The Past, Present

Most people know the old saying “It takes a village to raise a child” and in the case of historic preservation, a similar sentiment holds true when preserving places that matter. A very few people, with a similar passion, working together, can make preservation succeed. Consider a situation where the same family who built a house in Cape May County in 1727 would still own that house in 2006. What is the probability that the house would have very few changes over its 280-year history and retain many original features such as the kitchen cooking fireplace?  What is the probability that a house would remain largely unchanged but that the surrounding roads and neighborhood, once acres of farmland, would grow over the years, leaving the almost 300-year-old house fronting on a highly trafficked municipal road, oddly placed in the center of commercial buildings and residential development, making the land far more valuable than the old house? 

When Nathaniel Foster purchased 100 acres of land on the bayside of Cape May County south of Fishing Creek, his tract extended from the Delaware Bay all the way to the public street that we now know as Bayshore Road. His father, Samuel Foster, a carpenter, was one of the earlier settlers, coming to Cape May County in the early 1700s. His son Nathaniel, also a carpenter, was 27 years old when he built a house in about 1727, at the time he married. In 1739, he was appointed a Justice to the Peace, a position he held until his death. Nathanial willed his house and lands to his son Salathiel Foster, who became a wealthy farmer and also served as a Captain of Cape May’s 3^rd Battalion during the Revolutionary War. Salathiel, in turn, willed half of his lands each to his son Salathiae, Jr. and grandson Ruben, a carpenter, who then in 1806 purchased Salathiel, Jr.’s share with the house, where he then lived throughout his life. In 1865, Ruben sold 60 acres with the house to his son Robert who sold off much of the land and willed the house on a two-acre plot to his son Edgar and daughter Ella. In 1921, Ella sold her half to Edgar who, in 1925 sold the property to his son Earl, who lived in Philadelphia. Until his death in 1973, Earl used the property as a summer home when his daughter Isabelle Foster Sakewicz inherited the house.

In writing in 1981 about the Foster family in the Cape May County New Jersey Magazine of History and Genealogy, Isabella noted that when her grandfather Edgar owned the house before selling it to her father, only a caretaker (Shuster) and his dog (Sport) lived in the house, which was in very bad disrepair. Her father Earl and his family came to Cape May on weekends and vacations, using the house as a second home, and improving its condition through repairs and installing electricity and plumbing.  The last of the Foster family members to own the house, Isabella and her family continued to use the house as a second home until her death in 2006, which is where our story of preservation begins.  

Isabella was active in Cape May County during the summer months and, upon her death, she willed her Foster family home to the Cape May County Historical and Genealogical Society to be used as a museum of early life in Cape May County. However, gaining title to the property was not so easy; the will was contested by heirs, and the Society ended up with expenses for legal fees and other costs at a time when the Society itself was undergoing financial challenges due to reduced revenue and changes in how the museum was funded. Nonetheless, the Society secured grant funding from the New Jersey Historical Trust for a condition report and preparation of nominations for listing on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places. Nominations were completed by Joan Berkey, a Cape May County historian. In 2014, the Nathanial Foster House was listed successfully on both historic registers, establishing the importance of the house to both state and national history.

By 2015, it became apparent that the Society was not going to be able to restore or maintain the property; the financial situation faced by the Society required staff and program reductions; funds were barely sufficient to support operation of the Court House museum and other Society functions, much less allow the organization to take on operation and maintenance of a second museum. The Society’s Board of Directors decided to sell the house, and listed it with a realtor. In agreements with Sackewitz’s heirs, the will restriction for museum use had been removed, allowing the property to be sold for any use. 

Cape May newspapers and the Press of Atlantic City printed numerous stories about the house and its architectural features, describing not only the heavy timber frame features of its original construction but also the circa 1826 “modernization.” This was presumably done by the then-Foster owner, Ruben, who worked with his son, Downs Edmunds Foster, a pair of carpenters known throughout Cape May County for houses with similar federal characteristics to those retained today in the Foster House. While the date the house was modernized is not exactly known, Ruben mortgaged the property in 1826, which may have provided the necessary funds to support the changes that updated the house.

Joan Berkey has studied many early houses throughout Cape May and reports that fewer than 10 houses still exist with similar carpentry features to those retained in the Foster House. The fact that the house had been built before the Revolutionary War and had survived relatively intact for almost 300 years did not matter when the Society received a bid in 2015 from a developer who wished to build something commercial and modern, requiring demolition if no one could be found to move the house to another location, at a cost estimated by the Society of $50,000. While moving a house may be a better alternative than demolition, part of the historic characteristics of a property is its location.  Members of the Society moved ahead unsuccessfully to find someone interested in moving the house. 

So how is it that the Foster House, located on a main street in the middle of Villas and next to the Villas Fire Department, actually survived and has a promising future? Just recently, the opposite outcome occurred when the oldest house in Cape May Point was targeted for demolition. Built in 1800-1820, that house remained in the same family until 2015 when sold to new owners who demolished the house in March of 2019. There were no legal options to prevent demolition in the absence of preservation ordinances or protections, which Cape May Point did (and does) not have. At the time that the Foster House was to be sold, neither Lower Township (nor Villas) had a Historic Preservation Commission or land use ordinances protecting historic resources so, as in Cape May Point, there was nothing to legally stop demolition as there may have been had the house been located in Cape May. What Lower Township did have were a few key citizens interested not in moving but in saving the old house and leaving it where it had been built.

