The Institute for Advanced Study is seeking historic preservation plan approval and a bulk variance to expand an existing back porch.
By: Jennifer Potash
The Mercer Street house where renowned physicist Albert Einstein spent his last years may undergo some external and internal renovations.
Eric Maskin, the Albert O. Hirschman chair of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study, and his wife, Gayle Sawtelle, will purchase the Einstein house at 112 Mercer St. from the institute.
Ann Reichelderfer, an attorney representing the institute, said the institute has the right to repurchase the house should Mr. Maskin and Ms. Sawtelle seek to sell it.
The institute is seeking historic preservation plan approval and a bulk variance for the expansion of an existing back porch.
The Historic Preservation Review Committee endorsed the preservation plan Wednesday and had no comment on the bulk variance, which must be approved by the Princeton Borough Zoning Board of Adjustment.
Now vacant, the house needs much interior and exterior renovation.
The proposed renovations would expand the back porch and add some gingerbread detailing along the front of the house and an additional trellis to the back porch.
The plans were prepared by Cam, Lynch and Sandell Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. and the institute asked local architect Jeremiah Ford to review them.
The Einstein house is next door to the "movie house," the yellow home used in the film "I.Q.," said Borough Zoning Officer Frank Slimak.
The Einstein house was originally located near Stuart Hall on the Princeton Theological Seminary campus. It was moved to 112 Mercer St. in 1876, according to Suzanne Hand, in an article published in the 1998 "Princeton History," the journal of the Historical Society of Princeton.
The house underwent a number of changes, some before Einstein lived there and some after his death, Mr. Ford said.
The downstairs layout is peculiar because of alterations made to accommodate a huge dining table for banquets when Einstein resided in the house.
Furniture still in the house from the period when Einstein lived there will be preserved, he said.
Praising the applicants for tackling the needed renovations, committee Chairwoman Celia Tazelaar asked whether a bay window at the rear of the house would be replaced for a more historically correct type of window.
Actually, Mr. Ford replied, the bay window is historically significant, as Einstein had it installed in his study.
"He loved it because he could look out on his garden," Mr. Ford said.
The Historic Preservation Committee did not agree with the applicant’s plan for a third-floor dormer window that projected out from the room instead of sloping backward. The dormer would be visible from the street and sidewalks.
The institute, which sought the unusual dormer to create more room and bring in more light to a third-floor storage attic, agreed to redesign it.