The Many Unique Features of Veblen House -- a 1920s Prefab

Below are compiled writings and photos of the many special features of the Veblen House--a prefab of unusual construction and style that was moved from Morristown, NJ to Princeton in 1930 by the Whiton-Stuarts, then bought and augmented by the Veblens in 1941. 

It was bequeathed to Mercer County in 1974, to be added to Herrontown Woods. The will states the Veblens' vision for the house: "and in addition thereto I give and bequeath all of my pictures, radio receivers and phonograph records to the said County, to be kept by it in the house herein devised as a part of the proposed library and museum of Herrontown Wood."

That vision was not realized by Mercer County. Instead, the house was rented out, then closed down and largely abandoned in 1998. In 2017, the Friends of Herrontown Woods fought off demolition, facilitated safe transfer of ownership to Princeton municipality, and now lease the House with the goal of rehabilitation as a place for meetings, small concerts, talks, museum exhibits, and nature learning.

THE HOUSE

1939 Description of the House

Veblen House in the 1950s 

Some Beautiful Features of Veblen House

Distinctive Windows of Veblen House

A Roof That's Lasted 85 Years

• The Durable Tin Top

Balusters from "It's a Wonderful Life"

The Double Walls

Ornamentation on the Outside

1930s Insulation 

Housewrap Made of Sisal

Fun little clues found inside the walls of Veblen House

• Writings on the Inner Walls
• Who Was James Demarest?
• Initials in Old Bricks

The Wallboard

The Veblens' Furnishings, including Einstein's Chests

The Artwork on the Walls

• Charles Oppenheimer 
• Kate Cory

An Antique Septic Tank

Exterior Drainage

THE GARDEN AND GROUNDS

Spring flowers

Elizabeth's daffodils

The Longtime Caretaker

The Horse Run

The Hay Barrack

Related Post:

The Veblens' Original Vision for Herrontown Woods, Veblen House and Cottage

Inside a Very Old Septic Tank at Veblen House

It's been nearly four years since I discovered the old septic tank for Veblen House, some fifty feet east of the house. A combination of the tank's thick concrete lid and a whole bunch of distractions had kept us from following up, until yesterday. 

Some magical combination of volunteer chemistry finally stirred in us the courage to take on the concrete lid. After four years, it had grown over with myrtle and partially disappeared under years of leaves. 

However, our procrastination may have been strategically helpful. Perhaps it was prolonged exposure to the elements that created some cracks in the concrete, making it possible to remove it in pieces.

With the lid removed, we were finally able to look at how this very old septic tank once functioned. 

Unlike a more modern septic tank, this one is round, built mostly of cinder blocks. Several courses of bricks were laid around the top to narrow the opening. A pipe came in from the house sewer system, 

and another pipe headed out and down the slope, presumably to a leach field. There had been some question as to whether this would be a cesspool rather than a septic tank, but some research suggests that cesspools lack any outgoing pipe.

Though the septic tank hasn't been used in 25 years, it was nearly filled with water, which we assume is groundwater that has penetrated through the walls. The tank is about six feet deep, with less than a foot of muck at the bottom, as best we could tell. 

It's extremely unlikely that we'd be able to use this old tank for house septic, but it is a historic artifact that we're glad to now know a little more about. We carefully covered it back up, our curiosity satisfied.

Installations and Spring Cleanings on the Veblen House Grounds

The Veblen House project is very much about utilizing "found" materials. Herrontown Woods and the house itself can be considered "found," in that they have undergone a process of discovery and recovery by volunteers after years of institutional neglect. The latest "finding" by the Friends of Herrontown Woods consists of some old plastic decking that we managed to spare a trip to the landfill. Volunteer Robert Chong asked if we could use the 20 year old planks he was replacing at his home in West Windsor. 

The offer fit perfectly with our plans for a stage for performances on the Veblen House grounds. Some of the boards had warped somewhat over the years, and we were going to let Robert throw those out until we realized we could lay them on the ground, as a base for the 4x4's to be laid over top.

