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Subject: Hacking away at history
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 21:12:54 EST

Article in my local newspaper The Villadom Times January 10, 2001
Hacking away at history
"The historic Dutch colonial Van Houten house on Vee Drive in Franklin Lakes
was demolished on Jan. 3 to make way for a new, larger modern house. The Van
Houten family lived in the house from the mid 1730s through six generations
until the late 1990s. The Van Houtens came from Rockland County [NY] and
helped build the Wyckoff Dutch Reformed Church in 1805. The Van Houten house
was originally built as one room deep and was probably expanded in the early
1800s. Until its demolition it was the only Dutch sandstone house in
Franklin Lakes with a gambrel roof. The Van Houten house was among 15
stone-sided houses in Franklin Lakes that are listed on the National and
State Registers of Historic Places. With the wrecking of the Van Houten
house, one 13 are left."
----
This house is listed in Pre-Revolutionary Dutch Houses by Rosalie Fellows
Bailey, Plate 106, page 373. In 1968 she wrote "This house is still the
home of descendants of John Van Houten, the owner in 1806. It belongs to the
Revolutionary era and may have been built or bought by him when he settled in
this section between 1794 and 1799. The main feature to be noted is the
gambrel roof with its long, straight lower slope and the absence of any
overhang........The roofline has never been broken by the addition of
dormers.......

How sad to lose another old home.

Ethel Kay Konight

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