On sale, a piece of Cherry Hill's history

If only these walls could talk, I think, standing in the great room of a 273-year-old house that's for sale in Cherry Hill.

Luckily, owner-seller Shaula Crosson Wright knows everything about the place. And the practical, plainspoken, 81-year-old recent widow has plenty to say.

"My husband Jerry and I once played badminton in the attic," she says, offering to show me around 1881 Old Cuthbert Rd.

One of the oldest structures in Cherry Hill - portions of the Croft Farm and the Kay House are older - Wright's house was built by the wealthy Quaker landowner Samuel Coles, from whose family the township's Colestown neighborhood and cemetery took their names.

The English-style structure has commanded a knoll not far from a Cooper's Creek tributary since 1743. Jerome and Shaula Wright bought the place in 1958 and owned it longer than any of the 13 previous occupants.

"When we moved in, all seven fireplaces had been closed up," Wright recalls. "There was no kitchen. The bathroom should have been reported to the board of health."

And the great room floor had been torn out, replaced, and "covered with wall-to-wall carpeting."

The notion of wall-to-wall carpeting in a house built the same year Thomas Jefferson was born strikes me as some sort of crime.

Then again, "this isn't a museum," notes Wright. "We raised four children in this house. Two of them were born upstairs."

Her husband of 61 years died in October, at 88. His fiercely independent widow still works as a residential contents appraiser, but would like to retire, and needs a hip replacement.

So she's listed the house on Zillow.com for $235,000.

Interest has been strong, and Wright hopes to find a buyer who will preserve 1881 Old Cuthbert.

The house is on the National Register of Historic Places, but that alone would not prevent a future owner from tearing it down.

"The house matters, because in the [suburban] community of Cherry Hill, it's a survivor," says historian Paul Schopp, assistant director of the South Jersey Culture and History Center at Stockton University.

The fact that no known historical events or persons are associated with the property "doesn't detract from its significance," he adds.

"I know there's no guarantee" the house will endure, Wright's oldest daughter, Martha, 59, says.

"But I'd like to find someone who will shepherd it for another 60 years. I had the greatest childhood any child could ever have, in the greatest house in the world to grow up in."

No wonder: The entire house is the product of a familial labor of love. "We were always working on projects," says Martha.

Her father, a landscape architect whose ancestors settled in Burlington City in 1678 (his wife's forbears arrived there a year earlier), was an exceedingly handy and hardworking fellow.

"Jerry" Wright repurposed unusual square bricks - handmade on the property - that he found in the basement, using them to rebuild covered-over hearths on the upper floors.

He pulled up magnificent planks of New Jersey bull pine (named for its oak-like toughness) from the attic (no more badminton) and installed them in place of the missing originals under that egregious wall-to-wall carpeting.

And when lightning felled a majestic larchwood tree on the property, he had a Mount Holly sawmill make it into lumber for the nifty wainscoting he built in the dining room.

Shaula notes that every room contains evidence of her husband's handiwork. And hers: She salvaged the front door, a fireplace mantel, and other items from other vintage South Jersey houses that were abandoned, or undergoing demolition, in the 1950s and '60s.

"I hope whoever buys it doesn't change what my husband did," she says, sitting in a chair in her favorite room - the kitchen, which Jerome also designed.

My tour is coming to an end.

"We had a beautiful, beautiful garden here," she says. "This whole yard was flowers."

But is she truly prepared to sell, to leave it all behind?

Shaula Wright regards me with her intense blue eyes and smiles.

"Absolutely."

kriordan@phillynews.com

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