Moorestown wants to save a Revolutionary War-era house. Its owner, Virtua, wants it demolished.
Moorestown is known for its historic houses, many of which were standing in the 18th Century.
A conflict over a Revolutionary War-era house in Moorestown Township is rattling the affluent community known as an enclave of Philadelphia sports figures and a place endowed with historic homes.
Virtua Memorial Hospital of Burlington County Inc. is suing Moorestown for what it says is interference with its plans to demolish the house, which sits on hospital property. Built in 1760, the house once belonged to Commodore Thomas Truxtun, whom President George Washington named as one of the first six commanders of the newly formed U.S. Navy.
Virtua contends Moorestown had approved an ordinance allowing the township to designate the house, and several others, as historic sites without giving the hospital sufficient notice of its plans — a mistake that “destroys” the hospital’s ability to develop the site, according to the lawsuit filed in Burlington County Superior Court in Mount Holly.
Virtua initially wanted to construct a cancer center on the property, though it’s since been built elsewhere, according to the Cherry Hill-based Courier Post, which first reported the conflict. Currently, the Truxtun house is being leased by a printing company.
Neither Virtua’s attorneys nor its spokesperson returned calls for comment or explanation. Township officials and their attorney declined to speak as well. But people in the township, said Julie Marovich, president of Saving Historic Moorestown, are outraged by the move to tear down the historic structure, one of roughly 20 in the town that were standing during the Revolution.
The houses are so beloved that they’re the subjects of annual tours, including one that’s been conducted during the holidays for decades by the Virtua Memorial Auxiliary.
“Virtua has been the beneficiary of Moorestown’s historic homes,” she said. “They make as much as $40,000 a tour, and they’ve been doing it since around 1970. And now they want to tear down a historic house?”
The Truxtun house was never on an Auxiliary tour, Marovich said, but the irony remains, said Lenny Wagner, past president of the Historic Society of Moorestown.
Old houses are part of Moorestown’s DNA, residents say. Visiting motorists are greeted with a sign that says, “Welcome to Historic Moorestown,” said Linda Vizi, current president of the Historic Society of Moorestown.
That history, along with the town’s proximity to Philadelphia, drew stars such as former Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb and ex-Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens, famous for lifting weights and doing sit-ups during a news conference in his driveway in 2005 that was immortalized on Instagram. Flyers center Bobby Clarke and Phillies right fielder Nick Castellanos, among others, have also called Moorestown home. The average home price in the township last year was nearly $750,000, according to state figures.
If the 18th-century houses go, Wagner said, “you lose tangible pieces of your history, and the stories that tell us who we are as a community and who we were.
“And when a town loses those stories, it loses its identity.”
Designating historic sites
Virtua bought the Truxtun property in 2013, looking to develop a healthcare facility, court records show.
The two-story house sits at 730 Marne Highway across from a complex owned by the aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin Corp.
On March 31 of this year, according to court records, Virtua received notice from Moorestown that the township was writing an ordinance that would create a Historic Preservation Commission and historic district, and would designate seven properties outside the district as historic sites. The Truxtun house was one of them.
Virtua complained that the notice said the ordinance would be up for a “second reading” shortly, on April 7. A second reading can include public comment, debate, and a vote on the ordinance. At the second reading, the ordinance was indeed voted on by township council and adopted, court records show.
Because Virtua didn’t receive proper notice, its attorneys argued, the Truxtun house has been “improperly designated” a historic site.
It concludes that the township’s historic designation of the house should be “invalidated” and removed from the ordinance.
Prior to the ordinance being passed, Virtua had requested a demolition permit for the Truxtun house, both Wagner and Vizi said, although it’s difficult to pin down exact dates when the township and other principals in the lawsuit aren’t communicating publicly.
“What we do know,” Vizi said, “is that the permit request was sent to the wrong Moorestown entity.”
Virtua submitted its request to the township planning board, when it should have gone to the historic commission, Vizi said.
The error caused a delay, making it impossible for the demolition permit to have been granted before the ordinance designating the Truxtun house as historic was passed, Vizi said. “In that time, the ordinance took hold,” she said.
Moorestown’s answer to Virtua’s complaint was terse.
Having acted “in good faith” at all times, Moorestown was neither “arbitrary nor capricious” in dealing with Virtua, according to the response in court records.
Moorestown’s argument concluded that no statute had required the township to share any information about its activities.
Attacking the British & French
The town earned a place in the state’s abolitionist history when Moorestown Quakers known for their advanced agriculture techniques were invited in the mid-1800s to one of Washington’s plantations to teach farmers how to grow food without relying on people who were enslaved, Vizi said.
And Silas Walton, a later owner of Truxtun’s house, was credited with developing a new variety of strawberry, she added.
As for Truxtun, he was a privateer during the Revolution, a nonmilitary ship captain that attacked the British Royal Navy.
After Washington tapped Truxtun for naval leadership, Truxtun commanded the USS Constellation and battled French ships in the so-called “Quasi-War,” an undeclared naval war with France between 1798 and 1800 that took place mostly in the Caribbean and off the East Coast.
In his career, he’d sailed to China, mapped the Gulf Stream with Benjamin Franklin, and wrote treatises on navigation, Maravich said. Six naval vessels have borne Truxtun’s name through the years, including the USS Truxtun, a guided missile destroyer still in service, according to the Navy.
After leaving Moorestown in 1816, Truxtun moved to Philadelphia where he was elected sheriff, an office he held until 1819. He died in 1822 and is buried in Christ Church Burial Ground (along with Franklin) in Old City.
As she contemplates saving the Truxtun house, Maravich said that along with the house, what can get lost in demolition are artifacts likely buried over time on the property.
“We think surrounding the house is a treasure trove of archaeology,” she said. Truxtun had collected items from numerous ports of call in his travels that would be of historic interest, she added.
Because of Truxtun’s ties to sailing, the best use of the property would probably be as a naval museum, Vizi said.
Ultimately, Maravich said, “I have the wish that Virtua would just donate the property, then take a gigantic tax break.
“It would absolutely break our hearts if they destroyed that house.”