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A
conflict is brewing over what is to become of one of Somerset County's most
historic properties -- a future arts center or an eyesore that should be
demolished.
The Bernards Township property has been the subject of heated meetings, questionable bidding and dire warnings.
"We shouldn't air our linen in public," fretted township historian June Kennedy.
Even as elements of a compromise took shape late last month, the new approach threatened to scuttle a grant.
No one disputes -- because the township paid for a study documenting it -- that the Rev. Samuel Kennedy owned an 18th-century farmstead on King George Road.
A Presbyterian minister transplanted from Edinburgh, Scotland, Kennedy founded the first local school in 1750. His Basking Ridge Classical School became another local landmark, the Brick Academy. After his death, Kennedy's home passed to other notable residents, including Revolutionary War Col. Ephraim Martin, who as a state legislator introduced the Bill of Rights.
In October 1999, former Mayor Diana Boquist said, the township wanted to head off the construction of several dozen homes, already approved on the 36 acres along King George Road. So it bought the farm for $3.5 million from Sterling Properties, then segmented off more than 30 acres for playgrounds and ballfields.
"We bought that land for a single purpose," Boquist said. "It was open space, period."
But
local officials "suspected" the house and collection of farm
buildings along the banks of the Passaic River were significant, said
architect Michael Calafati. They hired his Trenton firm, Historic Building
Architects, to research the property and submit the findings to the National
Register of Historic Places.
Calafati's voice warmed as he described what he found: buildings, some in disrepair and some altered over the decades but still making up a farm complex dating to the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries.
"One of the reasons this was easily listed on the National Register is that you have a full complement of buildings," including an English barn, wagon house, piggery, icehouse and wellhead in addition to the house, he said.
Unsure what to do, the township appointed a task force to come up with recommendations. Local officials did say they "didn't want a farm museum," said John Campbell, a task force member. So the group looked at community needs and the type of grants available and zeroed in on a "gathering space" for the arts.
That idea seemed to work. Over the past several years, Bernards has received $289,000 in grants from Somerset County for preservation work, particularly on the barn, whose construction is unusual for the area.
But word began to circulate of the estimated $2.2 million cost to preserve and restore all the buildings. Alarmed senior citizens questioned the possible impact on taxes.
Meanwhile, Mayor M. Ali Chaudry is promoting the idea of building a different arts center with the school district for use by students and the general community, saying that would "minimize the cost to taxpayers."
Anxious to have the task force put its money where its mouth was, the township committee suggested it organize a nonprofit group to oversee whatever the farm's future use would be.
"They've done everything we asked," reorganizing as Friends of the Farmstead, said Committeeman John Malay.
But resident Douglas Wicks complained the township funded the group before it was even incorporated. When bids came back too high on initial work, the township simply authorized $100,000 to supplement the county grants, he said.
"We gave a lease to a group that didn't exist yet," Chaudry agreed, miffed that the Friends continued with the arts center idea.
After a rainy tour of the complex on July 27, the mayor and residents opposed to the project found more fault with work at the site.
Under Calafati's direction, contractors Schtiller & Plevy of Newark have provided braces for the sagging wagon house and piggery, while removing the clapboard and roofing material from the oldest section of the barn, which dates to the 18th century.
With a tarp covering the roof frame, the skeleton of that part of the building stands open, while work on a 19th-century addition awaits further funding.
Chaudry said he has been told that keeping up the barn and the other buildings poses safety problems and costs "three or four times as much than to take down the building and replicate them."
"I think it's a terrible liability, and I would just like to level it," said resident Cyril Devery.
"It's a construction site," Calafati said. "They need to take precautions, not because of the peculiarity of it being historic but because it's like any other construction site."
At the municipal building three contentious hours later, Committeewoman Carolyn Kelly pointed out that "arts center" is a loose term.
"The buildings are frail. They are delicate, and they could not house classrooms" or large amphitheaters, she said. An arts center could be crafts workshops, a gallery or small performance space, like Montgomery's 1860 House, she said.
If that's the case, Campbell told the township committee, the Friends are ready to "go ahead and do what you asked" and develop a "flexible" business plan to attract more money.
Township officials said they would endorse a "viable" future plan from the Friends.
Meanwhile, Committeeman Thomas Moschello proposed curbing present work by dismantling and storing the 18th century part of the barn.
"Any further decision needs to take place within the framework of this proposal," Chaudry announced, although the committee did not vote on it.
But with the county's cultural and heritage commission scheduled to consider a $110,040 grant for the project this week, that change came as news to county officials.
"Our money wouldn't be used for that," said Thomas D'Amico, the county's historic planner. "The English barn is probably the most significant building on the site."
Joe Tyrrell covers Hunterdon and Somerset counties. He can be reached at jtyrrell@starledger.com or (908) 782-8326.