Historic house in disrepair awaits funds

Funds that would restore a historic but deteriorating farmhouse built in the 1700s in New Hyde Park haven't materialized, more than a year after the $500,000 state grant was promised to the Town of North Hempstead.

"We're in a holding pattern," said Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman, who estimates that it would cost more than $1 million to restore the Schumacher House. Town officials said the source of the remainder of the money has yet to be determined.

Last year, then-state Sen. Craig Johnson told the town board that the money would be available to help repair the house, a fading relic of Nassau County's potato-farming era. Civic leaders have pressed town officials to seek out the money. Johnson's office had made repeated assurances that the money would eventually be available.

Town officials feared the $500,000 was among the $12 million in grants for Long Island districts that were canceled when State Senate Democrats left office.

But state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola), who succeeded Johnson, said the money is still available and his office is working to find it. Paperwork for all grants was missing from his district office when he took over, he said.

"The grant is still there, however slowly it may be moving," Martins said. "It is now something we are aware of and actively pursuing."

Johnson said this week he doesn't know the fate of the restoration money. "But members of the majority Senate certainly can find the money for worthwhile projects if they wish," he said of Republicans.

The Schumacher House, originally owned by the Cornell family, sits in Clinton G. Martin Park, its home since the 1950s when it was moved from Lakeville Road. Around 1960, Frederick Schumacher sold it to the town.

The house is in a back corner of the park, near the tennis courts, overlooking a Party City store on busy New Hyde Park Road. Windows are cracked or boarded, the paint chipped. Bottles, shopping bags and candy wrappers litter the ground. Its roof patched with assorted pieces of plywood belies its status on the state and national registers of historic places.

"It has to have some value," for the house to be on those lists, New Hyde Park civic leader Marianna Wohlgemuth said. "They've allowed that house to be in such disrepair."

She occasionally visits the Schumacher House, where she can see rats and raccoons scamper in and out.

Kaiman said it wouldn't be prudent to spend town funds, but he does value the house's "significant history."

With Sid Cassese