Duke Farms’ application to demolish the former home of Doris Duke on the 2,700-acre estate off Route 206 in Hillsborough will be continued three more weeks.
After more than three and one-half hours of testimony from objectors, the township Historic Preservation Commission decided to carry the meeting and begin anew with the start of the public comments. With at least a dozen people standing in line to testify or comment, the board contemplated limiting people to three or five minutes to speak, but ultimately adjourned to Thursday, Oct. 15, at 7:30 p.m.
The commission discussed limiting public comment at that meeting to personal limits of three or five minutes, or a total of 75 minutes for as many speakers as that would allow. That decision will come at the start of the Oct. 15 meeting. Then would come summations by Duke Farms and objectors led by township resident David Brook, followed by deliberation by the commission and a vote.
Duke Farms is seeking permission to demolish the now dilapidated 65,000-square-foot main residence – whose core farmhouse was bought by James Buchannan Duke in 1893 and renovated and expanded several times over decades — and focus its resources on renovating the Coach Barn elsewhere on the property for conferences and meetings.
About 60 objectors, most of whom wore red DORIS stickers for Demolition Of Residence Is Senseless, sat on one side of the room and about two dozen blue-shirted Duke Farms employees sat on the other.
Mr. Brook presented architectural historian Mary Delaney Krugman, former Doris Duke personal aide Elizabeth McConville and real estate appraiser Russell Sterling of Somerville as witnesses.
