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Preservation at Work: Acorn Hall’s Front Yard Fence and Lamp Post

by Amy Curry, Executive Director
May 19, 2026

For over a decade, restoration of Acorn Hall has been consistent, addressing projects like the exterior restoration of Acorn Hall, the restoration and stabilization of the carriage house, and returning the landscape to a proper 19th-century cultural aesthetic. In 2025, MCHS tackled four exterior restoration projects around the property through funding from the New Jersey Historic Trust and Morris County Historic Preservation Trust Fund: stabilization of the icehouse foundation, restoration of the front yard fence, installation of period-appropriate landscape lighting to mark the driveway entrance and exit, and reconstruction of the original gardener’s shed addition to the carriage house. Even in winter, progress continued, and work is now complete with the return of the front yard fence and lamp posts reminiscent of those along Morris Avenue in the early 20th century. Both were designed based on historic photographs of the Hall. The fence appears in one of the earliest photos of the residence from March 1870. Electric street lamps, installed in Morristown by the late 1910s, can also be seen in photos now in MCHS archives.

 

Once a prominent feature of the Acorn Hall property, the front yard fence was lost when Morris Avenue was widened to accomodate traffic for Route 287.

 

MCHS’s preparations for the fence started in 2015 when we funded repairs to the historic bluestone sidewalk. A silt fence protects the bluestone from dirt from the fence post holes.

 

The original front yard fence included four-sided posts and rails, similar to those still found throughout Morristown’s historic district.

 

To recreate the fence accurately, a custom mold was fabricated to cast the 40 8′ posts.

 

Historically seen as a means to separate the public thoroughfares and the private home, especially as industrialization brought more people into the country, fences of various sorts were common throughout the mid-19th-century landscape and several examples still exist in Acorn Hall’s neighborhood.

 

Over 200′ long upon completion, the fence’s final additions were the one hundred and sixty stainless steel rails connecting the posts. 

 

For the lamp posts to light Acorn Hall’s driveway entrance and exit, hundreds of feet of wire and conduit were placed over 2’ below the ground’s surface. As with the other projects, the disturbance of ground necessitated archaeological monitoring.

 

Nearly identical to the street lamps once located on Morris Avenue in the early 20th century, setting the lights into place was truly a team effort.

 

Denoting the entrance and exit of Acorn Hall’s U-shaped driveway, the lights add to both visitor enjoyment and safety while further enriching the cultural history MCHS preserves and interprets at the Hall.
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