HISTORIC HOUSE TOUR: This home at 10 Belmont Circle in Trenton’s Cadwalader Heights is among 11 residences open for self-guided snooping on Saturday, September 26, from 12 to 5 p.m.
By Anne Levin
Since its debut 35 years ago, the Cadwalader Heights House and Garden Tour has attracted fans of the distinctive architecture and design of residences in the neighborhood across from Trenton’s Cadwalader Park. The vision of the park’s designer, famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, the mostly rambling homes — one has 20 rooms — come in a variety of styles.
At the last tour three years ago, some were works-in-progress in the midst of renovation projects. Those attending the upcoming tour on Saturday, September 26, from 12 to 5 p.m., will see the finished, or mostly finished, products, along with old favorites and residences opening their doors for the first time.
“We definitely have loyal followers who come back year after year,” said Erika Knudson, co-chair of the tour with neighbor Kelly Ingram. “A lot of the houses will be a new experience for them. And we have a lot of new followers on Facebook who say they are coming.”
Thinking about a theme for this year’s event, the co-chairs kept coming back to the idea of community. And that led to food. The program book for “Gather Around the Table: Recipes for Community” will include family recipes from participants, along with ideas for building community.
“Everybody in the neighborhood has so many ways of welcoming people into their homes,” said Knudson, “whether it’s a specific dish or a way that they are involved. Both are recipes for community.”
So along with details about a multi-gabled brick Tudor Revival home built in 1927, another Tudor Revival built in 1911 that was once home to bank executive Mary Roebling, and a Colonial Revival house built in 1916, among others, visitors will find recipes for such delicacies as Drosophila “brown food” cookies, Chicken Tikka Masala, “Top Secret” chocolate chip cookies, and poached tuna.
It is the residents, as well as the residences, that make Cadwalader Heights such a distinctive neighborhood. Trenton Councilwoman Teska Frisby, Mercer County Freeholder Sam Frisby, landscape architect and park design consultant Randy Baum, retired Senior Minister of New York City’s Riverside Church Michael Livingston, lawyer and Trenton mayoral hopeful Austin Edwards, and a number of architects, artists, and designers are among those who call Cadwalader Heights home. In its earlier days, the neighborhood was home to leaders of Trenton’s industry, government, and fraternal organizations.
Known primarily as the designer of New York City’s Central Park, Olmsted is also credited with the National Mall in Washington, D.C.; Boston’s Emerald Necklace; and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. For Trenton, Olmsted sketched a vision with Edmund Hill for what would eventually be the adjoining neighborhood, Cadwalader Heights.
Proceeds from the tour ($30 in advance at cadwalader heights.com or $35 in person the day of the event) will go to HomeWorks Trenton, a nonprofit operating a free, after-school residential program for marginalized high school girls. HomeWorks is renovating a historic property on Edgewood Avenue near Cadwalader Heights, which will provide a boarding school environment for students to help them reach full potential.
The tour is held rain or shine (rain at the 2023 event didn’t keep fans away). Buy tickets at Ellarslie, the Trenton City Museum in Cadwalader Park. Ellarslie is included on the tour.
“Being involved in local Trenton causes like this, and welcoming people with recipes — it feels like a moment where we need to do that for each other,” said Knudson.