EASTON, Pa. — Leaders, members and friends of Rock Church of Easton turned out for a plea for peace in the long dustup over the Hooper House at Easton City Council this week.
It continued the church's mission to maintain one part of a property that has become a point of contention.
And at least one architect who has evaluated the property said he feels there's a path to restoration that avoids demolishing the structure's Timothy House.
During the public comment part of the meeting, pastors Chris and Samuel Santos, alongside church members and fellow religious advocates, urged city officials to forgo legal intervention and resolve the issues related to the historic house.
As it stands, the church group has little to no interest in the Hooper House beyond possibly helping the city preserve it.
Its real priority is the Timothy House, a more modern structure on Fifth Street sitting right next to the Hooper House’s stucco addition.
While the city, church and perhaps even a nonprofit prepared to enter legal arguments next month, even more layers of the story have been unveiled.
They include details on the potential renovation which form the cornerstone of the city’s argument that Timothy House must be demolished to keep the historical building standing.
'We've already bent our knee'
Addressing council, Pastor Chris Santos said he had approached Mayor Sal Panto Jr. and city officials about two years prior, offering a handshake deal to help preserve Hooper House while letting the church maintain Timothy House.
“We rose $20,000 toward the feasibility study, and we would be moving ahead, but that wasn’t to be,” Santos said.
“The Timothy House is viable, it's active and it's part of our church, it's part of the functions of the church, it's part of the rectory.
"And so, if there's a way, why go to court? If we have that February date, what a waste of energy and what a waste of time when we could be farther along.
"We already said, ‘Take the Hooper House.’ We've already bent our knee, so please take the Hooper House.”
Panto said the city had only ever been interested in obtaining the Hooper House to preserve it as a historic location and had made an offer to buy the property outright from the church about two years ago.
“The only thing we would do with the Timothy House is give it to our Housing Corporation, which would make it… four units of affordable housing,” Panto said.
He later said Hooper House was the last 18th-century structure in Easton not owned by the city. And that is dependent upon how the city would approach restoring Hooper House.
According to city officials, the only way to properly address issues with Hooper House and its expansion is to knock down Timothy House.
Bringing down the house
City solicitor Jeremy Clark advised council members to “not really comment on this matter,” being that a court date had been set to address issues with the property on Feb. 12.
“[T]he need to tear the Timothy House down is not to sell it to somebody else who would do anything with it,” Clark said.
“It is to properly restore the Hooper House, because it's not load bearing, as you intimated, but it is about an inch or inch and a half away from the historic addition to the Hooper House itself.
"And the initial reports of the engineers indicate that to properly restore the Hooper House, the Timothy House can't remain.”
Santos said he was astonished when he first heard that engineers advised taking Timothy House down.
“I was in shock, like, ‘Hold it. There's no reason,’" he said. "And the church has a right to its existence, and it has a right to utilize that property, and it feels as if that's not even being respected."
“I hope that the council will see fit to talk to them and to further negotiate, because, as we know, when you go into court, it’s a different matter, right?”Gaylord-Sherri Henderson
Santos continued to urge Panto to join him for a cup of coffee to discuss the issue, promising the mayor, “I will cancel my schedule to meet your schedule.”
Pastor Gaylord-Sherri Henderson of Oasis Covenant Ministries spoke in support of Rock Church, asking them to reconsider taking the issue to court.
“I hope that the council will see fit to talk to them and to further negotiate, because, as we know, when you go into court, it’s a different matter, right?” Henderson said.
He said Rock Church had been in the city for four decades “and they’ve done a great thing in the community.”
Some speakers called out council for “government overreach,” suggesting it allot ARPA funds for historical restoration to the church or the nonprofit.
Other advocates, including Rock Church Associate Pastor Samuel Santos, also pleaded with the council to skip the upcoming legal proceedings and talk with the church members colloquially.
“I don't care about the lawyers," Santos said. "I don't care about the money involved. I care about my family. I care about the church that I'm called to and the city that God has called me to be at.
"And I ask you tonight that if you do not hear anything, I ask that you would hear this, that you would allow us to do and continue as a church in the way that the Lord has called us to do it."
The push to preserve
Brooke Mitman, an independent historic preservation consultant, has been in league with the church and other advocates across Easton who participated in talks with the city to help with the historic property.
Mitman said she felt that despite the outreach between the nonprofit group and the city, communications eventually broke down, leading to the current state of affairs.
"We were very clearly on a good path and really just asked for their assistance in ways that they can,"Brooke Mitman
Mitman, along with Bethlehem resident Jane Buscemi, has taken a keen interest in the conflict between the city and the church.
Buscemi presented another option from a conversation at the meeting, suggesting that LIDAR scanners could evaluate the architecture without damaging any of the structure.
"We were very clearly on a good path and really just asked for their assistance in ways that they can," Mitman said.
"This is because all they do is steward taxpayer dollars in the forms of grants and funding and whatnot, just to be a civil government partner.
"And figure out how to find the grant money that would least help us some portion of the property, like happened with the Bachmann Tavern and some of the other buildings.
"So we just believe that they've been operating in bad faith, and it seems like they really have not communicated very well either."
Architect Brett Webber, who has evaluated the property, said he feels there's a path to restoration that avoids demolishing Timothy House.
Webber originally met with Pastor Santos in 2023, with the architect expressing interest in finding out the status of the property.
After the Friends of Historic Colonel Hooper House was founded, Webber offered some advice and told organizers that he would be happy to bring in other consultants with historical property experience to help.
Over time, the Hooper House group raised funding to support a conditions assessment and feasibility study. By June 2024, they had raised enough to hire Brett Webber Architects to complete a formal conditions assessment and feasibility study for preservation & restoration and adaptive reuse.
John Milner Architects conducted an on-site assessment of the property, while Webber’s outfit began dendrochronology work to help date the house based on the original wood found in the structure.
“There are some problems that exist in terms of the way the roof structures meet Timothy House that just need to be corrected. But I wouldn't say that [demolition is] necessary.”
“There are certain things that were partial restorations, like the masonry, which probably weren’t really appropriate, that could indeed be corrected," Webber said.
"So those are the kinds of things that go into an assessment and a series of recommendations."
Once the eminent domain case began to develop with the city, operations hit a pause, with the city claiming eminent domain.
And while city officials have said restoration on the Hooper House is dependent upon demolishing Timothy House to access the original property and the addition, Webber said he thinks there this is not the case.
“Well, in my opinion, I don't believe that to be necessary," he said.
"I think that there are all sorts of precedents for projects like this that undertake a restoration or a reconstruction, or whatever is necessary to deal with a history of one set of buildings while there's another attached building.
“There are some problems that exist in terms of the way the roof structures meet Timothy House that just need to be corrected. But I wouldn't say that [demolition is] necessary.”
According to Webber, there would be some challenges — the Hooper House has seen plenty of changes throughout its lengthy history.
But there are plenty of architects and other experts, such as himself, who have worked on similar historic structures with great success, he said.
The endgame for the dispute remains to be seen, but there is some chance that there could be a conclusion before the legal proceedings continue next month.
