Historic Preserv Ation

1 1 1 1 Historic Preservation Historic 01 Introduction Historic preservation is the practice of conserving the past in its built form. It can be an effective tool for placemaking, allowing communities to promote a shared history. More than just the protection of old buildings, preservation can be used to restore building forms and typologies that have fallen out of favor. When pursued correctly, it can be used by communities to advance other priorities including quality of life, land use, and mobility. South Orange is blessed with an abundance of historic structures. The community’s building stock is the legacy of several centuries of South Orange residents. That legacy is a living reminder that residents are part of something bigger than themselves: a community that dates back to the Colonial Era and has withstood the test of time. It’s essential to preserve that legacy. The Village boasts a body of architecture that is almost unparalleled in its diversity. Streetscapes contain buildings constructed in a multitude of styles, ranging from Gothic and Italianate to Stick and Shingle to Tudor and Art Deco. North Ridgewood Road Criteria for Historic Significance These sites also represent a broad variety of A historic resource must have historic historic forms and uses. South Orange is home significance in order to be protected. The to elegant mansions and modest cottages standard for historic significance was set alike and has historic sites that once and still in the National Preservation Act of 1966. serve businesses, industry, and institutions. Broadly speaking, the act set four criteria. The community’s heritage influences its form To merit protection, a historic site, object, or even today. The Village has neighborhoods district, must satisfy one of these criteria: comprised of closely built, intimate homes (a) The property must be associated and those full of leafy, picturesque estates. It with events that have made a also has a dense and active commercial core significant contribution to the broad that was built and designed to be transit- patterns of our history. oriented and pedestrian-friendly. This form is a (b) The property must be associated product of the nineteenth and early twentieth with the lives of persons significant in centuries, a time of human-scale development our past. that encouraged interaction and made one (c) The property must embody feel they were part of a community. the distinctive characteristics That form sets South Orange apart from other of a type, period, or method of places, which is why people have moved to the construction, represent the work Village for generations. Asked to describe their of a master, possess high artistic community, residents frequently mentioned values, or represent a significant how ‘historic’ it was. To care for that heritage, and distinguishable entity whose the Village prepared this Historic Preservation components may lack individual Element. distinction. (d) The property must show, or Statutory Requirements may be likely to yield, information Preservation Historic The MLUL includes specific language on the important to history or prehistory. scope of a master plan’s preservation element. According to 40:55D-28(10), the preservation The historic resources discussed here will use element serves three main functions: these criteria. • First, it should indicate the location and significance of historic sites and Historic Resources districts. Much of the building stock in South Orange • Second, it may detail the standards used to define and assess the was built prior to World War Two. For this historic significance of the places in a reason, the Village is relatively walkable community. and has a human-scaled, relatively dense • Third, it can evaluate the impact that character that recalls the neighborhoods other elements of the master plan may and town centers of the nineteenth century. have on preservation. The building stock is neatly oraganized into distinctive residential neighborhoods and The law also gives the preservation element an Central Business District. explicit function in the designation of sites and districts within a municipality. Under 40:55D- 65.1, all historic sites and districts designated Colonial/Revolutionary in a zoning ordinance must be identified in The oldest structure in South Orange is the the preservation element of a municipality’s Old Stone House. The structure, believed to master plan. That said, a governing body like have been built close to 1680, makes South the Board of Trustees can designate a historic Orange the rare community to have an site or district not identified in the preservation extant seventeenth century structure. The element if it approves a zoning ordinance in a site, altered and enlarged by 19th-century majority vote. additions, is located on municipal property, These provisions make clear that the main behind the police station on South Orange role of a preservation element is to identify Avenue. Vacant for decades, the structure potential sites and districts for designation