By JF Grodeska
MIDDLETOWN – The Dempsey Pump House has stood abandoned on the corner of Center and Thompson avenues in the Leonardo section of the township for decades. The 5-acre forested plot became overgrown, and the nearly century-old house became a tangle of weeds and vines, a specter of its former self.
But in recent months, heavy equipment has removed much of the encroaching forest and re-claimed the overgrown parts of the structure.
The Dempsey Pump House, built in 1926 by William S. Dempsey, was never a residence. It functioned as a playroom for the Dempsey children, a community center and an actual pump house. The basement was built over an artesian well and machinery pumped water to neighboring homes before the municipal water system was installed.
The house remained in the Dempsey family until 2004, when it was sold to Middletown Township. In 2021, the Preserve New Jersey Historic Preservation Fund (Historic Site Management) awarded the township a $15,000 grant to help fund the preparation of a National Register nomination and subsequent designation for the pump house.
The building is constructed of peanut stone, a native rock consisting of iron oxide, quartz and pebbles. Once commonplace in the Bayshore area, it is now a rarity.
Anthony Mercantante, the Middletown Township administrator, explained that the application for the New Jersey Register of Historic Places was arduous. It
required minute details of the property’s history and that of the Dempsey family and culminated in a lengthy presentation before the New Jersey State Review Board for Historic Sites.
The New Jersey Register ofHistoricPlacesistheoffi- cial list of New Jersey’s his- toric resources of local, state, and national interest and is closely modeled after the Na- tional Register program.
“As far as the National Registry of Historic Places, the state takes care of that aspect,” Mercantante said.
Middletown Mayor Tony Perry said the architecture of the building played a role in the township’s purchase of it and the property, as well as the Dempsey family’s de- sire not to allow the property to be developed, a sentiment shared by Mercantante.
Being added to the New Jersey Register of Historic Places provides the township with resources to continue the preservation of the site. Middletown received a $50,000 grant that will be used to hire an architect to produce plans of the structure and future-looking blueprints to determine the restoration process.
“You can easily find architects, but we need an architecture firm that specializes in historic restorations,” Perry explained. “We want to do it right.”
Mercantante foresees potential uses for the property, such as a museum with meeting spaces for community organizations. After the purchase, the property was designated as a park. There is an overgrown clay tennis court in the rear of the wooded property and a wading pool to the right of the building, used for neighborhood children.
For decades, the Dempsey Pump House was steeped in mystery and legend, probably a product of the fertile imagination of those same neighborhood children.
Rumor had the Dempsey family living in the pump house; while William S.
Dempsey did plan to build a second-floor residence on top of the pump house, it was never completed.
Other untrue legends sound like horror stories, completely fabricated tales about the tragic endings of the residents.
Rumors surrounding the Dempsey Pump House were each more outlandish than the last.
The truth is none of these events happened. William S. Dempsey was a philanthropist, often coming to the aid of his community and neighbors. Dempsey, with the Mardine Corporation, and Anna Amand, donated a portion of the property and riparian rights to Middletown Township for what is now Leonardo Beach. Dempsey built and maintained the pump house to supply water to his neighbors.
In 1928, he went on record opposing the annexation of Leonardo to Atlantic Highlands.
According to his obituary in the Atlantic Highlands Journal, William and Agnes Dempsey had two children, daughter Ellen and son Michael. Agnes died in 1931; William died Aug. 25, 1937, after a prolonged illness.
The article originally appeared in the June 13 – June 19, 2024 print edition of The Two River Times.
