Developer Continues Suit Against Tarrytown Brace Cottage Gets a New Lease on Life

Published 9 years ago9y ago • Bookmarks: 50

August 6, 2015

| By Alexander Roberts |

Brace Cottage was built in 1908 in the Wilson
Park neighborhood.

A New York State Supreme Court justice in Westchester has ruled against the Tarrytown Planning Board in its effort to dismiss a suit filed by a developer saying that the board’s order to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement five years after site plan approval is illegal. It means the issue will be argued in court.

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The issue concerns a caretaker’s house originally built in 1908 in the Wilson Park neighborhood, the last historic remnant of the 19th century mansion known as Braceholme, which was torn down in 1986.

The Planning Board had argued unsuccessfully that since it was not completed, the SEIS is not subject to judicial review. But the judge sided with an affiliate of Toll Brothers that in fact there is question whether the Planning Board erred in requiring the SEIS.

The controversy pits an affiliate of Toll Brothers, which is building 14 new homes on Wilson Park Drive pursuant to approvals dating back to 2011, against a new group called “Friends of Brace Cottage,” headed by village resident Mark Fry.

“Brace Cottage is an architectural masterpiece,” said Fry, “and one of the last remnants of the ‘Golden Age of the Tarrytowns,’ consisting of a row of 19th century estates that included the Rockefeller mansion.”

The cottage was slated for demolition after the developer filed plans to build a new house at the 1.36-acre property at 112 Wilson Park Drive. It would have been the eighth out of 14 homes to be constructed pursuant to the approvals. Fry and his group, which includes 11 descendants of the Charles Brace family, persuaded the Tarrytown Planning Board last October to require the developer to halt destruction of the stone cottage and file a new Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

A spokesman for Toll Brothers would not comment; however, the developer noted in its brief that the Planning Board was well aware of the significance of the cottage after months of public hearings and a consultant’s report to the New York State Office of Parks and Historic Preservation. The cottage’s removal was noted on the approved subdivision plan.

According to the Toll Brothers’ petition to the court, “The Planning Board’s determination to require a SEIS is arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law….and the Planning Board [should be] directed to act on and approve Toll’s site plan application as a SEQRA exempt action.”

In a victory for the new group, the judge granted standing to Friends of Brace Cottage, which has expressed the hope that Toll Brothers will carve out a lot containing the stone cottage and sell it either to the group, or to a homeowner willing to preserve it as a building eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

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