The 145-year-old Henry Arpen farmhouse as it stands now on rented property off Linjohn Road in Mandarin. The farmhouse is on the National Register of Historic Places. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on February 24, 2025 at 12:02 pm
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An historic home in Mandarin may have a second chance at survival just days after a City Council committee recommended it be torn down.
A possible plan is in the works to move and restore the 145-year-old Henry Arpen farmhouse, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
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A committee’s recommendation to allow demolition could be put off at a City Council meeting Tuesday.
The Land Use and Zoning Committee on Wednesday supported owner Michael Danhour’s request to demolish the house. Danhour presented information indicating the house was too deteriorated to be saved.
But in the days since the vote, City Council member Michael Boylan said some people have expressed an interest in moving the home to a 4-acre site on a dead-end road nearby. He said Danhour is amenable to deferring the bill Tuesday night.
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Boylan said contractor Bob White, who has renovated a number of local buildings, thought the house could be moved and restored.
“The location is not that far away from where it is resting now and does not require a lot of effort with respect to removal of tree limbs to get it there, so I think it will be a pretty easy move, if in fact it ends at this location,” Boylan said.
Tracey Arpen, whose great-uncle built the farmhouse, was pleased to hear there might still be hope to save it.
“It looks promising, and I am glad (the demotion) is going to be deferred,” he said. “And hopefully, by the time it comes back in two weeks, we will have something definite worked out.”
The two-story wood frame home was built in 1880 on a 17-acre tract on O’Connor Road, and farmer Henry Arpen moved in with his family. Local oral history indicates it was built using materials salvaged from a barge that had beached on the St. Johns River, according to a WJCT News story in 2019.
The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019. It is one of only two buildings in Mandarin to be included on the National Register, Arpen said. The other is the Mandarin Store and Post Office.
After the house was added to the National Register, the land where it sat off O’Connor Road was rezoned to allow a 33-home subdivision. The Arpen farmhouse was to be preserved by moving it to a new site or within the development.
Danhour told the zoning committee last week that he reached out to more than 50 preservation groups to find someone willing to move and restore the farmhouse. But he said only one group came forward with a plan, which was move it to Sunbeam Road.
In 2022, Danhour began work to get the city permits to move it and ultimately had to move the home 1,400 feet to its current rented site because the 33-home subdivision was being built.
Danhour said the home “barely survived” that move, then sat untouched for 18 months and deteriorated further as he tried to get permits to move it again. By early 2024, an engineering review said the home’s ability to survive a 7-mile move to the potential Sunbeam Road site “was questionable, and demolition was a more suitable option given the deterioration.”
The city condemned the home, then the potential owner on Sunbeam Road did not want it anymore, Danhour said. He requested city permission to demolish it, but the Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission denied the request, leading to last week’s hearing.
Boylan said Danhour made “a good faith effort” to preserve the home, and the committee voted 6 to 1 to allow demolition.
The recommendation then moves to City Council for a final vote. The final vote would be postponed for two weeks if the full council agrees to the delay.
