Former president's mold-ridden structure torn apart

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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

By EVONNE COUTROS

STAFF WRITER

Workers early Wednesday began tearing down the mold-ridden Saddle River home

where former President M. Nixon and his wife, Pat, lived from 1981 to

1990.

The dilapidated eight-bedroom house on Charlden Drive will give way to a new

home on the 4-acre property.

Ted Preusch, a former police chief in Upper Saddle River who served as a special

federal marshal for Nixon, walked the grounds he knew so well just after sunrise

today to take one last look.

“It’s in terrible condition,” Preusch said of the wood-frame house. “When the

Nixons were here it was extremely well-maintained.”

He was long gone when the excavator’s clam bucket took the first bite through

the kitchen wall, reducing it to rubble with a resounding crunch.

“It’s hard to bring this house down because of its history, but there’s no way

around it,” said S. Helemian Jr., the new owner of the property. “Part of

me hurts to see it go, but a new home will go up.”

Hekemian Jr., of Saddle River, knew the owners of the property before the Nixons

purchased it. He bought the house two years ago, paying just over $3 million to

the Ushijima family of Japan. The Ushijimas had bought the home from the Nixons

in 1990 for $2.4 million, more than $1 million more than the Nixons had paid.

In its heyday, the house was a rustic prize designed by the late Eleanore

Petterson, a Saddle River resident who studied under Lloyd . The

Nixons moved in six years after the Watergate scandal forced the Republican

president’s resignation.

Hekemian negotiated with the Ushijima family for the property for three years,

making several trips to Japan in an effort to persuade the family to sell.

Hekemian plans to build a home for his family on the same footprint on the

tree-filled acreage.

The winding path around the home where Nixon strolled with dignitaries and

friends will be preserved, Hekemian said. Other artifacts from the house, such

as the guardhouse and 1980s-era television surveillance equipment, has been

donated to the nearby Saddle River museum, which opened earlier this year on

East dale Road.

“We tried to save it,” Hekemian said. “I used to come here all the time before

the Nixons owned it.”

Saddle River police Lt. Tim Haruthunian was often one of the local police

officers on the advance logistics team if the Secret Service needed help.

“It’s just another piece of history and memories taken down,” he said. “It’s the

ever changing scenery of Saddle River.”

As the clam bucket demolished two upstairs bedrooms, mattresses left behind

inside came crashing to the ground below.

“It’s another day at work,” said Whiz Milligan, 36, the demolition expert from

Mike Fitzpatrick contractors in Oak Ridge. “It’s pretty weird. I was told

yesterday this was the Nixon house.”

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