By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
LAWRENCE — The fate of the historic William Gulick House, located on the corner of Route 206 and Province Line Road, may be determined when the property owner appears before the township’s Historic Preservation Advisory Committee later this month.
The Historic Preservation Advisory Committee was originally scheduled to meet Sept. 14 to consider property owner Care One Management LLC’s request to demolish the white, three-story farmhouse that sits in front of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. campus. But that meeting has been canceled and rescheduled for sometime in November.
The William Gulick House, which was built in 1855, is included on Lawrence Township’s list of historic properties. This means an application for demolition of the house would have to be submitted to the Historic Preservation Advisory Committee.
The Historic Preservation Advisory Committee can approve or deny a request for demolition, or it may call for a postponement of the demolition. If the committee postpones demolition, it must work with the applicant to consider alternatives.
But if the Historic Preservation Advisory Committee denies the demolition request, the owner’s next stop is the Planning Board. The Planning Board may also deny the demolition request, or it may postpone demolition for up to one year. If the board decides to postpone demolition, then it must find ways to preserve the house.
Preservation New Jersey placed the William Gulick House on its list of the 10 most endangered historic sites in 2007. And in 2005, the house was highlighted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation on its online magazine’s website.
The William Gulick House was built by a wealthy farmer in the Italianate style, which was considered very fashionable in the mid-19th century. The round-arched windows above the front door — on the second and third floors — combined with the decorative brackets under the roof, are key features of that style.
The house was later modified to reflect the Colonial Revival style, which was popular in the 1920s. It was not unusual for houses to be updated to reflect the then-current architectural style.
The William Gulick House has faced the prospect of demolition several times — most recently in 2013, when an application for a demolition permit was submitted to township officials. The applicant was advised to seek permission from the Historic Preservation Advisory Committee, but an application was never submitted to the committee.
In 2002, Lawrenceville Realty Co./Care One attempted to demolish the house without obtaining the required demolition permit from Lawrence Township. When township officials learned of the planned demolition, they obtained a temporary restraining order to prevent it in Mercer County state Superior Court.
The William Gulick House has been at the center of several controversial applications since the mid-1990s. It was purchased in 1995 by Lawrenceville Realty Co., which sought to subdivide the property into three lots. That plan was scrapped in favor of a proposal to redevelop the property for an assisted living facility for the elderly.
But the saga of the William Gulick House began in earnest in 1997, when a use variance application was submitted to the township Zoning Board of Adjustment to develop an 84-bed assisted living facility. The house would have been preserved and made the centerpiece of the assisted living facility.
The zoning board denied the use variance, which triggered a federal lawsuit that was ultimately denied in U.S. District Court. The zoning board approved a revised plan for an assisted living facility in 1999, but the plan did not go through.
A third use variance application was filed in 2005 by Lawrenceville Realty Co./Care One, which called for tearing down the house and building a 150-bed assisted living facility. A public hearing was never held, and the zoning board quietly voted to deny the application in 2011 because of inactivity by the applicant.
