Yeshiva Tiferes Boruch, formerly of Springfield, moved into the McCutchen Mansion in North Plainfield in December. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
July 17, 2008
After 16 years in Springfield, Yeshiva Tiferes Boruch has moved to North Plainfield.
An expanding registration in the Orthodox boarding school’s three-year-old high school division and zoning issues provoked the move.
The high school and “kollel” for post-high school students is now housed at the McCutchen Mansion in North Plainfield, a historic property at 112 Linden Ave.
“We were overoccupied,” said administrator Shlomo Yoffe. “The facility itself had no problems,” but the number of boys did pose a problem.
The yeshiva had operated as a kollel for students ages 18-21 at 36 Evergreen Ave. for 16 years. Four years ago, it opened a high school division at 810 South Springfield Ave., which was zoned as a private residence, without obtaining a variance. Thirty high-school students were living at that address.
Thirty boys enrolled in Yeshiva Tiferes Boruch were living in this single-family home in Springfield.
The yeshiva operated a kollel, or religious school for post-high school students, at this location, 36 Evergreen Ave. in Springfield, for 16 years before moving to North Plainfield in December.
The township filed a lawsuit in 2007, and the issue was unresolved last summer when the school began to look for a new location. The Springfield Zoning Board of Adjustment put the case on hold.
In September, the yeshiva found the McCutchen Mansion. Built in 1886 and located in the Washington Park Historic District, the Queen Anne-style home was part of a Quaker retirement village known as the McCutchen Friends Home. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the house comprises 15,000 square feet and sits on more than two acres of property. Margaret McCutchen donated the home to the New York Yearly Meeting Friends’ Home in 1951.
“We were looking for a facility that would accommodate us. This is just the right size, with close proximity to Springfield,” said Yoffe. The school’s total enrollment is about 90 students.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but the property had been on the market for $2.25 million.
Both divisions moved into the new facility in December, after gaining the required variances from the local zoning board. The yeshiva, the first in Somerset County, remains loosely affiliated with the Springfield Modern Orthodox synagogue Congregation Israel. It is under the direction of Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Sorotzkin, who has ties to the more fervently religious Orthodox community of Lakewood.
The property at 810 South Springfield Ave. is now for sale; the Evergreen Avenue property was sold to investors in December.
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