Historical treasure saved from bulldozer

BY JENNIFER DOME
Staff Writer

JEFF GRANIT staff Worker Gary Girdon uses a shovel to smooth out the path of the England farmhouse Friday. A section of fence was removed from the area pictured above so the house could be transported across a farm to a new location on Old Church Road.

MONROE — It’s the little house that could.

The 18th-century farmhouse known as the England House was spared from demolition last week when it was moved from England Road to a site adjacent to the township-owned Historic Dey Farm on Old Church Road.

The Monroe Township Historical Preservation Commission was informed by the township about the proposed demolition, according to commission member Renee Hobbs. The group then enlisted the help of Mayor Richard Pucci and the Township Council, who went to Renaissance Properties, which is developing the site with homes, and asked that the house be saved.

"Everybody was very cooperative," Hobbs said.

PHOTOS BY JEFF GRANIT staff The soft, wet ground requires Gary Girdon and Adam Braman to place planks under the wheels as the farmhouse is driven over the Ochsner farm.

The developer agreed to move the house 4,000 feet to the Dey farm, paying Myroncuk Frank & Son Inc. of New Egypt to handle the project, Hobbs said.

The actual move involved three days. On May 12, the 75-ton house was taken off its foundation and moved to the end of its driveway at England Road, Hobbs said. Two days later, on Friday, the house was moved across the street and over the Oschner farm — a process that began around 7:30 a.m. and continued into the afternoon.

Monday morning, the house arrived at its final resting place, across the street from the Dey farm.

"We don’t expect that there was much damage, if anything," Hobbs said afterward.

The house has endured much over the centuries, and members of the historical commission worked to ensure that the original 200-plus-year-old windowpanes and other valuable hardware would stay intact.

John Katerba, township historian and historical commission president, said the house was boarded up almost immediately after its last inhabitants, the Stillwells, moved out in January. When old homes are vacated, items such as mantels, stair railings and other old fixtures are often stolen, Katerba said.With the house already boarded up to ward off vandals and with no electric wires needing removal, the house was ready for its move to the Dey farm, where it will be restored on a foundation donated by Renaissance Properties and used as part of the township’s historical museum complex. Hobbs said part of the restoration process will include replacing aluminum siding with cedar, as the house had originally.

The house has two fireplaces and retains original features such as a winding staircase, a Dutch door, wide-plank pine floorboards and hand-wrought iron hardware, according to the historical commission. The house is considered the most eligible building in Monroe as a candidate for the national historic register.

The earliest record of the house was in the 1850s, at which time a J. Baird was the owner. D.M. Voorhees and, later, the England family were also owners. The most recent family to live in the England House was the Stillwells.

The farm where the house was located grew wheat, potatoes and corn and was the site of other buildings that were not considered necessary for preservation, according to the commission.

The site is being developed as Southfield Estates, slated to include more than 100 homes on about 123 acres. The development application also included additional acreage that will be preserved as part of the overall plan.

"It’s very rewarding for me and the historical commission to accomplish a process like this," Hobbs said. As a longtime township resident, she said she has always been interested in the old buildings throughout the township and enjoys taking photographs of them.

"These old buildings kind of have a special place in my heart," she said.

The commission is well equipped to be aware of land-use happenings in the township, in part due to Katerba’s position with the Monroe Township Municipal Utilities Authority, so that old buildings can be saved, often with developers’ money instead of tax dollars.

"We’re in tune in what’s going on in Monroe; now we have a handle on all our old homes," Katerba said.

Earlier this year, the historical commission prepared an old, one-room schoolhouse built in 1857 and a circa-1790s barn for the Historic Dey Farm where, after they are repaired and reassembled, they will become part of the growing museum complex. In those cases, the developers on the historical buildings’ former sites paid for the relocation work as well.

"It was fate — it just seemed to work out [with the England House]," Katerba said.

The house will be a staple of the museum complex because it retains most of its original features, as compared with other historical buildings in the township, he said.

"This house is just a rare, rare example, and it’s a survivor," Katerba said.