Church of the Presidents

	The vanishing agricultural landscape in New Jersey has come to the fore as a major preservation issue in recent years. The protection of farmland and open-space is closely linked to quality of life issues in rapidly developing areas like the environs of Bernards Township in Somerset County. As a way of mitigating development pressures and to provide its residents with new recreational and cultural opportunities, the Township recently acquired the tract of land that contains the Kennedy-Martin-Stelle Farmstead. The farmstead is significant for its association with Reverend Samuel Kennedy who operated the first local schoolhouse and established farming on the site and Colonel Ephraim Martin who was a Revolutionary War hero and a lead proponent for the passage of the Bill of Rights in the New Jersey Legislature. The farmstead contains a fine complement of various agricultural buildings, most notably a unique English Barn with original and distinctive structural members, a modified Dutch framed Wagon House and a Farm House with alterations spanning three centuries. The buildings originally date from the mid-18th to the early 19th centuries. The Township of Bernards retained Historic Building Architects (HBA) to prepare a Preservation Plan to guide the buildings’ rehabilitation and adaptive use as a community resource. Because the original uses are no longer practical for the surviving structures, HBA carefully documented character-defining features and proposed new compatible uses for the historic structures. The site will be eventually listed on the New Jersey State and National Registers of Historic Places. The recently completed Preservation Plan and the urgent stabilization work at the barn structures has been funded by a historic preservation grants from the County of Somerset in 2001 and 2002. HBA provided key assistance with the preparation of the grant application to secure he most recent county award.