Lost Sites - Preservation Delaware

Lost Sites

The Cranston-Klair House in Stanton has been lost. Located at 2035 Limestone Road, the house retained a high degree of its historical integrity. As the former home of prominent farmers and residents of the Marshallton-Stanton area of New Castle County, the house exemplified the social and historical heritage of the local agricultural community. Joseph Cranston, a descendant of Governor John Cranston of the Colony of Rhode Island for whom the City of Cranston, Rhode Island is named, built the house some time before 1845. The Cranstons were prominent farmers and business people in nineteenth-century Mill Creek Hundred. The house remained in the Cranston Family until 1874, when Joseph Cranston's heirs sold the property to Egbert Klair, the husband of one of the Cranston heirs. The Klair Family retained the property containing the house until the 1950s. During the 1980s, a new owner added a large, modern showroom addition to the house and used it for a pool supply company. Preservation Delaware worked diligently but unsuccessfully advocating on behalf of the house.

The Green House was an eighteenth-century dwelling located on the north side of Main Street in Middletown, on the three-acre parcel that once contained the Philip Reading Tannery. Unfortunately missed by earlier survey efforts, the core of the Green House consisted of a two-story, hall-parlor plan, timber frame dwelling constructed with heavy hewn timbers and brick nogging. Later additions, including a late nineteenth-century rear kitchen ell and a major addition to the northwest corner in the 1960s, as well as multiple periods of interior renovations, masked the original finish and configuration. It appears that the building was originally constructed for use with the tannery. In the early nineteenth century it served as a tenement and later was reoriented to face Main Street as a farm dwelling. The Green House was demolished in December 2000 to make way for construction of a new health clinic. Unfortunately, the significance of the building remained unknown until after the demolition permit had been issued. Once residents of Middletown recognized the importance of the building, the new owners cooperated with efforts by the University of Delaware Center for Historic Architecture & Design (CHAD) to document the construction of the building. As the team from CHAD removed layers of 20th-century renovations, they revealed several earlier periods of finish. Stripping away the layers also revealed the fact that insects and dry rot seriously damaged the major timbers of the frame. Prior to the demolition, samples of lath, mortar, wallpaper, nogging, construction joints, and various timbers were salvaged to be used in a future exhibit in the new architectural history clinic at CHAD.

The Bayard House, Christiana was a two-story frame dwelling that stood as the last surviving building from an African-American neighborhood in the town of Christiana. The first section was likely constructed circa 1840 and included a full cellar, a gable-end chimney, and a built-in cupboard in the first floor room. A winder stair linked the first floor to the second floor and attic. The second period of construction, perhaps circa 1860, added a two-story wing to the gable end of the dwelling, with its own front door and stair to the second floor. The earlier fireplace stack had been removed and two new stove-pipe chimneys were built in the two gable ends. One of the most interesting features of the building was the use of transitional framing techniques in both building periods-a combination of traditional braced timber frame with the more modern balloon framing. It appears that the house functioned as a two-family dwelling for some time. Vacated at least 20 years ago, the dwelling was recently condemned as unsafe. Roof failure and water damage combined to destroy much of the building, which was completely demolished in early March 2001.

Late October witnessed the demolition of Eagle Mills (Wiltex Building) in Brandywine Village, Wilmington. The Department of Labor selected the property between Vandever Avenue and 22nd Street, along Market Street, as the site for a federal Job Corps Center. Although Eagle Mills had mid-twentieth century cement block additions on its sides, a relatively intact, nineteenth-century, three-story, brick industrial building stood at its core. It was, in fact, one of the last substantial industrial buildings to survive in what was once a thriving industrial village. Although only a portion of the property actually fell within the National Register district, the building contributed a strong presence in the neighborhood. Despite pleas from the preservation community, the U.S. Department of Labor decided that "it was not possible to retain/reuse the existing building, the primary reason being that the existing facility would not conform to the operational and programmatic needs of the Job Corps program, and any retention of the three-story brick 'spine' would not be appropriate for an educational building."

The McIntire House, a typical example of housing for farmers in southern New Castle County during the nineteenth century, was located on Pulaski Highway near Glasgow. The two-story house was composed of three different building periods, beginning with a side-passage plan house built in the late 1840s by Andrew McIntire. McIntire purchased a 135-acre lot in 1849, and likely built his new house on the site of an older log dwelling. McIntire’s son, Samuel, inherited the property and built an addition on the house circa 1870, expanding the dwelling into a central-hall plan. Samuel MacIntire died in 1883, and the property was passed down within his family until 1944. Subsequent owners constructed a large addition with two-story porches at the rear of the house. Although the farmland was kept intact until the late 1990s, the farmhouse was unoccupied and became overgrown and deteriorated. In 1998, the land was divided and an 85-acre lot with the house was sold for development. The house was demolished during the winter of 2001 to make way for new construction. (Contributed by Jennifer Cathey, University of Delaware Center for Historic Architecture and Design)

On June 22, a fire destroyed the Starl House, an 1822 brick dwelling located on the corner of Routes 13 and 72. The house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 for its significance as a fine example of late Federal architecture. A deed restriction on the property required that the owner make every effort to preserve and maintain the building. The house had been vacant for the past thirty years, though the current property owners indicated that it had been their intent to restore and adaptively reuse the building as an office. The State Fire Marshal’s Office has deemed the fire suspicious and is currently investigating. The fate of the Starl House provides an example of why preservation easements, held by an independent third-party "watchdog," are more protective than mere deed restrictions, which ostensibly protected this property.

Constructed in 1924, Sussex County School Number 7 was significant as an example of the schoolhouses built throughout the state in the 1920s by businessman and philanthropist Pierre S. du Pont. Du Pont constructed schools for both white and African-American students in response to studies that showed the extremely poor condition of schools in the state, especially in rural areas. Sussex County School Number 7 survived with few exterior alterations, making it an excellent example of the progressive designs advocated by du Pont and other school reformers. Documentary evidence indicates that a school was located on or near this site as early as 1850. Surrounded by agricultural land only recently developed for residential use, the front gable Colonial-Revival style schoolhouse was comprised of a 49’ by 25’ main block with a small service ell. Decorative architectural features included a boxed cornice finished with fascia board and cornice returns. The one room school had a 40-student capacity, and in the 1920s it housed as many as 32 students. Although is unclear exactly when it ceased to function as a school, the building was used as a tavern during the 1970s, and has been vacant for the past twenty years. It was demolished for a golf course development. (Contributed by Jennifer Cathey, University of Delaware Center for Historic Architecture and Design)

Located along the scenic Brandywine Creek in Wilmington, Buildings 50 and 50A, Bancroft & Sons Cotton Mills, three and five story, respectively, timber framed and brick structures were lost to demolition due to "deteriorated conditions" and to make way for new development. They were both built in 1892 and contributing resources to the National Register of Historic Places listing for the Bancroft Mills district. As part of what remains of the Bancroft Mills complex, these buildings contributed to the distinct characteristics of the turn-of-the-century industry which is embodied in the Brandywine Valley.