New Hope Borough Council Approves Demolition of Cintra Mansion

NEW HOPE BOROUGH, PA — The days are now numbered for the Cintra Mansion at 181 Bridge Street.

This week, the New Hope Borough Council voted unanimously to grant a demolition permit for the Mansion, which has overlooked Bridge Street since the early 1800s.

The request for demolition came from renowned architect J. Robert Hillier who plans to raze the existing structure and to reconstruct the mansion as part of the redevelopment of the property.

The council made its decision after a third, independent engineering study recommended that the structure be razed, but said that some parts of the building could be saved through a selective demolition process.

“I hate to see anything come down in New Hope especially something that is history,” said Councilwoman Laurie McHugh. “I have to say we asked a lot of you and you have provided,” she said of Hillier. “You’ve done reports we asked you to do. You’ve brought in experts. I just see a decaying property and something needs to be done with it. Letting it sit for much longer does no good for anybody.”

Hillier, who has owned Cintra since 2013, told council that he intends “to completely and accurately rebuild the original Cintra with all the original lattice work and materials.

“We’re going to save what we can save. And hopefully the original walls can be saved. It’s $100,000 more to do the selective demolition. We’re willing to do that,” he said. “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 lattice work, 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.”

Last April, when he originally proposed plans for the property, which is located across the street from the New Hope-Solebury School District, 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 council last spring 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.

At the April meeting, council asked for a third independent engineering study, which Hillier agreed to fund. The council retained WJM Engineering in Doylestown to assess the building. The final report was delivered to council in December.

Cintra was built about 1816 by William Maris who 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.