BERNARDS -- Virginia Woolf
wrote in "A Room of One's Own" that artists,
especially female artists, need their own spaces to foster
creativity.
The same might be said of a community, said Ann
Parsekian, a founding trustee of the Friends of the
Kennedy-Martin-Stelle Farmstead, a nonprofit group that
wants to create a home for the fine and cultural arts at
the Kennedy Farmstead property at 450 King George Road.
"It's a quality of life issue," Parsekian
said. "We need to provide more opportunities for
adults and young people to enjoy beauty and express
themselves. The local cultural and fine arts communities
now have no central gathering place."
But the Friends have recently made a couple of giant
strides toward that goal.
The first is preservation of the farm's buildings.
Though it still has to be painted, the addition of a new
roof and siding completes the preservation of the English
barn, the property's main structure, said Friends
President John Campbell.
A $440,000 state Historic Trust grant -- along with a
$70,000 contribution from the township -- will help fund
the preservation of the farm's two other major buildings,
a farmhouse and a wagon house, as well as a concrete floor
in the barn, Campbell said.
"The English barn is starting to look very
impressive," Parsekian said. "It hasn't been
easy -- there have been a lot of hoops and hurdles -- but
it's amazing what's been accomplished. You can see it now,
and that's when it starts getting exciting."
The second stride is a lease between the township and
the Friends. The lease will allow the Friends to start
moving from Phase I, preservation of the buildings, to
Phase II, their adaptive reuse.
Though plans are still being formulated, the group is
looking to use the barn for small-scale performances, the
farmhouse for a gallery and studios and the wagon house
for studios for the "rougher" fine arts, such as
sculpture or ceramics, Campbell said.
The 4-acre property is at the northeast corner of a
36-acre tract running along the Passaic River that was
acquired by Bernards Township in 1999.
The property was operated continuously as a farm from
about 1740 until its acquisition by the township. Sections
of the farmhouse date to the 1700s, as does the
30-by-82-foot barn, a rare example of the English
architectural barn style.
The site and its buildings are listed on the state and
national Registers of Historic Places.
Jaye Barre, a cultural adviser to the Friends, said a
small theater is desperately needed in the community for
events such as staged readings, small choral groups,
one-act plays -- anything that doesn't require a large
audience.
She said a small theater at the high school -- the
Ridge High School Little Theater -- was turned into a
video studio several years ago, displacing a local
community theater group, the Trilogy Repertory Company,
from its home for 16 years.
The theater planned for the barn will allow the group
to stage a full yearly season of five plays as it did in
the past instead of the two it now presents -- a
children's play in local libraries and an outdoor summer
production.
In addition, the gallery space will allow local artists
to stage art exhibits, which they now have no place to do,
as well as to offer art classes, she said.
Barre, president of the Trilogy Repertory Company, is
also adviser to two high school drama groups and artistic
director of the Heritage Trail Association. She dreams
that one day a full-scale theater will be built on the
property.
She would also like to see living-history exhibits at
the site, which was the home of several notable historical
figures, including Nathaniel Rolfe, who established it
about 1740, and the Rev. Samuel Kennedy, who ran a
"classical school" there about 1762.
"It would be fun to have an actor playing the Rev.
Kennedy," she said. "The children could pretend
to sign up to go to school there. The possibilities for
historical and cultural activities and general meeting
space are endless."
Plans call for making the farmstead part of a larger
park, which the Township Committee recently officially
named Farmstead Park.
"The two should be mutually supporting," said
Campbell, who serves as the Friends' liaison to the
township Recreation Committee, which is developing plans
for the park.
He said features under consideration include walking
and bicycle paths, a canoe launching site, a picnic area,
a skating area and possibly camp sites. A multipurpose
playing field has already been constructed.
Future plans for the Farmstead buildings will depend on
how much money the Friends can raise and the needs of the
arts community, Campbell said. Completion of the project
could take as little as two to three years or considerably
longer, he said.
Mayor Carolyn Kelly, in commending the Friends in her
January inaugural address, noted that a previous Township
Committee had been prepared to spend $100,000 to tear down
the historical structures and cart the debris away.
Instead, the Farmstead has received $889,000 in grants
and $70,000 from the town over the last two years for the
buildings' preservation, Campbell said.
"We've come farther than anyone thought we
could," Campbell said. "The people who have
worked hard on this -- and there have been many -- have a
reason to feel proud."
Stefanie Matteson can be reached at (908) 707-3136 or smatteson@c-n.com.
from the Courier News website www.c-n.com
