Kevin Riordan: Zurbrugg Mansion in Delanco now houses seniors

The waterfront mansion of the self-made magnate who popularized pocket watches for the masses has been transformed into affordable apartments for senior citizens.

The latest twist in the history of his grand old Delanco Township house might well please Theophilus Zurbrugg himself.

After all, the civic-minded Swiss immigrant, who manufactured inexpensive watch cases in adjacent Riverside, didn't enjoy his magnificent Classical Revival-style home for long. A stroke felled him at 51 in 1912, a mere year after construction was finished.

New tenant Mary Ellen Wigmore, 72, hopes to live there a bit longer than Zurbrugg did.

"I went by this house I can't tell you how many times," says Wigmore, a Delran native who moved into her light-filled efficiency apartment in October. "I never thought I'd ever live here."

That's largely thanks to Grapevine Development, a Moorestown firm that spent $5 million - about 60 percent of it from public sources - to give new life to what had become a white elephant.

Sometimes called "the Columns" for its signature colonnade of Italian granite, the mansion stayed in the Zurbrugg family for decades and was bought in 1949 by celebrity preacher/real estate tycoon Carl McIntire.

The Collingswood evangelist operated the mansion as the Bible Presbyterian Home until 1976, and it continued as a nursing home until a later operator went out of business in 2005.

A plan to transform the 21/2-story landmark into a residence for troubled youth alarmed the township, which then bought the property for $2.1 million. The economy went south, proposals (a community center, a bed-and-breakfast) came and went, and Grapevine bought the place for $1.8 million in 2008.

It was structurally sound but leaky in spots. Heating, electrical, and plumbing systems needed replacing, too.

"With a building that's 100 years old, you never know what you're going to find until you start opening up the walls," says Randy Cherkas, Grapevine's managing partner. "It's an unbelievable building, but it had been relatively neglected, particularly when it was empty."

We're standing on the first floor, where the wind-ridged river can be seen through the windows of the richly ornamented public rooms. The mansion is the last known residence designed by the firm of the noted Philadelphia architect Frank Furness, who died in 1912.

Zurbrugg certainly could afford the best; historical accounts describe his Keystone Watch Case Co. - whose former factory towers over downtown Riverside - as the world's largest.

"He was the man 100 years ago," Cherkas says. "He was the largest employer and probably the richest guy in the region. He came here without speaking English, and he left behind an empire."

Grapevine carved 11 apartments out of the second floor of the main house and 16 in the nursing-home addition in back. Nine are occupied; rents start at $390 a month.

The renovation was respectful of the main house, whose "great bones" sometimes held surprises (a chimney, in one case) that altered renovation plans. Several of the units have unusual floor plans and funky spaces - like those often found in hip downtown lofts.

"This is the Zurbrugg Mansion," project manager Antonio Walker says. "Not generic senior housing."

Kay Ragusa, who moved in to her apartment from Mount Holly, loves her new home. "It's beautiful," she says. "It's fine living."

Delanco certainly is a great little town - another of those Jersey places too many of us know only as an exit sign. It's a nifty mix of working-class and more affluent residences, a peninsula with abundant views of the Rancocas Creek and the Delaware River.

Joe Busler, a former newspaper colleague of mine, moved there in 2003 and serves as vice chairman of the township's Historical Advisory Committee.

"Delanco is kind of off the beaten track," he says. "We're not a museum - the people who built Delanco built it to live in it. And now the mansion will be home for a large number of people. It's wonderful."