Though the black locust 4x4's are rot resistant, having them not directly touching the ground should help them to last even longer.

The final layer of this reuse sandwich was the most serviceable plastic decking planks, creating a nice flat, durable surface for performers. Thanks to Robert for not only donating the materials but helping put the stage together.

Elsewhere on the grounds, our friend Victorino, whom I think of as a chain saw virtuoso and an angel, for all the help he gives us, cut up red maple logs that had been lying in front of the Veblen House since the trees were felled last year. Several volunteers--Owen, Andy, Becca and Andrew--helped move the wood away from the house for future splitting.

There's also a new trail up to Veblen House from the parking lot, with a bridge over some muddy ground. It too is built using found materials--the very long pallet upon which Robert's new decking had arrive, and some scavenged planks. The new trail follows a stream, and passes by what once was a fenced in garden where Elizabeth Veblen propagated her daffodils. 

The fish pond next to Veblen House got a spring cleaning, thanks to Inge Regan, who dug a foot of muck out of the bottom. 

She was happy to find the pond has a flat bottom, not seen in two decades. 

Elsewhere on the grounds, "food forests" of pawpaw, hazelnut, plum and butternut were getting vines pulled and protective cages repaired. 

What makes all of this worth the effort? It's the beauty and tranquility of the setting that certainly must have cast a spell on the Veblens when they bought the house in 1941, and now casts a spell upon us. 

 

Some Early Spring Flowers on the Veblen House Grounds

Since we removed the wisteria, honeysuckle, and other invasive plants that long obscured the Veblen House grounds, it has become possible to enjoy the remnants of Elizabeth Veblen's garden. Snowdrops, here in a photo by Joan Marr, peak in late March,

followed by a wave of Scilla at the beginning of April.

The first couple weeks of April are also prime time for daffodils, with most of them likely planted by Elizabeth Veblen and her groundskeeper Max Latterman. 

We've sought to restore some of the daffodils in the meadow, where mowing by the county in past decades had greatly reduced their numbers. Daffodils won't survive in a lawn if their leaves are mowed down before the underground bulbs have stored enough solar energy for the next year's bloom. 

A Japanese andromeda flatters the backside of the house,

and the second week of April brings blooms of a few remaining primrose, 

along with a couple clusters of a pretty flowers called "snowflake." It has the genus name Leukojum, in the Amaryllis family. 

Photos from the 1950s show a garden resplendent with tulips and fruit trees--apple, pear and quince. The tulips fell to the rising deer population, and only one pear tree remains from the small orchard that surrounded the house.

Elizabeth died in 1974, but the gardens were maintained to some extent for years afterwards, by the Dogwood Garden Club that used to hold its meetings at the house, and by the Wells family that rented the house from Mercer County until 1998. Wisteria vines took over in the years of neglect that followed.

Native plantings have been added by the Friends of Herrontown Woods since it formed in 2013, mostly in the form of raingardens that divert runoff away from the house. Though many spring ephemerals are blooming in the woodlands beyond the house grounds, the raingarden natives are only now beginning to stir, and won't bloom until summer.

A Dry Stone Waller Visits Veblen House

It was an improbable chain of events that brought a dry stone waller to Veblen House. First, the local Town Topics newspaper published a new year's day article about our latest progress in saving Veblen House. Of the photos I sent them, they chose this one--featuring the circular stone horserun with the Veblen House in the background--to publish with the article. Little did we know how and where that article might travel.

Ten days later, a message came via our Friends of Herrontown Woods website:

"Hello!! I am writing to you because a friend of mine from the Dry Stone Walling Association of Canada sent me a link to your article in the Town Topics about rebuilding the walls at the Veblen House. I am a dry stone waller from Vermont. The irony is that I grew up in Princeton as a child (ages 5 to 18) and lived down the street from Herrontown Woods!! I Went to Riverside School and Herrontown was just a bike ride away for me and my friends. Luckily we grew up without electronic devices and riding your bike and exploring the woods (and Lake Carnegie) was what we did. In fact, I have done the creek walk that connects Herrontown to Carnegie. These explorations of the woods was what eventually lead me to Vermont. 

