Врач-хирург и подрядчик восстанавливают историческую ферму 1795 года, отказавшись сносить её ради быстрой прибыли

Every contractor who looked over the crumbling farmhouse and bank barn at 6177 Cetronia Road in Upper Macungie Township told Dr. Hamed Amani the same thing: The fastest way to turn a profit on his $825,000 investment was to tear everything down and build new. That idea bothered Amani, a burn surgeon at Lehigh Valley Health Network who bought the 13-acre property with several other investors at an auction in 2023. “From the start, we wanted to bring this property back to its original glory. It would be a shame to knock all this history down,” he said. The doctor finally found a contractor who shared his vision while he was out walking his dog. Samuel Ulrich, owner of the Berks County-based Ulrich and Son, was working on a property near Amani’s Macungie home. The men started chatting, and learned that they shared a love of history. Ulrich was hired. A year into the restoration, glimpses of the farmhouse’s 18th-century charm are emerging from the rubble, and Amani and Ulrich say the project is on track to be finished this year. But there’s a mystery they’d like to solve before the last nail is hammered: Who was the original owner of the property and what was their story? “It would be amazing to know more about who built this place. The tradesmanship is incredible,” Ulrich said. Hopewell Farm The exact date of when the property was settled is a mystery, but there are clues. Much of the farmhouse is held together with hand-forged tapered blacksmith nails, which began to be replaced with machine cut nails in the 1790s and early 1800s. Public records say the property dates to 1850, but a plaque in the two-story farmhouse reads 1795. The words “Hopewell Farm” are painted on the barn, but there’s no documentation that shows when they were painted or by whom, Amani said. The name Hopewell does not appear in any records the men could find. The Lehigh County Historical Society has no records of a Hopewell Farm in Lehigh County, Executive Director Jim Higgins said. There’s a housing development off Cetronia Road named Hopewell Farms. In Boyertown, Berks County, there’s a Hopewell Farms mulch and soil dealer, and farther south, right across the Berks border in Chester County, there’s the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, which was founded in 1771. Amani and Ulrich have not been able to connect any of those places to the property. There’s a Hopewell Township in Beaver County, two Hopewell Townships in New Jersey and dozens of municipalities with Hopewell in their name across the country. The search is daunting yet interesting, said Ulrich, whose fascination with history includes researching the exploits of Captain Cook and the accomplishments of Winston Churchill. “Don’t even get me started on World War II,” he said. Mixing old and new Amani and Ulrich say they don’t just want to preserve the property’s 18th-century features, they want to add 21st-century improvements like energy-efficient windows and state-of-the-art heating, cooling and water systems, while using sustainable products like bamboo-based drywall. Their shared vision can be seen all over the property. It’s on the farmhouse floors, narrow planks of hand-milled hardwood arranged in perfect concentric squares and rectangles. And on the barn walls, where centuries of debris have been removed to reveal 200-year-old hand-pegged joinery that eventually will share space with gleaming stainless steel appliances when the barn is transformed into luxury lofts. “They didn’t have miter saws and other tools we have today, yet they did this pattern, where everything is symmetrical and lines up perfectly,” Ulrich said. “That’s true tradesmanship.” On a recent Friday afternoon, Ulrich was busy in the farmhouse removing 200 years worth of clay and dirt mortar by hand from between the stacked stones that the original builder likely picked up in nearby fields. More than 38,000 pounds of the mixture had to be removed, by hand, from the stone walls, which have been reinforced and will remain mostly exposed when the home is ready for sale. During the renovations, workers found charred stone and other evidence that there was a fire in one room of the farmhouse, likely caused by a woodstove. The fact that the structure remains standing is a testament to the way it was built, Ulrich said. “Imagine that. This home had a very serious fire, and after the fire the home was completely fine, they just replaced the wood,” he said. “Meanwhile, a home in my neighborhood was hit by lightning recently, and it was a total loss,” Amani added. “It’s incredible to think that this home has stood here since 1795. My house is less than 30 years old, and believe me, when you walk on my second floor, it creaks. I challenge you to find one floorboard here that creaks.” While the farmhouse and barn will be completely renovated, several outbuildings on the property that were added later will be razed, and several new homes will be built on parts of the lot. Every new building will include salvaged architectural elements, Amani said. The investors are not sure if the four loft-style apartments planned for the barn will be rented or sold, and no price has been set for the farmhouse once it’s finished. Amani said he hopes the new owners will appreciate the importance of history as much as he and Ulrich do. “Whoever buys it, it has to be someone who really appreciates what they have. That will be as important as the dollar value, at least to me,” he said. Anyone with information about 6177 Cetronia Road’s history can contact Amani and Ulrich at [email protected].