Anthony Nardone, a developer from Livingston, bought the home at 62 Pierson Road in Maplewood from his longtime friend, Tom Waeshle, in hopes of making a lucrative investment.
It is a historic home, built around the turn of the last century, but it has no landmark designation. It seemed to Nardone the path to demolishing it, and building two new homes there, would have little resistance. But that has not been the case.
The property is home to the largest-known London plane tree in New Jersey — the Department of Environmental Protection deemed it so — and the neighbors, including Ellen Seidman, have rallied to save it, which would require Nardone to alter his plans.
Seidman’s first hope came from an unlikely source — the township’s Historic Preservation Commission. Although the home is not currently landmarked, a new ordinance allows the HPC to review homes threatened with demolition, as long as they have appeared in a township-commissioned architectural survey. The home at 62 Pierson Road appeared in a survey about the Golf Island neighborhood commissioned in 2018.
However, the HPC only had 45 days since its December meeting to research the home and voted last week not to pursue landmark designation — not because it isn’t worthy, but because the commission couldn’t find enough evidence to make a case for it.
It was a race against time and the research was complicated by the age of the home, built before building permits were first recorded in Maplewood in 1915.
The HPC’s research on the home points out a resemblance to kit homes from Sears Roebuck and Co.’s and Radford’s Artistic Homes, but concluded neither were an exact match. The criteria for “determining a match is very strict,” according to Daniel Wright, the HPC chair.
Tracing the home to a specific company’s kit homes wouldn’t have made it “inherently designatable,” but it would have allowed the HPC to put forth a stronger case for landmarking. “There would have been information to consider,” Wright said.
Eric Hammarberg, an architect and HPC member, said that one way to determine a kit home is to examine the lumber, which is often stamped with a number. “Not having interior access we’re not able to do that,” Hammarberg said.
Wright said after the Jan. 12 meeting that the votes were only based on the eligibility of the home for landmark designation — the conservation of the London plane tree couldn’t be a factor in their decision.
“The language of the ordinance is very focused on the primary structure that’s on the property so the demolition ordinance doesn’t allow us to consider the tree,” he said.
The home is part of Golf Island, which gets its name from being surrounded on three sides by the Maplewood Country Club golf course. On the western border runs the train tracks of the Morris & Essex line, forming a boundary on all sides. The neighborhood dates back to the late 18th century with a wave of development happening in 1908-1910. That is likely the age of the home, according to the HPC’s research.
Seidman didn’t speak at the HPC meeting, but she said afterward that she still has hope that the tree will be saved. Maplewood’s tree ordinance requires the removal of a tree 12 inches in diameter to apply for a permit before it comes before the Planning Board. The ordinance also forbids the removal of trees considered “historic or rare.”
Seidman said although her neighborhood is not a historic district, that she hopes it could become one someday. “It will help prevent beautiful old homes from being torn down,” she said.
Another hope for Seidman lies in whether Nardone will seek a variance at the property. If they do seek one, the township could place certain conditions on the proposal, including the preservation of the tree.
“We don’t know the answer at the time,” said Nardone’s lawyer, Matthew Posada, at the November Planning Board meeting, when the homeowner applied for a subdivision. “We don’t have construction plans or architectural plans drawn.”
“Understand that when you come back for that variance, you’re not going to have an easy time,” said Michael Edelson, Planning Board lawyer. “Because if it’s a hardship, it’s a self-created hardship.”
The home’s previous owner, Tom Waeschle, who attended the meeting as a show of support to Nardone, said he never knew the tree on the property had any significance.
“We know nothing about the tree — my mother lived there for 50 years,” Waeschle said. “It was never an issue.”
The HPC could still seek to form a historic district at Golf Island. An architectural survey in 2018 listed five homes that are eligible to be landmarked. However, the commission is currently working on a historic district along Ridgewood Road. By the time that effort is complete, the home could already be demolished.
“That is a long process — based on how that goes, maybe we’ll look into other designations,” Wright said. “This is a neighborhood that many people in town appreciate.”
