Resident: Help Me Save Historic Home

An application for a minor subdivision before the Morris Township Planning Board turned into a disagreement about the best way to save a historic house Monday night.

Robert Dempsey told the board he would like to sell his 18th Century home on Schoolhouse Lane and know it will not be torn down for the construction of a huge modern house. He said he believes the best way to ensure that is to subdivide his nearly 4-acre property, allowing a building lot on the Mendham Township portion of the tract.

He told the planning board Monday night any prospective buyers of the entire tract were not interested in keeping the house.

But his neighbor, Dr. Gilbert Mayor, disagreesdand hired planner David Zimmerman to argue the point.

Zimmerman said that because the property was once part of a 143-acre farm, the best chance of preserving the historic house would be to keep the lot intact. He said other houses and barns in the Washington Valley Historic District have been added onto in a manner sensitive to the historic elements of the original, so someone wanting a larger house would not necessarily replace the original.

Dempsey’s house was built between 1785 or 1786 and 1789 by Samuel Alward, who served in the Morris County Militia under Gen. George Washington, Dempsey said. He bought it in 1987 because he had always wanted to own and live in an old farmhouse.

Now Dempsey is ready to retire and ill health is forcing him to move in with his daughter, he said.

While not on the state and national Registers of Historic Places as an individual property, the house is considered a contributing property to the Washington Valley district.

The proposed subdivision would slice off a triangular-shaped parcel entirely in Morris Township, leaving a conforming lot for construction of a house in Mendham Township. Dempsey’s planning consultant, Charles McGroarty, said municipal boundaries going through farms and lots are hardly uncommon in Morris County.

Surveyor Richard Smith said he used Mendham’s maps to establish the boundary since any construction would be in that township. He acknowledged discrepancies between the two townships as to the exact location of the boundary, adding the lines were established in the 1700s and are bound to be dissimilar.

The board will hear further discussion on the case at its Nov. 7 meeting. Mayor’s attorney, Larry Weiner, said there are a number of residents from the area who will speak against the subdivision.

Karen Skoda, who lives across Schoolhouse Lane from the property, is seeking assurances runoff from the property will not increase enough to overwhelm already inadequate catch basins along the road.