When the current owner of Lizzie Borden’s Maplecroft, the home she purchased with her sister Emma Borden following her acquittal in 1893, bought the property in 1980 for the reduced price of $60,000, an article appeared in the local Fall River Herald News discussing the sale and offering a few details of the new owners, Robert and Sharon Dube. Included in that report was that Mr. Dube was a “contractor, specializing in work on older homes” and planned on preserving Maplecroft’s “historic atmosphere.”
The story reports that the home “had not been apartmentalized or significantly altered in its interior. The Silvias [the sellers] have preserved its carved fireplaces, natural woodwork, stained glass windows, windowseats, wainscoting, enclosed porches, and many nooks and crannies of Queen Anne style comfort.”
Dube has owned Maplecroft for 34 years, and in that time turned it briefly into a B&B [1998], applied for a variance to subdivide the property [2003] and build a single family home in front of the garage, adjacent to the Lizzie’s former residence, and covered the top granite “Maplecroft” step with a blue board so tourists would be thwarted in their efforts at a souvenir [who does stuff like that?].
Maplecroft is on the National Register of Historic Places and many visitors drive by the home when the come to Fall River to explore the other Lizzie Borden locations: Oak Grove Cemetery, The Lizzie Borden B&B, and Fall River Historical Society.
The actions of Mr. Dube through the years shows just how inconsiderate he has been to the outside of the home, the preservation of this historic property, as well as his neighbors and fellow residents of Fall River. It is a crying shame.
Here are some images of Maplecroft through the years, up until this very day.
Maplecroft in the mid twentieth century (from Parallel Lives: A Social History of Lizzie A Borden and Her Fall River):
This was the home in 1974.
Maplecroft in 2003.
Maplecroft with the infamous “blue board” over her name:
This is Maplecroft TODAY (Feb. 23, 2014), the exterior of the home and the garage has become in disrepair, necessitating a chunk of change to set it right.
Note the garage eaves, which are lacking in places, including along the entire east side.
The original windows stacked outside the garage (they were removed last week):
Maplecroft needs more than just a paint job. It may need a complete re-shingling (NOTE: there is no stained glass on this side of home anymore, no telling if the current owner saved it or sold it):
Lizzie’s wrought iron fence on the east side of the property, that she had installed, is falling apart and in dire need of repair.
And lastly, the back porch. Once a splendorous place, now a sorry mismatched mess.
And this is just the east side of the home. . . .
