Wallisch master plan presented

Restoring and preserving the main house at the Wallisch Homestead would cost from $800,000 to $1 million, architect Ross Barton estimated during a presentation Saturday, April 26.

He presented a 400-page preservation master plan covering several historic buildings on the property at 65 Lincoln Ave.

The plan was produced during the past few years. Money from Passaic County and the Highlands Council funded the report, he said.

“We wanted to get everything that we ever knew about the homestead into one report.”

The report includes goals and recommendations, a survey of the property, historic photos and reports, as well as new engineering analysis.

Barton suggested that the Friends of Wallisch Homestead could bring in money by renting out the large barn for weddings or other events after a restoration.

The friends group, created in 2013, is a nonprofit organization that acts as a steward in the preservation and adaptive reuse of the buildings and grounds.

He estimated that reconstructing the silo and putting an elevator in it to allow access to the barn’s second floor would cost about $200,000.

Public restrooms could be added to each side of the creamery for public events, and a catering kitchen could fit in the center and rear of that building.

Historic registries

Barton said the Wallisch Homestead has been awarded a certificate from New Jersey that would allow it to be placed on the state and national registries of historic places, but the paperwork has not been filed.

It can take a couple years to pursue a listing on the Register of Historic Places and New Jersey is approving fewer nominees now, he said.

The New Jersey Historic Trust gives up to $750,000 in grants each year only to properties on the state and national registers, he added.

The main house at Wallisch dates to the 1880s and the stone barn and creamery date to the early 1900s.

In the audience for the presentation was Nancy Gregory DeVries, whose family once owned the property. The homestead was owned by four families in 200 years.

Louis Wallisch, who died in 2001 at age 90, left his half of the 84-acre property to West Milford to be used for open space, recreational and educational purposes.

The other half of the property owned by his brother, John, was left to the Board of Education in 1984.

Louis Wallisch requested that the main house be kept intact, which means that it could be restored to what it looked like in the 1920s and afterward, Barton said.

There are photos that show what the buildings looked like in the 1890s and early 1900s, he added.

There also are inventories of furniture, art pieces and other items owned by James Gregory in 1886 and by Louis Wallisch Sr. in 1923.

”This really helps when we do the rehabilitation and can interpret it,” Barton said.