On November 3, Warren voters will be asked a non-binding public question about funding the project, which carries an estimated redevelopment cost of $7.5 million. The result would guide the Township Committee but would not require it to proceed. Project materials estimate a 20-year bond would add about $81 a year to the municipal tax bill of the average household, and they note that grants and private contributions could lower that figure.
The township bought the house in 1956 and used it as its municipal building until 2017. The Warren Historical Society has recommended that it be saved and repurposed, and describes it as potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The society says Hofheimer, a founder of General Motors, built the house as the first stately home in Warren, and that it reflects the township’s change from a farming community to an area of country estates.
A township-commissioned study by the architectural firm Clarke Caton Hintz and its consultants explored how the building could be adapted. About 20 community organizations were contacted, and the project information reports interest in spaces for meetings, educational activities and recreation. According to the society’s summary of the concept plan, the original formal parlor would become a meeting room of about 1,000 square feet, with smaller meeting rooms, a kitchenette, gallery space, an outdoor terrace and an elevator. The location is near outdoor recreation facilities and open space, with parking available.
Other communities nearby have faced similar questions about older buildings. In Warren, the township has pursued grants to restore the Mount Bethel Baptist Meeting House, built in 1786, including $122,230 from Somerset County in 2017 and $218,495 from the New Jersey Historic Trust in 2020. In Long Hill, the Millington Schoolhouse and Old Town Hall, the village’s first school and later the township’s municipal offices until 2003, received a $27,147 state-backed grant in 2008 for planning its rehabilitation for a new community use. In Watchung, the Watchung Arts Center operates in a building about 125 years old that began as the village schoolhouse.
Farther afield, the former Ephraim Tucker farmhouse in Scotch Plains, built in the 1740s and later the clubhouse of the Shady Rest Golf and Country Club, received a $150,000 state historic preservation grant in 2024 after a $40,000 county grant in 2021. In Montclair, the Crane House, built in 1796 and later home to the YWCA, is now the Montclair History Center after residents saved it from demolition in 1965.
Source: Warren Township Historical Society project information; Warren Township; New Jersey Historic Trust; Union County; Watchung Arts Center; Montclair History Center