QUAKER ROOTS: Built in 1781, the Princeton schoolmaster’s house, one of only two surviving Quaker schoolmaster houses in New Jersey and the only one still in use by a school, will be renovated over the next year to serve as a welcoming “front door” to Princeton Friends School and the Princeton Quaker Meeting property. (Photo Courtesy of Princeton Friends School)

During the coming year, the 1781 Schoolmaster’s House and the adjacent 19th-century barn will be renovated to serve as a welcoming “front door” to Princeton Friends School (PFS) and the historic Quaker Meeting property on Quaker Road. Erected as a residence and classroom building, the House is today one of only two surviving Quaker schoolmaster houses in New Jersey and the only one still in use by a school. 

“Though Princeton Friends School has been here for only three decades,” said founding school head Jane Fremon, “this Schoolmaster’s House renovation gives us the opportunity to hold up and celebrate the long history of Quaker education on this site, a legacy that dates back almost three centuries.

“It’s both thrilling and humbling to know that we are carrying forward, in our time and place, a radical vision of education first set forth by William Penn. Just as Penn aimed to create a more diverse, inclusive, democratic society in Philadelphia in the late 1600s, such is our work at Princeton Friends School today.”

Overseen by Historic Building Architects (HBA), in collaboration with the Trenton-based Dell-Tech construction firm, the $1.8 million project (raised in gifts and pledges, with $250,000 still needed for endowment) is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2017. The Schoolmaster’s House will contain a meeting room, a reception area and admissions office, and administrative space for the business, development and head of school offices.

The barn, restored both inside and out, will house a facilities work space and garden storage on the first floor and office space above. It will open out to the adjacent school garden.

HBA principal architect Annabelle Radcliffe-Trenner, whose two children attended PFS, described the job as a “wonderful project” and the schoolmaster’s house as “a little jewel.” She noted, “to go back and help preserve this building has an emotional pull for me as well.”

Describing their goal of simplicity and clarity in design to maintain the Quaker spirit, Ms. Radcliffe-Trenner emphasized that the buildings would have “nothing fancy.” She added, “We want to expose the old structure so people can see how it was put together. Young kids can experience what it’s like to be in a school with so much history. Kids need a sense of place.”

The goals of practicality and “elegant simplicity” will include a better floor plan, a better place to work, and, “not trying to make things look old” but “for the most part preserving the same appearance it’s always had.”

The architect described the barn as “a beautiful space,” and said they would be keeping the original character of the structure, but she noted that it “needs squaring up. It’s wobbly. The roof beams are sagging.”

At the time of the American Revolution, before the schoolmaster’s house was built, Quakers who had settled in the Stony Brook area found that the practice of boarding teachers in the homes of local Quakers discouraged all but young single men from teaching in their schools. This dilemma called for the construction of schoolmasters’ houses in settlements throughout the Delaware Valley.

The Princeton Meeting schoolmaster’s house of 1781 doubled as a classroom building until a one-room schoolhouse was built 20 years later adjacent to the 1760 meetinghouse. Children of local Quakers as well as children from the surrounding community, with no regard to family, wealth, or class attended the school.

Ms. Fremon pointed out that this year’s central study theme at PFS interweaves dynamically with the current building project. “All of us are tremendously excited about the ways in which the “Roots and Routes” theme will bring to everyone — students as well as adults — a heightened appreciation of the fact that people everywhere, throughout history, are deeply connected to the places they inhabit, are part of a long story that stretches back many centuries, and are active agents in the story of the future that is currently being written.”

PFS will be celebrating the launch of the renovations project this Sunday, December 4, with its weekly meeting for worship in the meetinghouse at 11 a.m., followed by a light lunch and at 12:45 a brief program highlighting “the significance of this project in upholding the historic legacy of the Quaker Settlement at Stonybrook.” Speakers will include Ms. Fremon, Ms. Radcliffe-Trenner, and Izzy Kasdin, executive director of the Historical Society of Princeton, whose Updike Farm headquarters is next door to the PFS campus.