Collaboration saves historic Squier Farmhouse in South Orange

Photo by Amanda Valentovic
The Squier Farmhouse in South Orange

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The journey to save the Squier Farmhouse ended in victory at the South Orange Planning Board meeting on March 25, when the board voted 5-0 to allow the owner of the historic home on Ridgewood Road to split the property into three lots, saving the original 1774 house located across the street from Floods Hill. The result came after neighbors and the owner, Isaac Lefkowitz, met several times and worked together to come up with a compromise.

Board Chairperson Harold Colton-Max and member John Busch-Vogel were absent from the meeting.

The farmhouse, which was built in 1774 and was the childhood home of Nathan Squier, the person who gave South Orange its name, was purchased in late 2020. Not yet a locally designated historical site, the site was scheduled to be considered for the registry in the village’s new master plan; this was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting state of emergency. Several petitions to save the house circulated the village and garnered hundreds of signatures.

Lefkowitz’s original application to the Planning Board was to split the lot into two pieces, presumably to demolish the house and build two new homes. Bill McIntosh, an architect who lives on Ridgewood Road just a few blocks away from the Squier house, collaborated on a plan with the owner that splits the lot into three pieces, allowing the original house to remain, and for new construction on the other two.

“You could still take those two houses, move them slightly and still preserve the original 1774 Squier property,” McIntosh, who has a background in historical architecture, said at a Feb. 22 South Orange Board of Trustees meeting. “Instead of cars being able to turn headfirst into the garage, they would back into the garage, which is now located in the back. The Squier house would have its own driveway. This fits well on the site and looks comfortable, and saves the significant part of the house.”

That proposal was ultimately approved by the Planning Board; additions to the house will have to be removed to make room for the three lots.

“The portion of the home that we are able to preserve with this new plan is that core portion of the house that really, truly represents the historic portion,” Nicole Magdziak, an attorney for Lefkowitz, said at the March 25 Planning Board meeting. “There are some later additions on the house that will need to be removed in order to accomplish this subdivision, but what you see from the street and that core portion of the house that truly is considered to be historic will be able to be preserved.”

McIntosh spoke at the March 25 meeting during the public comment portion, applauding the town’s and owner’s planning and engineering teams on working together to find a solution. The work McIntosh did on the plan was pro bono.

“I think the variance to preserve the house is warranted,” McIntosh said. “I think the house has a very good chance, in terms of its adaptability, to be a marketable four-bedroom and two-and-a-half-bathroom house. Speaking on behalf of myself as a resident of the street who looks out over the property, it would be very much in the community interest to accept these variances for the purpose of saving the house.”

The South Orange Historical and Preservation Society also supported the Planning Board granting the variance to Lefkowitz, as President Bryn Douds said at the meeting.

“Normally we would argue against exceptions to the zoning rules, but this is a unique situation,” Douds said. “We’re all in favor of saving the historic portions of the house, and we’re very thankful to Isaac Lefkowitz for working with the community, and a thousand thanks to Bill McIntosh for all the work he has done on this.”

According to Douds, removing the later additions to the house will be a good thing.

“The house has suffered from some ill-conceived 20th-century additions and will actually benefit from those being removed,” he said.

All five Planning Board members who voted on the variance were enthusiastic about the collaboration between the owner and the neighborhood, as well as the solution that resulted.

“If not for the historic house, I don’t think anybody would really be entertaining the third lot here,” Planning Board Vice Chairperson Michael Lerman said. “It is specifically and directly because of the historic house that we’re here today. When you talk about examples where the benefits outweigh the detriments, here you go. I’ve seen a lot of applications, and this one is a feel-good story, because people came together — the owner, the neighbors, the professionals — in order to save this. I thank everybody involved in making this happen, and there were a lot of people.”