Historic Ira Bull house needs a savior

Chester Golf developer offers to sell house at minimal cost, By Edie Johnson Chester — The Highland and Appalachian trails offers many fascinating sights. Local historians hope the little red house on the corner of Bull Mill Road in Chester will remain among them. While the Ira Bull house, as it’s known, does not have the expansive stonemasonry of the other Bull residences, it nevertheless has its own distinctive style and is in remarkable condition for a structure more than 200 years old (please see related article on page 11 for background of the house and family). The National Registry of Historic Places has determined that the house qualifies for its registry, and the Chester Historical Society and the Orange County Historical Society have expressed interest in preserving the site. But neither organization has the money needed to preserve the house. The Chester historian, Clifton Patrick, said he will continue to look for financial help from the New York/New Jersey Trail Conference, which wants to see a better connection of the Highland and Appalachian trails. “The house is in good condition,” Patrick said. “We hoped to establish some kind of arrangement with someone who would both maintain and rent it.” The house is located in the proposed Chester Golf housing subdivision, a project that’s been in the works for the past 10 years. The owner, Steve Sherman, told the town planning board last week that he would be willing to sell the house and lot for “a minimal price, say $40,000 if a sponsor could be found and if it were determined that renovations could be made without disturbing its historic value.” The Ira Bull House is not the only historical artifact on the site, which is steeped in history. Trash mounds likely to include items of important historic and archeological significance having been found there. The bones of Ice Age mastodons have also been found near the development, and research suggests that people of an even earlier era followed the giants up the ridges and into the Warwick mountains. Scenic views in peril The Chester Golf project includes scenic views that are protected in the town’s ridge overlay district. Tracy Schuh of The Preservation Collective provided photos of pristine scenery along these ridges that might be compromised by the project. While 80 homes are currently planned for the protected area, the alternative is to move some of them down to several scenic meadows along the rural Bull Mill Road. Schuh told The Chronicle that photographs taken by the developer’s consultant would not show the real impact of cutting into the ridge. “Based on the public’s comments, the board or applicant should be using a visual simulation model software to determine what, if any, impacts there are from the project,” she said. Chester’s parks and recreation department has in recent years been bringing groups of hikers up to enjoy the views. Schuh added that the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, the planning board’s own landscape architect, and the new planner have all expressed concern about building in the protected overlay. Even in the best-case scenario, deep cuts would have to be made into the mountain for road cuts and driveways. While the ridge protection overlay does not prevent houses from being built in the ridge area, it requires that the buildings remain hidden or blended into the landscape. Planning board Chair Don Serotta said nothing is definite yet. Some of these houses will be moved around, he said, but added that to tuck the houses beneath the ridgeline would harm endangered or threatened species in the lowlands and put high-density housing along the rural road. State biologists want to protect migratory paths, he said The town’s new planner for this project, Ted Fink, suggested that some towns faced with similar alternatives have chosen a third option: to cluster some houses, as in a group of condominiums.

Owner Steve Sherman is willing to sell the house and lot for “a minimal price, say $40,000 if a sponsor could be found and if it were determined that renovations could be made without disturbing its historic value.”

'The little red house’
The Ira Bull House dates back to the 1790s. Most experts believe the house was likely built by, or at least with, Ira’s father, Richard Bull.
The Bull family is legendary in this area. William, the first Bull to settle here, didn’t have money enough even to leave the ship that brought him to America from Ireland. But Daniel Cromline hired William right from the ship’s deck to build Greycourt, Chester’s earliest known settlement, in the fields of what is now Pine Hill Farm. His fine stonework can be seen in the Cromline House (now Roe Farms) and the Bull Stone House in Hamptonburg, which he built in 1722.
It was William Bull who inscribed the year 1716 into the chimney stones at Greycourt. The stones were saved when the settlement was razed more than 100 years later and inserted into the wall of the house at Hamptonburgh, where he married Sarah Wells.
William died in 1855 at the age of 66, while Sarah, a legend in her own right, lived to 102. She was orphaned as a child, and in 1712 became the area’s first female settler, and later the first Orange County matriarch. She and William had 12 children and 98 grandchildren. Richard was their first son.
The Bull Stone House is open for visitors by appointment. It is still the site of expansive family gatherings and historic events.
On the other side of town, at another crossroad, Richard and Ira built the “little red house.”