Durand-Hedden House

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The Durand-Hedden House, whose original structure was built in about 1790, sits on two acres of the original plantation that was part of a 72-acre tract of land acquired by Ebenezer Hedden before 1740. His son, Obadiah Hedden, was born on the land, and after the Revolutionary War was able to take title in 1787 to the 25 acres upon which he built his modest side-hall farmhouse located in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Obadiah Hedden’s original house is now the southern half of the present house. The main room is a kitchen with a large, deep red sandstone fireplace whose beehive oven was reconstructed by the Durand-Hedden Association. A smaller room behind has a fireplace extending diagonally across the corner of the chimney, and was probably a bedroom. This is a second example of two fireplaces on one chimney, an early example of which is in the Timothy Ball House. Upstairs in the original section are two bedrooms, one of which also has a diagonal fireplace, and a loft area that are in the process of being restored.

In 1804, after his wife’s death, Obadiah Hedden sold the property to Dr. Watts Bonnel. In 1812, it was sold to neighbor Henry Durand. Henry was the brother of famed Hudson River School artist Asher Brown Durand and grandson of Samuel Durand, who had settled in the town of Newark in about 1740.

The Durands were an artistic and creative family. Samuel, termed "a skillful and modest clockmaker of the village," was born in 1713. His son John, born in 1745, was a jewelry maker who moved to Jefferson Village in 1774 and built a house near the corner of Durand and Ridgewood Roads. As a Revolutionary War soldier, John Durand put his jeweler’s skills to use in repairing George Washington's field glasses.

Henry and Asher Durand were born in the house near the corner of Durand and Ridgewood. Henry, who carried on the family tradition, made jewelry, silverware and watch crystals and played the violin. He and his wife, Electa, moved to what is now the Durand-Hedden House in 1812 and lived there until his death in 1846. Henry’s son James Madison Durand (also a skilled engraver and watchmaker who established a major jewelry-making firm in Newark) and his family continued to own the property until about 1866. The northern half of the house, with a front room, back parlor and porch on the main floor and two large bedrooms above, was built around mid-century, and probably added by James. The peaked gables with rounded top windows were Gothic Revival features popular at the time. Other interesting decorative and stylish touches from that period include an Italianate stair rail and front door, with its pedimented and eared doorframe in Greek Revival style.

The William Chauncey Ripley family purchased the house in 1923, and may have been the owners who remodeled the back parlor into a kitchen. They also added a small room as maid’s quarters to the rear, using red sandstone on the exterior to match the early kitchen fireplace.

Although the house remained in the caring hands of the Ripley family until 1971, it fell into disrepair in the years that followed and was saved from destruction by the Town of Maplewood, which bought it in 1977 under the state Green Acres program. The Durand-Hedden House and Garden Association was established in 1979, and has spent the ensuing 20 years restoring the property and offering historical and educational programs to schools and the community. The House now sits in Grasmere Park, named after Robert Grasmere, whose efforts as Maplewood’s mayor at that time helped to save the property.

[edit] Contact Info

The Durand-Hedden House and Garden Association
P.O. Box 206
Maplewood, NJ 07040