The club recently installed an information display at the Broad Street entrance to the onetime Anthony Reckless homestead, and the rear and sides of the structure are being painted to match the front, below. (Click to enlarge)
Passersby scurrying to the post office, bank and dry cleaner may have noticed a flurry of fixing-up at the Woman’s Club of Red Bank lately.
The club’s Broad Street home, in the 1870 mansion built by Anthony Reckless and listed on both the national and New Jersey registries of historic places, is getting a new coat of paint on its sides and rear to go with a facade painting of several years ago.
There’s also a new metal plaque in the front yard offering a history of the property, which the club acquired in 1921.
A passerby reads up on the history of the house recently. (Click to enlarge)
redbankgreen asked club President Christina Hardman what was up. Her reply, via email:
We had received a grant a few years ago and the time to complete was running out. Weve been trying to address the major infrastructure repairs over the past few years e.g. the front exterior work, sewer lines, water lines, electrical etc. Some of it became emergent work so the exterior took a back seat for a while. The exterior work is long overdue so was next on our list. We hope to do some interior sprucing, painting etc. depending on how the exterior work goes in terms of surprises. You know how that goes with construction work. The sign was also overdue as it had been required by the NJ historic Trust a few years ago. So little by little we are continuing to ensure that the Senator Reckless historic home is kept open for the community to enjoy.
Among those grants was $6,500 from the Monmounth County Historical Commission awarded in March.
The Woman’s Club is planning an open house tour of the Reckless mansion on Sunday, October 14, Hardman said.
