See how this historic home in Englewood was dismantled and moved across the city
ENGLEWOOD — Tall cranes swung high above Engle Street on Monday and Tuesday, carefully dismantling one of the oldest houses in the city before loading the pieces onto a flatbed truck and moving the historic home 1½ miles away, where it will be reassembled in a city park.
The painstaking work to move and rebuild the nearly 150-year-old Taylor Bliss house floor by floor at the Liberty Road park will likely take several more days.
The old Victorian home with a mansard roof will eventually be used as a community center for historical and environmental studies, said Irmari Nacht, co-president of the Englewood Historical Society.
“At an earlier time, there were several of these historic houses in Englewood. They’ve been torn down over the years,” she said. “This is one of the only of its kind in Englewood and Bergen County. It’s important for our children and our children’s children to understand what the past was like.”
The group has worked to save the home at the corner of Engle Street and Hudson Avenue from the wrecking ball since 2021, when it learned the synagogue that owned the property planned to knock it down.
“Too many of these architecturally unique, older homes are being torn down in Englewood and replaced with even larger contemporary houses,” said Jane Kendall, co-president of the historical society. “We’ve been losing them every time you turn to the next block.”
Moving the three-story structure, topped with a fourth-floor tower, was a massive undertaking. To make the house lightweight enough to slice up, lift and move, every inch of sheetrock was stripped from its walls, and its chimney was removed.
This week, the streets along the route down Hudson Avenue and onto Liberty Road were closed to traffic, and in the weeks leading up to the move, city workers trimmed any tree branches that might get in the way of the wide-load truck.
As the crane lifted each part of the top floors of the home Monday and laid them down flat, with walls piled on top of each other, a small crowd gathered to take in the spectacle of the old house being taken apart like a child’s toy.
The house will be given to the city and will be rebuilt from the bottom up at 500 Liberty Road, on the former property of Eleanor Harvey, a onetime teacher at Dwight Morrow High School and the founder of the Englewood Historical Society, who died in 2007. Harvey gave her land to the city for use as a passive park.
The site is especially fitting, given the historic significance of its location along the retreat route of Washington’s troops during the Revolutionary War, said David Maron, an architect involved in the project.
“Houses like this are not being built anymore. The craftsmanship does not exist anymore. Some of the materials do not exist,” he said.
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The organization worked with the synagogue on the plan to relocate the house and raised $350,000 for the move. Much more money will be needed for renovations to reinvent the building as an accessible community center, a place for exhibits and performances, with meeting space and displays showcasing Englewood’s past.
“Our vision is having it be a place for everybody,” said Charlotte Bennett Schoen, a historical society member and a former councilwoman. “This will truly bring everyone in the city under one roof."
The house, which dates to 1876, is one of the few remaining examples of a Second Empire Victorian home in the county, Nacht said.
Among the home’s former residents is Delos Bliss, a vice president at Palisade Trust and Guaranty, now known as Bank of America, and Ethel Bliss, Delos' daughter, who was a national tennis tournament champion in 1906 and was married to Dan Fellows Platt, a city mayor early in the 20th century.
Kehilat Kesher Synagogue bought the building in 2003 and used the home for services, but the congregation eventually outgrew the space. A larger worship building was built behind and around the home in 2016.
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The synagogue received permission from the city Planning Board to demolish the house two years ago.
Mayor Michael Wildes said he is happy this piece of city history will be preserved.
“I'm both excited and relieved to see the Taylor Bliss house finally on its way to a new permanent home in Englewood,” he said.
Those looking to contribute to the Englewood House Fund can send a check to Englewood Historical Society, P.O. Box 8136, Englewood, NJ 07631. For more information, Nacht can be reached at irmarinac@yahoo.com.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Englewood NJ: Historic home dismantled, moved across city