I am now a dry stone waller here in Vermont and travel all over for work and dry stone festivals. I am also a teacher at The Stone Trust here in Dummerston, Vermont. Please check out the website. You will see that we are an educational center teaching the art and craft of dry stone walling. I would love to help with the restoration of the walls at the Veblen House. Their are many ways to go about restoring old walls and I would could help if you're interested. Have you thought about a workshop? I have been a part of many public workshops that people learn the craft and as walls get rebuilt. 

Have a great day and stay warm.
Torben Larsen
Windham Growers Inc. 

Herrontown Woods is most strikingly a combination of trees, rocks, and water. In my environmental work I've encountered organizations focused on trees or water, but never stones. At this point, I wasn't sure whether the walls he was talking about were the foundation walls for the buildings or the many rock walls in the woods left from a past agricultural era. A look at The Stone Trust website, whose motto is "In stones we trust," clarified what a dry stone waller does. The website opens up a new world where assemblages of stones--functional or fanciful--are juxtaposed with assemblages of people. Their faces glow with pride and satisfaction that seems rooted in the outdoor walls they have just constructed. Through collective action, the people become part of something larger than themselves, as do the stones that become part of a lovely stone wall. The way the photos are composed, the people connect to something elemental, while the stones seem to gain in humanity. Lately I've been musing that there is something soulful in wood that rubs off on those who work with it. Might stones have a gift to impart to us as well?

I contacted Torben, and a week or so later when he happened to be in NJ he came by for a visit. Soon he was explaining the logic of a stone wall. Gravity and friction are key to building a wall that will last 500 years. Stack "one on two," which is to say place each rock so that it straddles two rocks below. That way, part of its weight will rest on each of the two rocks. "One on three" is a weaker arrangement, because one of the three rocks underneath will be loose.

And be sure to "break your seams." Some areas of the horserun have running seams. The photo shows a couple running seams on the left, where a vertical line runs down through multiple layers of stone. Resting each stone on two stones below breaks the seams. Still, the horserun has endured pretty well, despite breaking some of the rules.

Each country has its own style of walling. I explained that the horserun was reportedly built by a German immigrant back in the 1930s, though it's unclear if he had brought any German stone-building heritage with him when he came to the States.

Taking a closer look at the horserun, I noticed its core is made up of smaller stones embraced by the larger stones lining the inner and outer faces of the wall. Torben called this "hearting."

Maybe all the king's horses and all the king's men will have more luck repairing this "check end" than they had with Humpty Dumpty. The sheer weight of the stones will pose a challenge, though. Torben said that this particular kind of stone weighs 175 pounds per cubic foot. He had some ideas about how the stones were originally lifted into place, but that didn't make it into my notes.

We then took a walk through Herrontown Woods, which surely is a kind of heaven for Torben, with all its boulders. While I tend to see the boulders as nature's artwork not to be disturbed, each with distinct shape and pattern of moss and lichen, Torben was seeing the rocks more as they must have been viewed in the 19th or early 20th centuries,

when the diabase boulders were being quarried for stone. One area of Herrontown Woods is pock-marked with the holes where boulders once stood, before they were split into pieces and carted away for various uses.

This block of stone must have marked the end of the quarry era, as it was never taken. Torben called the series of holes along the cracks "feather and wedging."

To be a stone waller is to be part of a network few of us have ever heard of. Torben is certified in Britain, and travels there periodically for stone walling events. Every now and then a gathering of rock wallers will do what Torben calls a "crazy build," like a "30 foot bridge, dry-laid," which is to say it's a bridge with a 30 foot span and nothing holding the stones together other than gravity and friction. He mentioned Sunny Wieler of Ireland, who builds intricate stone sculptures. We will never look at a stone wall the same way again.

Hopefully, Torben will return to Princeton to conduct a workshop, much like the ones The Stone Trust leads in Vermont.

