What does this building, in Florham Park, New Jersey, look like to you? I drove past it while I was up there the other week, and I immediately knew I had to feature it in this series:

Surely an old church/parochial school combo, right? I thought it looked churchly but not typically Catholic, so my guess was maybe an old Episcopal church/school? I’m thinking of the Episcopal church in Somerville, New Jersey, which looks like this. (Episcopalians get the best architecture.)

And, since this building was recently a retirement home and assisted living facility (it is currently closed), I assumed I was looking at a very cool example of adaptive reuse.

So I did some reading about the property, trying to figure out its history.

And I was pretty surprised—it was always a retirement home. A retirement home, as the architecture hints, for nuns! Specifically, the Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth, originally founded in Newark but based near Florham Park. Among much other work, they founded Saint Elizabeth University, also in Florham Park.

A local news article states:

Opened in the early 1930s, the villa has served as a retirement home for sisters from its inception, Sartor added. An addition was added to the historic structure in November 2000.

In 2016, the facility changed hands to Lutheran Social Ministries of New Jersey, due to declining numbers of religious sisters. However, at least until the place closed at some point recently, the nuns still lived there.

This story from 2018, about a 105-year-old retired sister living at the Villa, is heartwarming. She died in 2021—at the age of 107! God bless her.

Here’s the whole building, including the modern addition on the back:

The part that looks like a church, on the left, is the chapel—you couldn’t have retired nuns attending Mass in a spare room, after all. The school-like portion is the original set of rooms.

The building is beautiful, and at least from the outside appeared in very nice condition. Earlier this year, the mayor suggested it might once again serve its lifelong purpose. I hope so. I’ll say a prayer for it.

Related Reading:

Holy Living

Crossing Into the Supermarket

A Lesson in Adaptive Reuse

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