw that struck me as obvious: “Identical” wasn’t necessarily in accordance; replacements had to meet historical standards, which your home’s current shutters, front door, windows, stucco, etc., might not meet. In practice, the district was less about preservation than it was about restoration.

In your example, if the board ruled against your proposed replacement shutters and you couldn’t afford or just didn’t want the authorized historic alternative, your only option for following the rules was to leave up the very old shutters and let them decay further. In this way, I thought, the district created an incentive for neglect.

Why does the Township always seem to be two steps behind when developers start tearing down homes, cutting down trees, and rebuilding out of code buildings?

galileo said:

Unfortunately it all has to do with money. I'm sure Mr. Lefkowitz doesn't care. The real problem is  - what is the replacement going to look like? Does it fit in with our community? The building on St. Lawrence is still at a standstill. Why couldn't plans be checked before starting this monstrosity.

if it's torn down completely I would expect a modernized structure to be rebuilt in its place. There are quite a few Tony Stark structures already present in Maplewood so everything fits at this point.  

yahooyahoo said:

Why does the Township always seem to be two steps behind when developers start tearing down homes, cutting down trees, and rebuilding out of code buildings?

Capitalism?  The taking clause of the Constitution?

There are limits to what prior restraints are in place, and significant incentives, outlined in Susan's excellent post above, to continuing those limits.

And the chimney is down - I guess they always save the for last - wasn't sure if they were keeping it or not.

Hi all members and lurkers, 

I am a senior at CHS. Inspired in part by the home demolition talked about in this thread and the seemingly enhanced interest in the topic of historic preservation, I am conducting a survey to gather the opinions of Maplewood/SO citizens on the topic for an AP class project. This isn't anything overtly biased - just trying to get a sense of how you all feel now that the topic has seemed to die down a bit. Everything is anonymous. Anyone with 3 minutes to spare is greatly appreciated.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_Pv9yJVIqrR0ooZfsLKQcn9vL2wICFK6-YyOU_cshoE/edit

Apologies if this isn't the right place for this, I'm new here.

VTskier37 said:

Hi all members and lurkers, 

I am a senior at CHS. Inspired in part by the home demolition talked about in this thread and the seemingly enhanced interest in the topic of historic preservation, I am conducting a survey to gather the opinions of Maplewood/SO citizens on the topic for an AP class project. This isn't anything overtly biased - just trying to get a sense of how you all feel now that the topic has seemed to die down a bit. Everything is anonymous. Anyone with 3 minutes to spare is greatly appreciated.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_Pv9yJVIqrR0ooZfsLKQcn9vL2wICFK6-YyOU_cshoE/edit

Apologies if this isn't the right place for this, I'm new here.

I stopped at Should HPC be allowed to override homeowners property rights.  That question cannot be answered as written because these rights are not defined in the question and neither is the meaning of override. Questions not focused on are whether the HPC should expand the listing of properties currently protected under the law, whether the municipality should pass local legislation enabling the building department to  slow down the process leading to teardowns, whether the town should do a better job of regulating that the work being done on a property actually matches the work authorized by the permit, whether the pressure to provide more affordable and missing middle housing should override the concern for preservation of historic housing, etc.

joan_crystal said:

I stopped at Should HPC be allowed to override homeowners property rights.  That question cannot be answered as written because these rights are not defined in the question and neither is the meaning of override. Questions not focused on are whether the HPC should expand the listing of properties currently protected under the law, whether the municipality should pass local legislation enabling the building department to  slow down the process leading to teardowns, whether the town should do a better job of regulating that the work being done on a property actually matches the work authorized by the permit, whether the pressure to provide more affordable and missing middle housing should override the concern for preservation of historic housing, etc.

If this were from an organization or gub'mint entity, I would agree. But it is from a high school kid. Answer the questions and private message your suggestions. Form's last question could be rephrased, "Do you have any other suggestions?

But regarding your point, that is why I do not answer most of the public opinion requests I get from Gallop.

Formerlyjerseyjack said:

If this were from an organization or gub'mint entity, I would agree. But it is from a high school kid. Answer the questions and private message your suggestions. Form's last question could be rephrased, "Do you have any other suggestions?

But regarding your point, that is why I do not answer most of the public opinion requests I get from Gallop.

Since this is part of a student project, it is hoped that the student will learn more about how to structure survey questions and will be encouraged to take a deeper dive into the selected subject matter.  Were the survey from an organization or a government entity, I would have simply refrained from answering the questions.  Assumption would have been that omitting significant aspects of the issue was intentional.

joan_crystal said:

Since this is part of a student project, it is hoped that the student will learn more about how to structure survey questions and will be encouraged to take a deeper dive into the selected subject matter.  Were the survey from an organization or a government entity, I would have simply refrained from answering the questions.  Assumption would have been that omitting significant aspects of the issue was intentional.

I can tell you that my son was trying to collect surveys for his topic for weeks.  Most people did not bother helping out.  The class will go over each students work and there will be suggestions and criticisms.  You can leave that to them and try to help them without making it a teaching moment.  Sometimes people can help by just doing what they are asked to do.

All fair criticism, probably should have clarified further. “Yes” is probably the best suited answer if you prefer strict regulations (again this is all theoretical, not saying this does/doesn’t happen) designed to maintain the existence and appearance of historic houses. I added the “sometimes” option for what appears to be a large contingency that doesn’t want strict regulations but would, for example, support measures to prevent a historic house in good condition from being totally razed.

As the owner of an old house (1857) not historically designated, the survey made me realize how little I've thought about this issue. I wouldn't have bought the house if it had been regulated. It needed a huge amount of work and money just to make it safe and habitable. I was not in a position to restore a historic property.