Main Street Historic District

The village of Lawrenceville not only has buildings of individual significance but it also has a distinctive historic character that sets it apart from its surroundings. The village has maintained its extraordinary form and this has resulted in its listing as a historic district at the national, state, and most recently, at the local level. Most unusual is the survival of farmland that traces back to seventeenth century land transactions. Many houses, taverns, and farm houses of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are scattered throughout the district along with one of the state’s oldest Presbyterian churches and two cemeteries.

When listed in the New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places in 1972, the Main Street Historic District was one of the first registered historic districts in the State. The local Main Street Historic District was the culmination of three years of intensive study by the township’s Historic Preservation (formerly Landmark) Advisory Committee. Buildings were designated by ordinance as “key,” “contributing,” or “non-contributing” in descending order of significance. Different standards were established for each of these categories to enable homeowners to seek approval of proposed exterior changes. Only the “key” structures in the district are considered local historic landmarks and are highlighted in this guidebook.

The local historic district fronts along Main Street and the Lawrenceville-Princeton Road (Route 206) for more than two miles between Franklin Corner Road and an area slightly north of Fackler Road. Homes situated more than 250 feet from the road are excluded, however. One exception is the section of The Lawrenceville School known as the Circle and several other buildings in its vicinity, the oldest buildings on the campus. This area itself has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

2481 Main Street - Anderson-Brearley Tavern

This mid-18th century Georgian structure was operating as a tavern as early as 1758 when the annual township meeting was held at John Anderson’s Tavern. Anderson sold the property to Benjamin Brearley in 1766, who then applied for his tavern license in 1767, a date carved in the chimney. When Philip Hendrickson applied for a license in 1791, he said that he now occupied the oldest stand in Maidenhead which has been a tavern for forty years.

2549 Main Street - Richard Montgomery Green House

It’s hard to imagine General H. Norman Schwartzkopf, Jr. sitting up in a tree in the back of this 1815 house, but that’s exactly where he was on December 7, 1941, when his sister called out to him that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. The four-star general and future hero of “Desert Storm” lived here with another General, H. Norman Schwartzkopf, his father, who was Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police and nationally known for his police work in the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh’s son in nearby Hopewell Township. The Schwartzkopf family owned this home from 1934-1950, but lived here only until the future Commander of Allied Forces in the Persian Gulf War was 12, which was midway through World War II. In 1949, MGM used the house and grounds to make “The Happy Years,” a movie based on Owen Johnson’s book “The Varmint.” Cast members included Dean Stockwell and Leo J. Carroll. The house was in Green family ownership for 119 years until 1934. Today, this Georgian structure, which was constructed of stone from the local quarry, is owned by The Lawrenceville School.

2579 Main Street - Romney House

This charming Greek Revival style house has a distinctive flattop entrance roof and features a pilastered doorway and decorative frieze below the roof. It is a style uncommon in the township. The house is attributed to Charles Steadman, who was famous for his fine design and detail, sometime between 1825 and 1845, the period of his active work in Princeton. The delicate looking entrance hides rear and side additions. But it is the front entrance details that draw our attention, such as the panel decorations under the cornice and the repetition of the design over the door.

2617 Main Street - Lodge

This Queen Anne style structure was built by Peter Kafer in 1892, as a guest house and dormitory for The Lawrenceville School’s use. Channing Blake, in describing it, once said: “This building exudes the atmosphere of a seaside resort hotel. Its lightness, its gaiety, and its fragility separate it from the rest of the domestic buildings in town, and make it all the more precious within this history of nineteenth century architecture.”

2695 Main Street - Cock and Bull Tavern

The first reference to this house as a tavern was in May 1789, when William Compton petitioned for a tavern license. He wrote that he had recently purchased a house in Maidenhead opposite the Presbyterian Church and, being encouraged by his neighbors and friends to keep a house of entertainment, solicited a license for the ensuing year. In 1804, John Moore applied for his first license at this location. This tavern was used for many years as a place to hold the annual township meetings. In 1816, a meeting was held here to petition for the township’s name change from Maidenhead to Lawrence. Dr. Gosman, a minister of the Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church, is said to have spoken of visits to the tavern by some of his congregants as “the thirst after righteousness.” In the 1890’s, Ed Conover kept his stage coach in a barn behind the tavern.

2805 Main Street

This imposing symmetrical square block house at the intersection of Cold Soil Road, which appears on 1860 and 1875 maps of the township as the R. White home, is significant as one of only a few Second Empire structures in Lawrenceville. Its distinguishing feature is the mansard roof, long characteristic in French building.

2837 Main Street - Theophilus Phillips Homestead

This fine example of an early homestead is one of the Cherry Grove Quarry stone houses associated with the prominent Phillips family. Theophilus Phillips first purchased and settled land in Maidenhead in 1694. The lower, southern section of the house, which includes a seven foot cooking fireplace, was built in two parts prior to 1750; and the taller section to the north, with four fine federal mantelpieces, was added by Theophilus Phillips III about 1790. The sun room, with a Mercer tile floor, and the present kitchen to the west, were built about 1925. The barns to the north and west are equally early and interesting. The house served as a tavern from 1755 until 1804 and was the site of many early town meetings. It has been the center of a farm, a boarding house for well-to-do New Yorkers, a dormitory for The Lawrenceville School, and is now, again, a private residence. In 1944, New Jersey Governor Edge tried unsuccessfully to purchase or lease the property, according to Donald Tyler. Ultimately, he bought Morven, in Princeton, which served as the Governor’s Mansion until 1990.

