A House To Break Your Heart
The headline in our local paper was titled "Historic property to be demolished", "Vandals destroying 18th century home". This farmhouse once owned most of the property that turned into our community. More of it's farm fields were bought by the county school board, for an elementary school, built in 1968. Finally the county took the last of the land and the house for a middle school, that ended up being built somewhere else. Now it's just dying slowly. Here's what it looked like in 1975:
And here's what it looks like now:
I went to that elementary school. I have pictures of me feeding the ponies that lived there. I love this place. I've never been inside, though I have actually had dreams about it.
It was built in 1789, with additions throughout the 1800's. It's a simple place, not very fancy. It had a large dairy barn that the vandals burned down in the late 1980's, on Halloween. It sits on 20 acres now. 20 very valuable acres. There is no more farmland left in this part of the county (it's been turned into housing developments, and the new age restricted condos and townhouses, since the schools are full up). An assessment this spring found that "the best use of the property is to sell it to a developer for $3.1 million, for 100 age-restricted townhouses". Oh boy.
More photos, before and after. Be sad for it.
The formerly open fields around the house are now filled in with a 30 year old jungle. The "kids" love it - it's very private, and wasn't secured at all, until after the first of the newspaper articles was published. Then the board of education sent out someone with plywood to "secure" the place (but not the basement door, or second floor busted windows).
The good-ish news is that, at the hearing on the matter, our community reps were all set to voice their opposition, but the motion had already been dropped. End of discussion - no plans to demolish.
Fine. Now, true to their past actions with similar properties that they've acquired, they will just let it sit and rot, and be broken into, and roof continue to leak. And if they're lucky, the kids will burn it down, and then they can sell it and make the millions that the property is unfortunately worth to a developer. I am sure that is what they'd like to happen. Money!
This house is on the state's historic register. My community has formed a group that's filed for non-profit status, who want to save it. They want the county to either give it to them, or let them restore it and run it as a "historical education center." Do they know how much work this is to run and staff, and how much it would cost to restore, and build a barn?? I don't think they do. And there is NO money in this community to fund it. I'm sad to admit it, but I don't think they stand much of a chance.
Hey, I'll take it! Let me fix it and live in it for-ever-and-ever.... I wish the board of ed. would sell it to someone to rehab and protect and preserve, and not sell off the "yard" for the millions that it's worth.
If they develop the land into townhouses, (which seems inevitable) I guess I'll never walk the dog through the elementary school fields again. Too sad.
And here's what it looks like now:
I went to that elementary school. I have pictures of me feeding the ponies that lived there. I love this place. I've never been inside, though I have actually had dreams about it.
It was built in 1789, with additions throughout the 1800's. It's a simple place, not very fancy. It had a large dairy barn that the vandals burned down in the late 1980's, on Halloween. It sits on 20 acres now. 20 very valuable acres. There is no more farmland left in this part of the county (it's been turned into housing developments, and the new age restricted condos and townhouses, since the schools are full up). An assessment this spring found that "the best use of the property is to sell it to a developer for $3.1 million, for 100 age-restricted townhouses". Oh boy.
More photos, before and after. Be sad for it.
The formerly open fields around the house are now filled in with a 30 year old jungle. The "kids" love it - it's very private, and wasn't secured at all, until after the first of the newspaper articles was published. Then the board of education sent out someone with plywood to "secure" the place (but not the basement door, or second floor busted windows).
The good-ish news is that, at the hearing on the matter, our community reps were all set to voice their opposition, but the motion had already been dropped. End of discussion - no plans to demolish.
Fine. Now, true to their past actions with similar properties that they've acquired, they will just let it sit and rot, and be broken into, and roof continue to leak. And if they're lucky, the kids will burn it down, and then they can sell it and make the millions that the property is unfortunately worth to a developer. I am sure that is what they'd like to happen. Money!
This house is on the state's historic register. My community has formed a group that's filed for non-profit status, who want to save it. They want the county to either give it to them, or let them restore it and run it as a "historical education center." Do they know how much work this is to run and staff, and how much it would cost to restore, and build a barn?? I don't think they do. And there is NO money in this community to fund it. I'm sad to admit it, but I don't think they stand much of a chance.
Hey, I'll take it! Let me fix it and live in it for-ever-and-ever.... I wish the board of ed. would sell it to someone to rehab and protect and preserve, and not sell off the "yard" for the millions that it's worth.
If they develop the land into townhouses, (which seems inevitable) I guess I'll never walk the dog through the elementary school fields again. Too sad.
2 Comments:
Oh, that is so sad! It is heart breaking to hear about these situations and they seem to be happening everywhere. I wish people valued history more.
Maybe someone from the communtiy who values that house should try to get on the school board or whatever board is in charge of deciding what to do with that house? The best chance of being heard might be to become part of the decision making team.
Not much hope for changing the school board - they're all appointed by the governor. We do have an excellent county councilwoman (we just re-elected her), and she's been doing a lot of work on our community's behalf.
Because of the hundreds of letters and emails she's received about this farmhouse, she was able to get enough votes to defeat the bill that would have funded the demolition. The County Executive withdrew the bill before the vote. We won, sort of. More like bought some time.
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