Updated: Three-Alarm Fire Damages Historic Lawrence Building

The historic William Gulick House – widely regarded as the best example of high-style Italianate architecture in Lawrence Township – was damaged by a three-alarm fire that forced police to close Lawrence Road (Route 206) for hours today (Tuesday, Sept. 6) and, in turn, created considerable traffic problems during the morning rush for commuters and students trying to get to school on the first day of the new academic year.

While officials from the township fire marshal’s office and the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office have not yet concluded their investigation into the blaze, they are pretty certain an electrical fault was to blame.

“It looks like, for whatever reason, the building still had power. Whether there was a spike or a surge, the electric service coming in through the basement, heading into the electrical panel, blew out. That started a fire in the basement,” Chief Ray Nagy of Lawrenceville Volunteer Fire Co. said.

Built about 1855, the Gulick House has voids inside its walls that run – without fire stops, as would be found in a modern home – from the basement all the way to the attic. This design – known in the fire service as “balloon frame” construction – allowed flames to spread from the basement up to the floors above long before the blaze was ever discovered, Nagy said.

“It was burning for a while before it was spotted,” he said, noting that the building had been boarded-up and unoccupied for many years.

It was 7:59 a.m. when Lawrence Township police received a call about smoke in the area of Lawrence Road and Province Line Road. The township’s daytime duty crew of career firefighters and volunteer firefighters from Lawrenceville Fire Co. were dispatched to investigate.

Just minutes later, John Welling, chief of emergency services at Bristol-Myers Squibb, spotted “heavy smoke” coming from the third floor of the building, which is located in the 3600 block of Lawrence Road adjacent to Squibb’s sprawling Lawrence Township campus.

Volunteers from Lawrence Township’s two other fire companies – Lawrence Road and Slackwood – were dispatched as the balance of the first alarm. It soon became apparent that additional manpower and equipment was needed to fight the blaze, so second and third alarms were transmitted.

Responding on those additional alarms to help out were firefighters from the Princeton Fire Department, Hopewell Borough Fire Co., Pennington Borough Fire Co., and the Pennington Road and Prospect Heights fire companies of Ewing Township.

Nagy said firefighters had to force their way into the building and discovered smoke on all floors. They then discovered the fire in the basement and realized flames had spread upward through the walls.

“We had fire on multiple levels – in the walls, under the floors,” Nagy said. “Opening up those old-style walls and cutting the floors was labor intensive, so that’s why we needed so much manpower.”

The fire chief said firefighters had to open up many walls and floors to locate and extinguish hidden pockets of fire. Despite that damage, it could have been much worse had the blaze happened at night, Nagy said, noting that the flames likely would have spread through more of the house before anyone noticed the smoke in the dark.

Emergency medical personnel from Lawrence and Princeton also responded. Two Hopewell Borough firefighters who came in contact with an electrical current while fighting the blaze were treated on the scene, but did not require hospitalization, Nagy said.

Because of the fire, township police closed Lawrence Road (Route 206) between Province Line Road and Fackler Road. That created major traffic problems for commuter vehicles and school buses along Lawrence Road, Province Line Road, Fackler Road, Princeton Pike and other local roads.

The fire was officially declared under control about 9:15 a.m. but fire apparatus and hoses still clogged the road for some time after that while firefighters worked to ensure the blaze was complete out and not still smoldering unseen somewhere in the house.

The northbound lane of Lawrence Road was reopened to traffic at 10:45 a.m., while the southbound lane reopened about 11:15 a.m.

“I do not know the extent of the damage and so cannot comment on how great a loss this is,” Lawrence Township Historian Dennis Waters said about 10:30 this morning. “Nonetheless, the Gulick House, because of its prominent location, is one of the best-known historic landmarks in Lawrence, as well as one of our best-known eyesores – a daily reminder of the cost of neglecting our heritage.

“It was built as a farmhouse in about 1855 and, for those interested in architectural history, is perhaps the finest example of high-style Italianate architecture in Lawrence,” Waters said. “It has been threatened with demolition for many years, and in 2007 was placed on Preservation New Jersey's annual list of the ten most endangered sites in the state.

“Given the , Lawrence has really taken a one-two punch when it comes to these important pieces of our history,” Waters added.      

Since the late 1990s, “efforts have been made to develop an assisted living and/or skilled nursing care facility on the six-plus acre site, so far without success,” according to A Guide to Lawrenceville’s Historic Landmarks, edited by Daniel L. Ben-Asher and published by Lawrence Township in 2009. The book is available for purchase from the township clerk’s office in the municipal building at 2207 Lawrence Rd.