2923 Main Street - William C. Rouse Homestead

This house appears on a 1777 military map of the area in the ownership of Samuel Hunt. He owned the land as early as 1695 and passed it by will to successive Samuel Hunts until 1810 when it was divided among the sisters of the very last Samuel Hunt. The house was altered ca.1875-1880 with Italianate features. Its age can be seen in its two-foot thick walls constructed of roughly laid fieldstone. Not only are the windows of varying sizes but the window panes are as well. Donald Tyler reported that in the attic, the floor boards are up to two feet wide and more than two inches thick.

1 Carter Road - Cherry Grove

This two and one-half story structure is an excellent example of Georgian architecture, originally constructed ca. 1730 by a local judge, John Dagworthy, Sr., with many later wings added. He sold it to Jonathan Sergeant, a captain in the Revolutionary War Army. During the nineteenth century, it was owned by two important local families, the Greens and the Scudders. It is built of uncoursed stone with five interior masonry chimneys. The name “Cherry Grove” came from the lane formed by two rows of cherry trees that originally crossed the meadows.

3301 Lawrenceville Princeton Road - Opdyke House/Glencairn

This mid-eighteenth century home is a significant example of Georgian style architecture. It has retained much of the original integrity of design, material, workmanship and setting thanks, in part, to the ambitious and painstaking restoration and archeological excavation of the late nineteen-seventies. The older stone section, which probably came from the Town Quarry, is one of the oldest structures near the village. Clifford W. Zink wrote that in December of 1776, while the British Army was quartered in Princeton, this home may have been confiscated as British officers’ quarters. A legend passed down with the house, he stated, is of a young Lord Ralston who was killed on the second floor. “Surprised while wenching, he tried to escape by way of a secret stairway that led down along the chimney to the basement, but was bayonetted in a closet by a member of the American militia.” Zink said that “while no documentary evidence has been found to support this legend, numerous oral accounts have testified to the existence of blood stains on the floorboards of the closet, unfortunately removed during the 1950’s.” Donald Tyler relates that a Clarence Rigley, once a tenant here, brought his horse out of the cold and into the house one frigid winter night; his horse broke through the floor and was extricated with some difficulty. Also, Harry Baldwin, who was a fur trader for local trappers, resided in the stone section for 40 years, beginning about 1912.

3270 Lawrenceville Princeton Road - William Phillips Tavern

This is a Georgian structure built prior to 1744 in two sections. The oldest section is nearest to Lawrenceville and the division can be seen in the stonework. The latter section was probably built fifty years after the first. This building was used as a colonial tavern. A tavern during the colonial period was a place for travelers to spend the night. This was particularly important since the Lawrenceville-Princeton Road was the main road connecting New York and Philadelphia.

3030 Lawrenceville Road - Cranstoun House

This stone Georgian structure, ca. 1761, has maintained much of its original integrity of design and material. It is built of uncoursed stone with four interior end chimneys and three front pedimented dormers. The fireplace in the south wall is eight feet six inches long. John D. Cranstoun owned the house from 1894 until 1946.

2868 Main Street - Old Davis House

Built in 1834 by Mr. & Mrs. James Harvey Porter to serve as the Seminary for Young Ladies at Lawrenceville, it is a representative example of Greek Revival architecture. The front porch has Doric columns and a classical doorway. It also has three front and rear dormers with Doric columns. The Seminary continued until 1883 when The Lawrenceville School leased the property from the Rev. Robert Hamill Davis. As the Davis House, it served as a dormitory. One of its assistant masters was Thornton Wilder, who, later in 1927, mostly while living here, published The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a short novel for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

2858 Main Street - Green Cottage

This building was built in 1840 and occupied by the locally prominent Green family. It is an excellent example of Gothic Revival architecture. The structure has a stucco exterior with intersecting gables with three paired center chimneys around the gable intersection. It was the home of John Cleve Green, who endowed The Lawrenceville School.

2834 Lawrenceville Road - Rose Hill/William Phillips House

Theophilus Phillips bequeathed this property to his son, William, in 1761. It was used as a farm house and later sold by William E. Rouse to The Lawrenceville School in 1883. Until 1899, it was known as the Rouse House. The building served as a dormitory until 1924; afterwards it housed members of the Lower faculty. The house is situated across the street from the Theophilus Phillips Homestead and is almost a duplicate of that house. The front doors and central hallways are directly across from each other, so that you can look from the rear garden of one into the rear garden of the other.

2800 Main Street - Van Dyke House

This building is an excellent example of Greek Revival architecture and was constructed ca. 1849. It was moved to its current location about 1870 from land that is now part of The Lawrenceville School golf course and was enlarged around 1925 with the addition of side wings. In 1909, Francis Cuyler Van Dyke leased the house. He was a master and organist of The Lawrenceville School from 1899 to 1916. The building is rectangular in shape with a clapboard exterior and has four interior end chimneys.

2688 Main Street - Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church

This is one of the oldest Presbyterian churches in New Jersey. The front of the building was constructed in 1764. Additions that lengthened the church were built in 1833 and 1853. It is constructed in the Georgian style with Palladian windows on the second floor, elliptical fanlight in the top floor and a cupola. The adjacent cemetery, which dates to 1713, contains graves of colonial settlers and Revolutionary War soldiers. The same year, John Hart, Speaker of the state’s General Assembly in 1776 and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was baptized by this congregation. In 1810, the church’s minister, Rev. Isaac Van Arsdale Brown established the Academy of Maidenhead, which later became The Lawrenceville School.

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Main Street Historic District

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