After Torben headed back to his stone walling job elsewhere in NJ, I was still curious about the woman in Canada who came across the Town Topics article and is responsible for pointing Torben in our direction. Andrea Cross wrote a nice email back from her well-connected island in Lake Ontario:

"Great to hear from you!

I came across the article during the course of my daily business research which is focused on cultural heritage projects around the world. It was an active google search not an alert. 

You are right the story about the connections is pretty amazing.
Here I am living and working from an island in Lake Ontario and I come across your project. What moved me to take a second look was the lovely photograph with the dry stone structure in the foreground that was crying out to me to be restored!

I was professionally interested in your group’s efforts to create an interpretive or visitor center. However the stones spoke to me and it was an exciting “aha” moment...I am assuming Torben told you that I am active in the Dry Stone Walling Association of Canada and helping organize many international festivals which is how I met Torben.

The article was especially well written compared with many I come across. I was moved and inspired by the success and drive of your group.
I thought of Torben and the Stone Trust in Vermont - maybe they might take on the project for you.
On a more personal note my father, who recently passed away at the age of 93, had a love of mathematics and would have been excited to hear of the connection.

In his career he worked at the Microwave Physics Lab in Palo Alto when they were developing laser technology and was one of three people from his company sent to launch one of the successful Moon Bounce operations that moved communications forward in a big way. Mathematics being key.
Anyway....All this is to say I am cheering you on !!

I had mentioned to Torben, if I may help in any way let me know." 

Cheers
Andrea Cross
Amherst Island

Antique Septic Tank Found at Veblen House

This isn't the sort of discovery that will float everyone's boat, but it relates to a subject as profound as the most daunting enigma of mathematics or physics. Nature mastered the nutrient and carbon cycles long ago. If we're so smart, why haven't we? In nature, there is no such thing as waste. Everything is utilized, while our stubbornly linear economy leaves pollution and trash in its wake. As brilliant minds unlock the secrets of the universe, persistent questions on earth go unanswered.

A couple weeks ago, after yet another spring rain had left the Veblen House grounds even more saturated than before, it occurred to me that this would be the perfect time to explore how the Veblen House used to deal with nutrient cycling. Word had it that there was a septic tank somewhere on the grounds. They usually are buried a foot or so down, which requires probing the ground with a metal rod. With the soil so soft, a metal "tree feeder" worked well enough. You push it in here and there, hoping to encounter something solid. Someone with a good ear and feel can tell if it's a septic tank or a rock. Things start getting definitive when one makes multiple probes several feet this way or that and finds the same obstruction at the same depth. Once the tank's extent is determined, it's time to start digging.

That's what I did, and this is what I found, with the digging assistance of friend Andrew. The shape, though, was different from a normal septic tank--round rather than rectangular--and though the lid is concrete, the underlying tank itself appears to be made of brick and mortar. It appeared to be an antique form.

A likely likeness was seconds away on the internet. Type "septic tank history" into google, and this image pops up, along with a brief history of the septic tank.

A Frenchman named Mouras built the first one back in 1860. What may come as a surprise is that after ten years of use, he opened it up and found almost no solid waste. This fits with what I've heard about composting toilets, and also about the way we metabolize food. Our internal combustion is a magic show that turns solid fuel into invisible carbon dioxide gas. Much of what began as food escapes as "exhaust" each time we exhale. Run a 5K and you'll likely find yourself lighter, primarily from burning energy and breathing. We are made mostly of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen--all elements that come from the air. "Dust to dust" may be a memorable saying, but there is very little of the earth in us, or what we leave behind.

There are other structures on the Veblen grounds that suggest an even earlier version of a septic system. It's not clear if the latest find was still in use when the house was last occupied, or if a more modern version is buried somewhere nearby. Figuring out how all of these functioned will tell a story that continues to this day, as humanity struggles to emulate nature's marvelously sustainable cycling of nutrients and carbon.

There's always hope on the horizon, as an Australian company that's changing the world "from the bottom up" offers a composting toilet to replace chemical porta-potties in Australia, and a few options exist on the fringes of the linear economy in the U.S..

