Demolition of the former home of tobacco heiress Doris Duke began Saturday and then was stopped by a court order issued after midnight.
David Brook, attorney for the group trying to stop the demolition, said demolition damage was done to the façade of the house, as well as on the newer “Hollywood wing” of the house.
Duke Farms had its right to demolish the former home of Doris Duke on Friday when Superior Court Judge Yolanda Ciccone rejected the opposition group’s request for a township commission to rehear the application that allows the demolition of what the opponents claim is a historic structure within the 2,500-acre estate in northern Hillsborough.
Judge Ciccone ruled the Hillsborough Preservation Commission “had adequate basis in fact and opinion to approve the demolition, and acted in conformity with the appropriate law” when approving Duke Farms’ application.
“It would be inappropriate for the court to substitute its own judgment of the evidence for the judgment of local citizens with an intimate knowledge of the community’s interest in preserving historic sites,” she wrote.
Mr. Brook said he heard Saturday that destruction work had begun at the house, and called State Police in Trenton to get connected to the emergency appellate judge on duty. Judge Allison Accurso issued the order to stop work temporarily, pending arguments before a three-judge appeals panel to continue it further.
Mr. Brook said he delivered the stop order to Michael Catania, executive director of Duke Farms, on Sunday at the Duke Farms property.
Mr. Brook said he has until tomorrow, Monday, to file papers asking for a longer stay of demolition and has until Friday, March 11, to file his arguments in the matter.
DORIS’ efforts are to prevent the removal of a historic structure, he said. If it is removed before all legal appeals are exhausted, “then it is a complete miscarriage of justice,” he said Sunday.
Judge Ciccone heard final oral arguments Feb. 26 from a citizens’ group trying to stop Duke Farms Foundation from razing the 65,000-square-foot building. Duke Farms applied in June for a demolition permit, and, after three hearings before the Historic Preservation Commission, ruled, 6-1, in October to allow the process to apply for the permit to proceed.
Duke Farms had been granted the permit, but was holding off the final demolition until the court case is decided. It has contracted with a company that has been “salvaging” items like mantels, fixtures and woodworking and selling them on the Internet.
Mr. Brook, representing the group DORIS, an acronym for Demolition Of Residence Is Senseless, said he asked Judge Ciccone’s office within minutes after the release of the decision after 4 p.m. Friday for a 30-day stay in order to go to appellate court. No one was there to issue the order, he said he was told.
Mr. Brook, the attorney for the objectors, said he reached out to Kenneth LaRosa, attorney for Duke Farms, to ask if work would proceed over the weekend. He said he was only sent the Duke Farms press release saying it was “gratified” by Judge Ciccone’s decision and that Duke Farms would now “move forward” to demolish the house and convert that area of the estate consistent with what it calls its “mission.”
Judge Ciccone ruled that DORIS failed to show the commission acted in an “arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable” manner, and that there was “ample evidence” of positive and negative criteria supporting the commission in allowing the demolition.
Judge Ciccone ruled that testimony from historic architecture expert Emily Cooperman and Executive Director Catania met the ordinance’s seven criteria to allow a demolition in a historic area.
She rejected claims of conflict of interest against board members, including that one was sleeping.
She dismissed the motion that the Oct. 29 meeting, when the memorializing resolution was passed, was illegal because it didn’t have a period for public comment. All that meeting was called to do was memorialize the resolution, she said.
She also rejected the argument the historic commission hearing process was “preordained” and “a sham proceeding” that was “driven by politics and money.”
The judge rejected a central request by DORIS to insert into the record a National Park Service official’s opinion that the house has historical significance.
If the Historic Preservation Commission had heard the testimony of William Bolger, National Landmarks Program Manager of the National Park Service, it might have come to a different conclusion, argued David Brook, the attorney for DORIS.
Duke Farms’ attorney Jeffrey T. LaRosa told the judge Feb. 26 that the house was not the Duke Mansion that owner James Buchannan Duke (Doris Duke’s father) had envisioned (a larger home was started elsewhere on the property, but was abandoned and its foundation is now a place to visit on the estate).
Mr. Duke had bought a Civil War-era farmhouse in 1893 and expanded and renovated it several times over the decades. Duke Farms’ historical expert Emily Cooperman testified that the overlapping and even contradictory work made the house an architectural “pastiche” with little significance.