As definitely would have happened in Cape May, no lawyers came forward from either the proposed developer or citizen groups to fight for saving the Lower Township house or to argue that demolition was in the public interest because what was proposed was better than what was there or would contribute to the community in a better way. Several Lower Township properties, including the Foster House, were included on the National Register, a recognition that any attorney will tell you is honorific but does not offer legal protections. Regardless of the historic importance of the house, nobody brought up the property owner’s inherent rights to do with the property as s/he wished.  Rather, this small number of primarily Lower Township residents recognized the importance of preserving this building for future generations and, in Nike fashion, “just did it.”

One of those residents was Pary Tell, who had been the director and museum curator of the Cape May County Historical and Genealogical Society before becoming director of the Cape May County Division of Culture & Heritage. While still with the Society, Pary pushed to obtain the initial New Jersey Trust grant to fund the condition report and nomination forms for state and federal designations. As the future of the house became increasingly uncertain and Lower Township became aware of the real possibility of demolition, Councilman Tom Conrad and other residents began to explore options for saving the house which, as a first step, boiled down to purchasing the house from the Society.

Lower Township resident Lew Thomas was well versed in early Cape May County construction, having worked with Dave Clemans and others in both evaluating and restoring early properties such as the Batts Lane Owen Coachman House in Lower Township. Dave was (and is) a member of the County’s Open Space Review Board, and the possibility of applying for Open Space funds to save the house and prevent demolition was explored. Because of the joint efforts of the County and Lower Township, the house was purchased in 2016 from the Society for $235,000 by the County Open Space program which, in turn, leased the property to Lower Township. Ten years after Isabelle Sackewicz’s death, the historic preservation and interpretation of the Foster House was finally able to move forward.

Councilman Conrad and others recognized that significant funds would be needed to stabilize, restore, interpret, operate, and maintain the property and that the Township would need a historic preservation presence to be successful. In 2015, the Press of Atlantic City reported that Lower Township Council voted to reactivate its long dormant Historic Preservation Commission and appointed a nine-member Historic Preservation Commission. Councilman Conrad was quoted as saying “For us to get grants to do anything, you have to have an active historic preservation commission. It’s the only way you can get the money to move it.” Today’s Commission includes many of the residents who worked to save the house as well as others who are instrumental in maintaining and preserving other Lower Township historic properties such as the Fishing Creek School.  A survey of historic properties, conducted originally in the 1980s, was updated by the reactivated commission and now lists almost 200 historic properties in Lower Township.

It’s been a long journey from Isabella Sackewicz’s well-intentioned gift of her family’s home to the Society for use as a museum. Having survived countless other threats for almost 300 years, the house was threatened by her heirs’ will challenges, the Society’s financial precariousness, and openly offering the property for sale. The house was also threatened by the general public’s apathy for historic preservation and predominant values where something new is often preferred over something old. Preserving our history is not a quick accomplishment and sometimes it may be easier to look the other way, attribute less than optimal outcomes to the lack of legal protections, or just not even try. Because a few people cared more about the Foster house than whether the land could be better used for another purpose, Lower Township was able to mobilize and find resources to save the house even without strong legal protections or a long-established Township emphasis on historic preservation. Those few people were able to persist, obtain state and local funding supports, and hold a long-range vision for this property. These few people thought outside the box, something that is often needed for preservation to be successful. 

Now that the Foster House has actually been saved, the real work begins. Having had many years of deferred maintenance, the first steps will be to redo the roof and remove the asbestos siding covering the original clapboards. And, of course, mechanicals—the house has no heat or air conditioning, and the existing plumbing and electric are very much outdated.

Fortunately, the Township was successful this past winter in obtaining grants to begin restoration of the house.  The New Jersey Historic Trust is paying for preparation of design and construction documents, an interpretive and furnishings report, and other studies being carried out by the Cape May County architectural firm of Michael Calafati Architects. These studies provide the basis for estimating costs and prioritizing the work to be done for the house to safely be open to the public, work that will be carried out this fall and winter through other construction restoration funds successfully obtained by the township. Lower Township Council members, commissioners on the re-established Historic Preservation Commission, and residents will need to weigh in on the future use of the house. A museum for Lower Township on the ground floor and perhaps offices on the second floor has been one suggestion. And there may be other good ideas as work is begun on formulating the interpretation and furnishings plan.

What saved the Foster House was the people for whom this place mattered and who, working together, were able to create a vision and find the resources to help this building stand another 300 years. This success story illustrates that when people value their heritage, historic properties can be saved and repurposed for other uses even in communities without strong historic preservation ordinances or an in-your-face historic preservation culture. Historic preservation can happen anywhere.  

Read Following up on the Foster House from our Fall 2021 issue