Nassau School preservation moving slowly
As traffic whizzes by at Five Points, the Nassau School sits still, its past settled in history, its future waiting to start.
A coalition has been working on plans to refurbish and preserve the 104-year-old building since 2019.
The coalition is made up of the Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice, Delaware Historical and Cultural Affairs, and Greater Lewes Foundation.
The work has been moving slowly, but project managers are hoping for a jump start in 2026.
The Nassau School is located in Belltown, near Five Points outside Lewes.
The Delaware Department of Transportation purchased the land from the Best family. The building had been used for storage by Best Ace Hardware.
It was one of the 33 Black schools built in Sussex County with funding from philanthropist millionaire Pierre S. du Pont.
During the time of segregation, students attended first through eighth grade at the school until 1965.
Mark Chura, who is managing the project for the Greater Lewes Foundation, said they are waiting for DelDOT to sign off on a final plan for a parking lot and accessibility. He said the plan was required because the coalition now anticipates more public use than was first envisioned.
But, Chura said, that has not stopped work from getting done, including environmental remediation inside the building and exterior repairs.
“The back set of windows were pulled, sent to a restoration company, then reinstalled,” Chura said. “The doors and porch have been rebuilt and painted. The next step is to replace the cedar shake shingles, which are in bad shape, and fix a small hole in the building. That portion is not impacted by future plans.”
Chura said there has been no public fundraising campaign for the school. He said the coalition still has about $700,000 left from a $1 million HCA grant to cover the engineering and architectural design.
Chura said the DelDOT final approval will allow those plans to be set in motion.
He said long-term plans for changes to the Five Points intersection complicate the scheme, but they have their fingers crossed the project will start to move forward.
“We’re hoping for a sign-off this summer, third quarter to finalized planning, and late this year or early 2027 to start construction,” he said.
For more on the history of the Nassau School, go to history.delaware.gov.
Bill Shull has been covering Lewes for the Cape Gazette since 2023. He comes to the world of print journalism after 40 years in TV news. Bill has worked in his hometown of Philadelphia, as well as Atlanta and Washington, D.C. He came to Lewes in 2014 to help launch WRDE-TV. Bill served as WRDE’s news director for more than eight years, working in Lewes and Milton. He is a 1986 graduate of Penn State University. Bill is an avid aviation and wildlife photographer, and a big Penn State football, Eagles, Phillies and PGA Tour golf fan. Bill, his wife Jill and their rescue cat, Lucky, live in Rehoboth Beach.