Making the Grade at Veblen House

Sometimes, the truth is in the ground, waiting to be discovered. While awaiting permission to restore the house itself, we have been restoring the original grade around the house, an important step as the slope of the ground determines whether rainwater runs towards the house or safely away.

Aerial photographs from the 1930s show bare ground in the shape of an oval where the house was being built by wealthy and unconventional Manhattanite Jesse Paulmier Whiton-Stuart. It took awhile for us to notice, but there are two ovals around Veblen House--one an oval of stone, the other an earthen berm that used to include a split rail fence. They may have had aesthetic or sentimental value for Whiton-Stuart--a lover of horses who may have enjoyed the idea of living inside a corral--but they also can serve to deflect runoff away from the house. All this circularity must have appealed as well to geometer Oswald Veblen when he and Elizabeth bought the house in 1941.

Long after the Veblens were gone, gravel was added around the house, probably in the 1980s. It may have served a purpose at the time but raised the ground level up to the wooden siding, making the house appear to be too low compared to the surrounding ground. A 2011 Mercer County study called for the house to be raised, at considerable cost.

Our approach has been instead to lower the ground to its original level. It may well have been my third grade teacher who planted the seeds of this logic, when she told the story of a big truck that got stuck under a bridge. There the truck remained while grownups puzzled over what to do. Raise the bridge? Cut the top off the truck? Nothing seemed to make sense. Then a boy happened by, saw the poor truck that couldn't go forward or back, and quietly suggested, "Why don't you let the air out of the tires?" That's the power of stories for you.

Most of the work has been done by Andrew Thornton, a local handyman who loves to work with stone and ground to build trails and raingardens.

As he dug through the layers around the house, he discovered a progression of stone, the prettiest of which was the deepest and likely the original.

A reddish stone gravel was on top, with a gray rough sand underneath, and the yellowish pebbles below.

Mixed in are clinkers, or slag, from the days when the house was heated with coal.

Digging down through the extra gravel has exposed an old gas pipe, which fed gas into the house from a tank, and an electrical wire leading to the garage.

Now that water can flow once again away from the house, Andrew was digging a route for it to escape the inner oval when he came upon an old concrete drain that had long been hidden ten inches underground. Andrew's instinct about where the water should flow proved to be the original owner's as well.

The drain feeds into a pipe that is part of an elaborate system meant to keep the house dry despite its low position in the landscape.

We had a similarly serendipitous experience while restoring another part of the stone wall. Deciding to build steps leading up through the wall, we began digging out a spot for the steps when we encountered big stone steps already in place, hidden just a few inches underground.

Anyone who read The Great Escape, about POWs who secretly dug a tunnel to escape a concentration camp during WWII, knows that all the excavated material needs a place to go. The red gravel has become an oval walkway around the house that will divert surface runoff away from the foundation.

The gray sand has become a berm to catch runoff coming down the slope and use it to feed a raingarden.

Plant labels will help our species get acquainted with the raingarden's species.

The excavation and redistribution was completed in time for the June 24 picnic to celebrate Oswald Veblen's 138th birthday.

Plant Workday at Veblen House This Sunday

Join us this Sunday, June 11 at 10am, before the day heats up, to pull garlic mustard before its seedpods have a chance to burst. We'll have some refreshments on hand, the better to socialize while snipping off the seedpods. Veblen House is up the gravel driveway across the street from 443 Herrontown Rd, or walk up from the main Herrontown Woods parking lot off of Snowden (map here).

This is Stage II of creating an ecological campus on the Veblen grounds. Stage I, largely complete, included the removal of wisteria, Japanese aralia, and the invasive brush that had obscured the historic features of the grounds.

Removal of garlic mustard will protect and free up space for new plantings, some of which are already in place.

For more on garlic mustard and the workday, there's a related post at PrincetonNatureNotes.org.

Here's a weed we'll allow to grow: moth mullein, a few fine specimens of which have popped up in the horse run next to the house.

