Decision on tearing down historic Rumson, N.J., house gets delayed

The house, known locally as the Morris-Saltar-Hartshorne- Tredwell house, is the oldest in the borough and is listed on the historic sites inventory of the master plan. This means that in order to gain approval to tear it down, the owners must prove the house either is not salvageable or that doing...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inKnight Ridder Tribune Business News p. 1
Main Author Waldman, Alison
Format Newsletter
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington Tribune Content Agency LLC 03.11.2004
Subjects
Architects
Historic preservation
Houses
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Summary:The house, known locally as the Morris-Saltar-Hartshorne- Tredwell house, is the oldest in the borough and is listed on the historic sites inventory of the master plan. This means that in order to gain approval to tear it down, the owners must prove the house either is not salvageable or that doing so would create a financial hardship. "It has a lot of its historical fabric intact," said Penelope S. Watson of Watson & Henry Associates in Bridgeton. During a 2 1/2- hour inspection of the oldest sections of the house, Watson said she found historic aspects such as the windows, shingles, plaster walls and wood work to be in good to excellent condition. Robert Gorski, a Rumson architect who studied the feasibility of preserving the house, had said preserving it would require replacing a majority of those components that make the building historic. He said the floors had settled, the structure is unsound and the wood shingles had dry-rotted, among other defects.