W Little Red Schoolhouse

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Is Big Home For Them

By Jacob Schaad Jr. BEESLEY’S POINT - At the opposite end of the state when he was a mere lad, Herbert Schuck couldn't wait until he finished his day in a one room schoolhouse. Today, some 200 miles away, the grandfather of five children can’t wait until he gets back to another one room schoolhouse at the finish of his work day. Schuck and his wife, Gladys, bought the 93-year-old schoolhouse on Route 9 in 1968 and have converted it into a comfortable five room, two bath home designed for convenient living. The building was last used as a schoolhouse in June of 1954 and has since been in the hands of other owners, but it was the imagination of Schuck and his wife that has given the building status worthy of recognition in a county that is highly house conscious. Ironically. Schuck wasn’t all that enthusiastic about the building when he first saw it. Plaster was hanging from the ceiling and the walls, and the inside looked "downright dilapidated.” Encouraged by his wife, however, he proposed some ideas to an architect who came up with plans Schuck quickly accepted. "Now I love every square inch of the house," Schuck said. ONE ROOM SCHOOLHOUSES have played an important role in Schuck’s life. He attended one in Newton in Sussex County and admits he wasn't as enthusiastic about it then as he is now. Although Schuck bought his present home in 1968, he didn’t move here with his wife from North Jersey until 1973 He was a member of a management consultant firm there and as a credit analyst he liquidated the assets of the Newark Evening

News, once the state's largest newspaper, when it folded in the early 1970’s. The five year interim between acquiring the schoolhouse and moving into it was spent in renovations and in occupancy by his daughter, Betty Ann Delcorio and her family who have since moved to Palermo. It was Mrs. Delcorio who spotted the building originally and brought it to her father's attention. The house features a living room and dining room in the area where pupils formerly Sat. The original floor produces evidence of bygone school days, displaying holes in which desks were implanted. Bearing beamed ceilings have been installed above the living and dining rooms. A modernized kitchen occupies the area where the blackboard and the teacher’s desk stood. One bedroom is on the side of the house and another is in the rear in a section that was added by a previous owner Mr and Mrs. Schuck have constructed a 15 by 15 foot rear porch from which they survey property that is 350 feet deep. THE INDOOR PLUMBING has been installed since the good, old school days. Still in evidence of the past are two backyard outhouses, one for the boys and another for the girls, that are now used for storage purposes. A garage for the school bus still is on the grounds and now is used by the Schucks for their car. The outside of the building and the flagpole are from the original schoolhouse. Schuck contends. The original school bell atop the building is still capable of tolling except that there is no rope attached to it. If there were a rope, it would come down into the middle of the Schucks' living

room, hardly an aesthetic addition to their plan for comfortable living Besides, if he wants to call his wife, all Schuck has to do is stick his head outside a window. The friendly ghosts of the past continue to return to their little red schoolhouse Hardly a month passes that a former school teacher or pupil doesn't stand at the front door, as he or she did many years ago, and ring the bell In a wave of nostalgia they ask Mr and Mrs Schuck if they can return to the schoolhouse in which they taught or learned the three R*S They are gladly given a guided tour and are all favorably impressed with the transforma tion Schuck. now a broker for McCaffrey and Rice, Inc . Real Estate of Marmora, often entertains his family in the little red schoolhouse He has another daughter, Rosemary Taylor At first, he says his grandchildren were excited aboiit their grandfather living in a schoolhouse Now. •with the passage of time, the excitement has worn off for thefn

Not for Schuck arid his wife, however It is said that every man's home is his castle < For them the schoolhouse is their mansion

(Photos ore by Doriv War tit

Cooking and Humor At Old Village

COLD SPRING - Noted historian and public television personality Dorothea Connolly will bring her humorous and informing demonstrations on colonial cooking, spinning and natural dyeing to Historic Cold Spring Village this Saturday and Sunday.

Members of the awardwinning Medford Lakes chapter of the Sweet Adelines, the Rainbow Reveries Quartet, will be singing in four-part harmony intermittently from 1 to 3 on Saturday. Regular features at the village of 13 historic 18th

and 19th century South Jersey buildings include horse and carriage rides 10 to 5 on weekends, the Village by Candlelight from dusk to 9:30 Saturday nights, and folksinger and story teller Jim Albertson on Thursday evenings in the Old Grange Hall

THE SEA GULL islinctiw St 12iLort. Ajpparef TELEPHONE^ 368-7521 264 96th Street, Stone Harbor, NJ 08247 Daily 9:30 to 9:30

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