Demolition Expected To Begin This Week On Cintra Mansion In New Hope

NEW HOPE, PA —Demolition is expected to begin this week at the Cintra Mansion at 181 Bridge Street across from the New Hope-Solebury School District offices and schools.

In January, the New Hope Borough Council voted unanimously to grant a permit for the demolition of the mansion, which has overlooked Bridge Street since the early 1800s.

Renowned architect J. Robert Hillier, who has owned Cintra since 2013, told the council in January that he intends “to completely and accurately rebuild the original Cintra with all the original latticework and materials.

“We’re going to save what we can save,” he said. “And at the end of the day we are going to end up with a building that looks like the original Cintra Mansion.

“What’s important about that is that all the porches and the latticework, which has been lost over the years, all to deterioration, will be replaced,” he said. “We’d like to take the building down and build it back to the way it originally was.”

In April 2022, when he originally proposed plans for the property, Hillier provided the results of two engineering studies, both of which recommended demolition.

“The mansion is basically unstable and it is an unsafe structure. Our intent is to completely reconstruct it and completely conform with the National Park Service regulations,” Hillier told the council in 2022 after presenting the results of an engineering study by Anthony Naccarato, who
is known nationwide for his work in the preservation of historic buildings. The Naccarato study also recommended demolition.

“I know this is not a perfect solution for a historic building that means so much to so many people in this town, but when it is all said and done, the true and accurate Cintra will live on,” he promised

Cintra was built about 1816 by William Maris. Maris also built a cotton mill on the Aquetong Creek near Mt. Moriah Church and the Delaware House on the corner of Bridge and Main streets in New Hope, according to the Solebury Historical Society.