BY ELAINE VAN DEVELDE
Staff Writer
ELAINE VAN DEVELDE Now covered with overgrowth and in disrepair, the historic Crawford House, on Tinton Avenue in Tinton Falls, is on its way to becoming a significant landmark.
TINTON FALLS — On the roadside of Tinton Avenue sits a bit of borough history which officials are now poised to learn more about.
Known as the Crawford House, it may soon become an official historical landmark in the Tinton Falls Village section.
Little is known about the modest, wood-shingled, two-story home, nestled on the bend of Tinton Avenue near Sycamore, only that it was home to the butcher business of the Crawford family for more than a century and could date back to the mid-1700s. Whatever other tidbits of the past lurk in the now borough-owned structure will soon be uncovered by an expert.
At the Oct. 7 Borough Council meeting, $16,000 was put in place from a county-funded reserve account to hire preservation architect Michael Calafati of Historic Buildings Architects Inc., Trenton, who will dig around and compile a report replete with the building’s history, the materials used to construct it, and the architectural eras which characterize those materials, deed and title searches on the property, and photographs to document it all.
Calafati will also include in his report a recommendation of construction priorities for optimum preservation. He also will provide cost estimates for those priorities. With the report in hand, officials will be in a position to apply for grants from state and county agencies such as the N.J. Historic Trust and Monmouth County Historical Commission to make the preservation goals a reality.
After that, the house’s future could be a bright one. "It’s a neat vernacular house which is considered a contributing structure [of historical value] within the Tinton Falls Historical Village," said Stacey Slowinski, borough historian. "The district itself is on the National Register of Historic Places. We do not know all that much about the house, but having this report compiled will set us on our way to keeping what we feel is an important piece of history in the borough for others to enjoy as an educational center or whatever public use it lends itself to."
The history of the historic district, Slowinski said, is steeped in the industrial era when houses were modest in size and structure and the saw mills and iron works were bustling in as far back as the late 1600s. Tinton Falls boasts its signature water falls which used to power the mills that ran the iron works and similar industry magnets in town.
"The waterfalls behind what is now the Grist Mill restaurant supported the area’s industry since the 17th century," Slowinski said. "The Crawford House was part of a farm where there was a butcher shop from, we think, about 1865 to the 1960s."
Though it was originally estimated to be built in the mid-1800s, Slowinski said there are signs that the home may have an original Dutch frame dating a century earlier, to the mid-1700s.
Tree beams laden with bark and old plaster walls insulated with mud, hay and horse hair stand as hallmarks of the structure’s age.
Other than that, "it’s just an ordinary three-bedroom house which has grown and changed over time and will prove to be, I think, a valuable borough asset."
The home has sat vacant on the tract of land which has been preserved as open space. The borough acquired the house and property some eight years ago from Stavola Corp., its owner at the time, in a land swap deal.
Stavola handed over the deed to the land and the home to the town in exchange for ownership of five acres of property that the borough had owned which abutted a Stavola asphalt plant.
"Both the borough and Stavola did well in the deal," Slowinski said. "We were able to preserve a piece of history and land, and Stavola was able to add to its business property."