SWAMPSCOTT — A team of Swampscott developers is working with the town’s Historical Commission to reimagine the former Marian Court College, also known as White Court.
Centercorp principals Andrew Rose and Mark Klaman, along with Nick Meninno and Bruce Paradise, who all live in town, plan on redeveloping the property into 18 oceanfront condominiums. The units, which will be restricted to those 55 and older, will be priced at $2.25 million and will be somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 square feet.
Klaman previously said that the existing White Court mansion will be converted into six condominiums and two more buildings on either side of it will have six condominums each.
But Meninno, of Meninno Construction, said the condition of the building’s foundation has caused plans to shift from preserving and converting the existing mansion to taking apart and reconstructing the mansion, preserving as much of White Court as possible.
The Historical Commission expressed concern about the possible demolition and at its most recent meeting discussed imposing a possible nine-month demolition delay. The developers have submitted an application to the town for a demolition permit.
“I was hugely shocked because my initial reading was White Court was going to be saved,” said Sylvia Belkin, vice-chair of the Historical Commission. “Our job is to preserve and protect historic properties. That’s what we do. My job is to preserve and protect what we have in this community. Rebuild to me is not preservation. I would find it very difficult to support tearing down.”
Meninno said in order to save White Court, the developers need to go in and categorize and take apart and restore any windows, certain lighting, some doors, possibly some flooring, fireplace mantles and some fireplace surroundings. He said the plan is to take any historical architecture of components that have survived abuse over the years and remove, restore and repurpose them when reconstructing White Court.
“Our mission has always been to maintain the architecture, maintain the massing, keep the same location where White Court was perched on top of the hill,” Meninno said. “Our saving of White Court is going to mean rebuilding that and we’re committed to working closely with the (town’s) Historical Commission and letting them be a big part of the process.
“We’re committed to putting back together a very delicate architecturally designed building, but it’s not going to be in the true form of restoration. It’s going to be taken apart and rebuilt. We’re not going in with bulldozers to knock it down. “(We’re going to) take the building apart and salvage what is salvageable and reconstruct the building. In our minds, that’s different from preservation, but it’s also different from knocking it down.”
The 28-room, oceanfront mansion on Littles Point Road was purchased by CC White Court LLC, an entity of Centercorp Retail Properties, last month for $2.75 million, according to the Essex District Registry of Deeds.
The 6.2-acre property, which was acquired from the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Northeast Community, Inc., is assessed at $5.8 million and includes two buildings and green space. It was built in 1895 and previously served as the summer White House for President Calvin Coolidge.
Meninno said the new building will be reconstructed with elements from the existing mansion. For example, he said there are six to eight windows that are part of the original architecture, which will be carefully disassembled and taken apart and restored. The rest of the windows on the building are vinyl from the 1970s or 1980s.
Meninno said there’s an iron front door and beautiful electrical light sconce as part of the front door, which is going to be carefully removed, restored and repurposed in the new building. The columns and massing of the building will all be carefully measured, recorded, saved and transferred into the rebuilt White Court, he said.
There are currently add-ons on either side of the mansion that have happened over the years that have no bearing on the original building. The developers’ original plan to demolish those and replace them with the new buildings remains the same.
Meninno said the add-ons include about 11,000 square feet on the right of the building that was added in the 1960s to 1980s, an auditorium and many classrooms, which is all going to go away.
Meninno said the college also filled in the open porches in the back with vinyl windows and siding, and turned it into more classroom or assembly space. He said what was once open decks and railing that faced the water was filled in by the college, which dramatically changed the look and feel of the original house.
“Once that is brought back more like the original design, we think it will be a fantastic improvement,” Meninno said.
White Court has been used for the past 60 years as various schools (including a kindergarten, secretarial school, and 2- and 4-year colleges) and was poorly maintained, which has led to the slow deterioration of the building.
Meninno said changing the plan from renovating the existing building to reconstructing it was a progression that happened over time. He said what’s changed is realizing the condition of the foundation, such as the condition of the vinyl siding put in the 1980s on top of the thick concrete stucco that the team thinks was put on in the 1930s on top of wood.
Any time there’s wood unprotected with stucco and encapsulated with vinyl wrap, Meninno said there’s issues created with mold. In addition, he said all of the windows, besides six to eight original ones, have to be replaced.
He said the building has to be gutted right to the studs and brought up to structural code. Not only does the exterior of the building have to be stripped to the bones, most of the bones have to be replaced or reinforced.
Meninno said the only chance to save White Court is to save components of the building and carefully reconstruct it, almost like a replica of the original mansion. To do that, the team is going to rely on old photographs and architectural drawings that they have dug out.
“When we walk through the lobby and columns, we want to feel like we’re walking into that 1895 design,” Meninno said. “Our team has us convinced that even with the trained eye, people won’t be able to tell it’s not White Court. It will look more like White Court did when it was in its glory.”
