About Wilmington's Brandywine Hundred

Once considered eligible for the Natiional Register of Historic Places, Brandywine Hundred's Murphy House was demolished yesterday. The Nemours Foundation, owners of the children's hospital across the road, had agreed to restore the Murphy House . Those who fought to preserve the build­ing said they felt double-crossed by the state it trusted to enforce deed restrictions im­posed in 2008 when it sold the acre at 1601 Rockland Road to Nemours for $10 and a promise to preserve the farmhouse.

A deed restriction on the property was recently lifted by the State, and although Delaware Greenways proposed using the house as a trailhead for a bike program, the Nemours Foundation chose to take advantage of the lifting of restrictions and turn a deaf ear to the Greenways proposal. An earlier offer by Nemours to contribute $50,000 towards moving the house found no takers, to no one's surprise. Nemours had paid $10 for the house originally as part of a package to create parkland and trails in the area to satisfy nearby Astra Zeneca, a large pharmaceutical company when they were looking for a facility to expand their business.

So as local preservationist James Hanby, Sr., has noted, "The Murphy House represents the 99%, it is the story of the rest of us--a small family home... The Nemours Mansion (across the road and on the grounds of the children's hospital) clearly represents the 1%-- the home base of a titan of industry and the center of an empire that spanned thousands of acres of land both here and in Florida. The difference is this, A.I. DuPont cared about the common man, he understood that with his great wealth came with great responsibility. Here is a man who wrote personal checks to many senior folks on a monthly basis who were retired and had nothing in the days before Social Security. This and many other like actions tell me that Mr. DuPont was a man of honor who would have seen the importance of saving and restoring this humble farm house as much or more then he would have consented to spend $38,000,000 restoring his home. Especially if he had gotten it based on agreeing to restore it. His word was his bond. He believed in the people who worked for him and how they lived meant something to him. He could have very clearly removed this house from it's place near his mansion grounds had he thought it had no purpose or importance."

Thanks to Mr. Hanby for these photos.

Efforts to preserve the endangered Murphy House in Wilmington have encountered yet another setback as Delaware Secretary of Transportation, Shailen Bhatt signed paperwork changing the usage of the property. The modification to the usage includes the razing of the Murphy house, keeping ownership of the property with the Nemours Foundation, and ensuring the the property remains open space. Though efforts have been made by residents, elected officials, Preservation Delaware, Delaware Greenways and other non-profits urging Nemours to forgo demolition of the Murphy House, it appears that this is what will happen. I received this plea from Preservation Delaware.

A Plea from Larry Hoover, SaveTheMurphyHouse.Org, to email Nemours Foundation to save the William Murphy House in Wilmington Delaware:

Brandywine Hundred is an area of New Castle County, Delaware, which is defined as the area West of the Delaware River, South of the State line with Pennsylvania, East of the Brandywine River, and North of I-95 and the City of Wilmington. The area contains the Zip codes of 19803 and 19809. The only incorporated area within Brandywine Hundred is the town of Bellefonte, which is in the 19809 Zip code. To confuse you further, Claymont has another Zip code 19703, but is not an incorporated area. So the folks in 19803 and most of 19809 (except for Bellefonte), list their address as "Wilmington."

So much of New Castle County is not incorporated that when newcomers are transferred here and they buy a house in "Wilmington," they think they live in the City of Wilmington. But no! Unless you live in the city limits, you DO NOT get to vote for the Mayor and City Council, but you DO get to vote for the County Executive and County Council.

Confused yet? I took the above table of statistics from a market report for the first half of the year from our local listing service, TREND. To find Brandywine Hundred, you need to look at 19803 and 19809 in the first table, and 19703 for Bellefonte in the second table.

From these statistics, you can see that the 3 Zip code areas came out with very different numbers. All areas were down in the number of solds, 19703 by the least, followed by 19803 and bottomed out by 19809 at almost 31%. Prices were another story, with 19803 prices down less than 3%, followed by 19809 at over 11%, and 19703 down by almost 28%.

So it depends where you sit, as to how you interpret the scene. Today, I am choosing to sit (not literally) on the shore of the Delaware River at Fox Point Park, in winter, looking south toward the Delaware Memorial Bridges (they are twins) and New Jersey on the other side, and the sky reflected in a puddle. And just to catch you up on "Localspeak," the State was divided into Hundreds in Colonial times, supposedly on an English custom of dividing areas which could raise 100 soldiers for the King (or something like that, since no one remembers the reason).

Poet Robert Frost may have said "Good fences make good neighbors," but I say good neighbors with snow blowers are more precious than gold.

I have been working at clearing my driveway in spells today, not looking forward to trying to get through the 4' high wall left by the snowplow. Just as I was approaching the "wall," not even considering shoveling the long sidewalk to the north, the sound of a snow blower was heard. There was a neighbor from 4 houses down steadily chugging down the block clearing sidewalks. Most people had already gotten through to the street and its wall of snow. He could see I was dreading this job, and miracle of miracles, he worked on the wall and its icy contents until the way was clear.

I can at least get out of my driveway now, and am hoping the snow predicted for tomorrow amounts to nothing. (fingers crossed!)

This graph is an update on the number of homes for sale and sold in the last 6 months in Brandywine Hundred. As you can see, the number for sale has held relatively steady, while sales have ebbed and flowed. Presently, at the end of January, 2011, there are 290 homes on the market from $200-999,999, 57 pending sales, and 262 homes in this category have sold since July 10, 2010.