in sits in a state of disrepair, though monitored the future. by municipal workers. Two structures in South Orange date to the Revolutionary Era. The vernacular home at 497 South Orange Avenue is believed to have been built around 1770. Overlooking Floods Hill, the Squier House on North Ridgewood Road dates to 1774. The home, which was built well before its neighbors, is set at an unusually large distance from the right-of-way. This is common for South Orange structures built on large agricultural tracts before land nearby was subdivided into residential neighborhoods. Nineteenth-Century Residential Old Stone House, c. 1680 Isolated Vernacular Houses There are several vernacular residences that predate the modern-day neighborhoods in which they’re located. Of these, the most notable is the Bishop Baldwin House, located in the Montrose Park Historic District. Lesser-known sites include vernacular residences in Lower Wyoming (30 Hart Drive South and 520 Wyoming Avenue) and South Mountain (360 West End Road). There are also two vernacular houses along Irvington Avenue (204 and 407 Irvington Avenue, respectively). 497 South Orange Avenue, c. 1770 Isolated Vernacular Structures 167 North Ridgewood Road (Squier House) 311 Centre Street (Bishop Baldwin House) 330 Cumberland Drive 30 Hart Drive South 204 Irvington Avenue 407 Irvington Avenue 497 South Orange Avenue 360 West End Road 520 Wyoming Avenue Academy Heights The earliest residential development outside of downtown came in Academy Heights. Here, Italianate-Influenced Cottages, Academy Heights modest wood-frame cottages were built as early as the late 1830s and early 1840s. Larger, more elegant homes were built after the Civil War, including those developed by Luther Milligan in 1871. Milligan’s development, on Milligan Place and Second Street can still be seen today. The cottages were constructed close to the lot line on small plots no more than 30 to 50 feet wide. The wood frame homes, follow simple patterns, though some have elements of Italianate and Stick residential styles. Like similar cottages built in communities throughout the country, the plans were likely taken Preservation Historic from pattern books, as was done at the time in towns across America. Of the cottages in Academy Heights, the most distinguished are located on Second Street between Valley and Prospect Streets. Gothic Revival House, Prospect Street More opulent homes occupy larger lots on, among other streets, Third Street, Prospect Street, and Milligan Place. These residences were in Second Empire, Italianate, and Stick styles, and some of them are used today for institutional purposes. These include housing for persons with special needs and such fraternal organizations as the Elks Club. The stretch of Prospect Street after Third Street has some of the most impressive Victorian architecture in South Orange outside Montrose Park. The houses in this stretch include the Stick villa at 152 Prospect and the compact Gothic home at 206 Prospect. The southern part of Academy Heights was developed later than the neighborhood’s northern section. The historically significant homes there include the cottages on Roland Avenue as well as several of the homes on Prospect Street. This latter grouping includes those located at 225, 237, and 319 Prospect Street.The historic houses in Academy Heights constitute the core of the Prospect Street Historic District. Seton Village from Cottage Place to Ward Place This section of Seton Village was built up between 1870 and 1900 with the laying of streets—Cottage Place, Riggs Place, and Fairview Avenue, that connected South Orange and Irvington Avenues. Home on Cottage Place These blocks have some of the narrowest lots in South Orange, with some Riggs Place lots as narrow as 25 feet. That said, the depths of these lots tend to be large, ranging from 150 to 175 feet. Wood-frame cottages were built on Cottage Place in the early 1870s and presumably giving the street its name. A handful of well-preserved cottages remain on the street today. Riggs Place, which was developed later, is lined with Queen Anne and Colonial homes, with former being the more notable. Fairview Avenue has some modest Queen Anne and many modest Colonial Revival homes. The portion of Seton Village south of the university was largely built in the early twentieth century but does not have any homes that are exemplary versions of a style. Streetscape, South Ridgewood Road South Mountain - South Ridgewood Road South Ridgewood Road has several distinctive houses from the early Victorian era. Some have been altered while the integrity of others appears intact. These include a pair of Gothic-influenced residences located at 24 and 184 Ridgewood respectively. Potentially, there are also several structures on Walton Avenue that may be worthy of future investigation. Stick houses, both cottages and larger houses, are located on nearby Church and Third Streets. Unfortunately, the structures on these streets have all been significantly altered.

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