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Bergen County has 192 Sandstone Houses listed on the National and State Register of Historic Places

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

New Bridge Landing NJ, Bergen County has 192 Sandstone Houses listed on the National and State Register of Historic Places as “Stone Houses of Bergen County, Thematic Resource.”

These houses really say “Bergen County”, this very distinctive building type is not known to be found anywhere else in the world. 
(Okay, there are examples in Rockland County)

Historian Kevin Wright wrote: The successful blend of freestone with Classical forms and ornament produced the Bergen Dutch cottage form. 
By 1834, Thomas Gordon would admire its distinctive aspects and describe it as “ancient,” though its oldest examples had barely stood for eighty years. He noted, “There are few spots in New Jersey presenting more pleasing attractions than this country above the Hackensack, and on the highlands on each side of the river. The houses, built in the ancient Dutch cottage form, of one full story, with its projecting pent houses, and dormitories within the slopes of the roof, are sometimes large, always painted white, and surrounded with verdant lawns, shrubbery, and well-cultivated gardens. And we may here remark, that the taste for horticulture and ornamental shrubberies, appears more general in the central and northern parts of New Jersey, than in the southern parts, or in the state of Pennsylvania.”

Some of the oldest recorded information on the sandstone houses include dates of 1755, 1763, and 1777. Many postdate the American Revolution.
The Steuben House dates to 1752 and enlarged about 1767 to what you see today. It is now preserved as a state historic site at Historic New Bridge Landing in River Edge.

I thought it would be interesting to go look for the 192 houses in the coming months and take a survey on how many are still standing. 
Here’s No. 130 on the list:
The Zabriskie-Steuben House.

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