Park Committee Recommends Reuse of Mansion

The board of trustees charged with overseeing efforts to turn the 55-acre estate in Bethlehem Township into a public park is recommending rehabilitating a 1920s era mansion that was once a home for a former Bethlehem Steel president.

A new public facility could be used to provide classroom space for a nature center or be rented out for meetings or weddings and generate revenue for the township.

To help fund the renovation, the Housenick Committee is recommending that steps be taken to add the building be added to the National Register of Historic Places, which would make the building eligible for foundation grants.

The plans were discussed Thursday night during a special public planning meeting for the development of the Janet Johnston Housenick and William D. Housenick Memorial Park, which would be developed from the private estate the late Mrs. Housenick inherited from her father, Archibald Johnston.

Along with the estate, Housenick left a $2 million trust fund for the development and maintenance of the new park.

Johnston was an engineer and Bethlehem Steel president who was also the first mayor of Bethlehem, who planned the grounds and the mansion and kept meticulous records of most of his work, according to Evan Stone, a landscape architect with Pennoni Associates who helped craft the park master plan.

The mansion is structurally sound and remains in essentially the same condition as it was originally built, according to Kimberly J. LaBrake, another architectural consultant with MKSD Architects.

The estate lies between Santee Mill Road and Christian Springs Road. The grounds, which are host to a wide variety of plant and animal life, are already being used as a park though it has not officially been opened as such.

A master plan for developing the park, including recommendations for the mansion, will officially be presented to Township Commissioners for review on October 3.

One commissioner who is skeptical of the proposed adaptive reuse of the mansion is Michael Hudak, who said he would prefer to see the trust fund money devoted to park development exclusively. Housenick, he said, never mentioned building rehabilitation in her will and did not care for the building well in her last years.

Consultants prepared a number of options for building rehabilitation to prepare it for public use – ranging from about $70,000 to mothball for future use to $1.2 million for a complete renovation of all three floors.

Fellow Commissioner Tom Nolan disagreed, saying he is favor of all of the Housenick Committee’s recommendations.

“I think we do have a little jewel,” Nolan said.

“I think it would be a real crime not to seize this opportunity,” said John Yaswinski, a Nazareth veterinarian who grew up near the estate. “I think the more people who hear about it, the more people will want to see it.”