SWAMPSCOTT, MA — The push to save the deteriorating Gen. Glover House in Swampscott could soon be intensifying after an impassioned plea from Select Board member Doug Thompson at this week’s meeting.
The Swampscott Historical Society and Save The Glover Farmhouse advocacy group have been raising funds and generating support to save the building where the Revolutionary War general once lived in recent years with the town stepping in to facilitate that preservation as the property faced demolition as part of a proposed new housing development.
But movement both on saving the home — which has fallen into deep disrepair as it’s stood abandoned in recent years — and the proposed “friendly 40B” affordable housing development itself has slowed with Thompson requesting immediate action from the town while the building is still salvageable.
“We are sitting here in Swampscott with a (historical) jewel that is rotting away,” Thompson said. “We have a landowner who we have been trying to work with and it is not going anywhere despite incredible efforts. So I just want to make sure everyone knows that we are sitting here while this is just frittering, literally and figuratively.
“I’m done being hopeful and patient about it because we are going to sit here and all feel like it was on our watch that this thing crumbled and nothing happened. … It is time for us to move because it not something that we can do something about next year.”
Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald called the decaying property “one of our nation’s greatest treasures” and said he met with the property owner about two weeks ago, adding that he does “believe (the owner) cares about preserving that history.”
“It’s taken us six months with all our your incredible patience and diligence and respect and everything else to allow a tarp to go on this building and it is still not happened,” Thompson countered. “It’s ridiculous. We’re not trying to do anything that would be harmful to anybody. We need cooperation. Because that piece of property is sitting there in a delinquent state.
“There are other things that we could be doing and that we should be doing. … It’s time to move.”
Gen. Glover was one of Marblehead’s key Revolutionary War figures with his regiment helping enforce trade sanctions against the British and then assisting in George Washington’s army at a series of critical moments of the Revolution — including the crossing of the Delaware River during a raging snowstorm for an attack on Christmas night 1776.
The 250-year-old farmhouse near the borders of Salem and Marblehead was turned into a renowned restaurant called the General Glover House in 1957 before its closing nearly 30 years ago. Since then, it has fallen into a state of neglect as the town and property owners haggled over the future of the property.
In 2022, town meeting members voted in favor of a multi-family overlay district for the property that could be developed into 96 units of dwelling — which will include affordable housing — in Swampscott, with another 44 units in Marblehead. Eighteen of the 96 Swampscott units were to be designated as “affordable housing” —helping the town get closer to the 10 percent inventory threshold necessary to avoid being susceptible to 40B housing proposals that are allowed to avoid many local zoning bylaws.
Town advocates were able to — at least temporarily — stave off the demolition of the house through a subsequent public campaign but have since made little progress on its proposed restoration.
“I think the frustrating part is that we’ve been ‘almost there’ for (awhile),” Fitzgerald said. “We need a partner. The goal here is that we can have a partner to help us.”
“There are so many other important things that need to happen there,” Thompson said. “The housing, other things, need to happen there.
“But we can’t wait around forever.”
(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
Click Here: penrith panthers jersey