Hazelnuts and Pawpaws in the Ground

We had a good workday this past Sunday, with three board members and three additional volunteers. Here, board member Sally Tazelaar and Laura Strong are planting one of the 16 hazelnut plants rescued from a construction site nearby. Stan de Riel donated nine pawpaws grown from seed collected locally.

A strong theme in our restoration of the Veblen grounds is the use of donated materials, skills and time. The stakes next to each new tree, and the protective fencing to be added later, are also of the "found" variety.

Of course, by far the most important "found" material is the buildings on the site: the Veblen House, cottage, garage, barn and corncrib at the site. The Friends of Herrontown Woods has officially submitted its detailed proposal to acquire and repair these historic structures, at no cost to county or town.

The planting was done in an area cleared of invasive shrubs by board member Kurt Tazelaar. In the middle of this aerial photo from 1988 is a square open area. We're turning some of that area into an unusual native orchard for nut and fruit trees. The woodland opening will expand as the many ash trees growing nearby are lost to Emerald Ash Borer. Sunday's planting will help insure that diverse native species are in place to catch the additional sunlight as the forest thins.

Meanwhile, some daffodils that have long ornamented a spring drive up Snowden Lane are being rescued prior to pending construction. They will be planted in the Veblen field.

Thanks to all who lent their spirit, skill and energy to the workday.

Hazelnut, PawPaw, and Daffodil Planting this Sunday, April 2, 2-4pm

Thanks to a former tenant of the Veblen House, we have many photos that show the Veblen's garden in the 1950s, when both the famous mathematician and his wife were still alive. In this photo, the field to the left of the house is filled with daffodils, a particular passion of Elizabeth's. Though daffodils look lovely in a field, they tend to die out if the field gets mowed before the daffodil leaves have harvested enough solar energy to make blooms the next year. That's probably why the field today is nearly empty of daffodils.

This Sunday, April 2 from 2-4pm, you're invited to join us as we continue the ecological and historical restoration of the Veblen grounds. Two recent events make Sunday's workday auspicious. Two weeks ago the field in this photo was badly damaged by two trucks that drove down to the house and got stuck. All those deep ruts and bare ground, along with daffodils available for rescue on a construction site nearby, suggested an opportunity to bring back daffodils to the field. That should be a fun project for volunteers. If we plant daffodils in the ruts, we'll want to make sure the field doesn't get mowed this spring, or in springs to come.

Daffodils have more to do with restoring history than ecology. More of an ecological nature, we'll also plant some rescued local native hazelnuts and pawpaws in areas recently cleared of invasive brush near Veblen House. As with the pawpaws planted last year, we'll stake and protect the new plantings with wire fencing. The plantings are part of the envisioned "ecological campus" on the grounds surrounding the Veblen House and Cottage, on the east side of Herrontown Woods.

Here's another view of the field that Elizabeth Veblen had planted with daffodils. She grew up in York, England, where daffodils ornament the berms of castles.

You're encouraged to come whether you can do physical work or not. You can always lend moral support and hear the latest news. We'll have refreshments. Kids welcome. Park down the driveway across the street from 443 Herrontown Rd, or walk up from the Herrontown Woods main parking lot.

UPDATE ON OUR PROPOSAL TO ACQUIRE AND REPAIR THE VEBLEN HOUSE AND COTTAGE: Two months ago, the Friends of Herrontown Woods submitted an official proposal to Mercer County to acquire and restore the Veblen House and cottage, to create a Veblen Center and ecological campus on the surrounding grounds. In particular, the house is of sound structure with wonderful custom interior. Though we have made great progress restoring the grounds of Veblen House, the county has not as yet given us permission to begin repairs of the buildings. We have submitted the insurance we believe sufficient to handle any liability concerns, so that we can begin repairing the buildings as soon as possible. Having demonstrated our skill and dedication by caring for the 140 acre county-owned Herrontown Woods over the past four years, we are awaiting a county response to our proposal so that we can negotiate a means to put these historic structures on a positive trajectory.