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| Two bugs on a flower! Captured while I was on a walk at Duke Farms. |
After following this summer’s accounts of the attempts by Michael Catania, Executive Director of the Duke Farms Foundation to destroy the mansion sitting on the 2,700-acre site built by James Buchanan Duke, and inherited by his daughter, Doris, I was appalled to learn yesterday that he finally prevailed.
I was even further dismayed to see how easily the Hillsborough
Historic Commission (HHC) caved in, voting 6-l in favor of the foundation to
raze the 65,000 square foot mansion which has been the estate’s anchor and its principal
jewel, designated as an historical site.
Writing in NJ.com, Dave Hutchinson wrote that at this week’s
HHC meeting there were “more than 100
residents in attendance.” Yet the commission ploughed ahead, ignoring the pleas
of strong opposition voiced by “35 people
who stepped forward and voiced overwhelmingly, four to one, to preserve the
mansion.”
A number of reasons have been put forward by Catania to tear
down that historic jewel: Namely, that It
will provide more bike paths and walkways leading to the Nevius Street Bridge
across the Raritan River to the Borough
of the same name. The mansion no longer
fits the mission of the Foundation. It
would cost too much to renovate. It
would open up another 50 acres to fields and fountains, etc., etc...
But, by carefully reading newspaper and Internet reports and
connecting the dots, it appears that different reasons for the destruction of
the Duke mansion have come to light.
In today’s Courier News, Sergio Bichao reported that “[Hillsborough] commission members agreed with the
foundation’s expert witness, Philadelphia-based architectural historian Emily
Cooperman, who described the house as a ‘white elephant’ and argued that the
Duke Farms as a whole, with its waterfall and man-made lakes and gargantuan
stone farm and coach barns, is more significant than the house.”
Carefully notice Cooperman’s usage of the term ‘house’ instead of its more accurate
and precise designation as a 65,000 square foot mansion. Her description of Doris Duke’s Garden State
home trivializes its historic significance, as well as the regional memory of a
great era in Central Jersey. God save us
from experts!
So, then, what’s up?
This, dear readers, is what’s up:
Overseers
of Doris Duke’s estate want to alter the nature of its mission by minimizing and
redirecting funding away from the mansion that sits on the 2,700-acre property
in Central Jersey.
When the dots are finally connected, far different motives come
to light according to
Bichao’s report:
“Ed
Henry, president of the Doris Duke
Charitable Foundation in New York, said the decision was the result of
‘years of study’ and said the foundation could not justify renovating a mansion
after already spending $50 million on improving Duke Farms when ‘there are so
many needs’ the foundation tends to, such as medical, research, child welfare,
and building bridges to the Muslim world.”
Nevertheless, this is in complete contradiction to the
specific wishes of the heiress. According
to the foundation’s own web site, “In her
will, Doris Duke requested that her properties in New Jersey,
Hawaii and Rhode Island be opened for public visitation and used for educational
programs.”
Any common sense understanding of the term “her properties in New Jersey” includes
the mansion which sits on the estate of Doris Duke’s 2,700 acre Hillsborough property. That mansion has not been maintained, conveniently
providing a pretext for knocking it down.
Furthermore, lack of maintenance by the Duke Farms Foundation
has also provided an unconscionable, faux basis for not having kept the mansion
“opened for public visitation.”
Tragically, it is about to be demolished unless
Hillsborough’s Zoning Board comes to the rescue or if overseers of the
foundation are legally challenged.
(Click on the photo for an enhanced view.)
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