- Click here to view slideshow of three NCCo properties that have received resident curator proposals.(photos courtesy: New Castle County)
Preserving historic structures can be a challenge for any property owner, but it’s especially true for cash-strapped nonprofit organizations and government agencies.
That’s why the Friends of Bellanca Airfield welcomed the assistance that vacationing volunteers provided this week with window restoration at their historic hangar.
And it’s why the New Castle County government has launched a resident curatorship program in an effort to preserve five old homes that it owns.
The airfield hangar project brings volunteers in to help for a week. With a resident curatorship, the stakes are much higher. Applicants must commit to spending at least $150,000 in the first five years to restore a property, and all improvements made must be consistent with federal standards for historic preservation. In return, the successful applicant gets to live at the property rent-free for 20 years to a lifetime, depending on the terms of the lease.
“It’s a win-win for the county and for the resident curator,” said Robert Merrill, program manager in the county’s Department of Special Services. “The county gets people to take over historic buildings and make an investment in them, and the resident gets to live rent-free for 20 years on county parkland.”
While the deal may seem attractive to some, Merrill cautioned that the program is not for everybody. Applying for a loan of $150,000 or more isn’t the same as applying for a mortgage because resident curators are tenants, not property owners, so they have no secured interest in the property, he said. And, he said, if the resident curators decide that the arrangement isn’t working out, all the improvements they’ve made stay with the county because the county owns the building.
“It is a hard decision to make,” Merrill said.
The county has listed five properties for inclusion in the resident curatorship program, and has received proposals for three of them.
The BTL Foundation, headed by Hockessin philanthropist Bangalore Lakshman, has proposed using the Ivyside Farmhouse, in Bechtel Park on Naamans Road in Brandywine Hundred, as a multicultural service center.
The owners of Hy-Point Dairy Farms are interested in the Jester Farmhouse, in Jester Park on Grubb Road in Brandywine Hundred. They would like to establish a “community creamery” on the 1.1-acre site, Merrill said.
The J. Gregg House at 3200 Millcreek Road, on the grounds of the Delcastle Golf Course, has drawn the interest of a family that would like to live there, Merrill said. The 150-year-old home is considered an example of early development in the Pike Creek area.
County officials are now reviewing all three proposals before preparing contract and lease agreements, Merrill said. Approval of the proposal for the Gregg House should take about a month, and the other two slightly longer, he said.
The county, Merrill said, has yet to receive proposals for two other properties: Woodstock, a large, two-story residence in Banning Park, said to have been built in 1743, with additions built in 1833 and in the 1930s, and a paved parking lot suitable for up to 20 cars; and the Talley-Day House, a Victorian farmhouse built in 1847, in Talley-Day Park, behind the Brandywine Hundred Library at 1300 Foulk Road.
The state has one resident curatorship arrangement in place, said Christopher Portante, community relations coordinator for the Delaware Department of State. The state leases the Hale-Byrnes House, on the White Clay Creek near Stanton, to the Delaware Society for the Preservation of Antiquities, he said. George Washington and his key aides used the house to hold a council of war in September 1777, between the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge and the Battle of the Brandywine. Kim R. Burdick, a historian and folklore specialist, lives there with her husband, Dr. Ralph Burdick, and serves as the resident curator.
