Setting the Record Straight

The developer is now promoting a plan to rebuild the Cintra mansion and divide it into smaller homes, presenting this as a way of honoring the property’s past. We see it differently.

Seen in the

“The Save Cintra Woods campaign, according to its website, ‘wants to stop the development of the land and to create open space for the public. Leaders of New Hope community organizations have expressed a keen interest in turning the [existing] Cintra carriage house into much-needed meeting space for civic groups. Efforts are underway to build a coalition which will pursue preservation of the property.’”

You Can’t Rebuild History.

William Maris built Cintra around 1816 after seeing a palace in Sintra, Portugal. Henry Lee found refuge within its walls after escaping slavery. Generations later, Joseph Stanley and Dewey Lee Curtis made it a home. Cintra mattered because real people lived real lives there. That house is gone. A replica built to sell luxury townhouses can copy its look, but it doesn’t honor its history.

But You Can Preserve It.

What survives at Cintra isn’t the house. It’s the land: 5 wooded acres at the gateway to New Hope’s historic district, and specimen trees Maris planted two centuries ago that are still standing. No builder can frame, pour or plant that back. Protect the land, and Cintra’s story stays rooted where it happened.

Don’t Be Fooled.

Rebuilding the mansion is a sales pitch, not preservation. Dress the project in a historic facade and it sounds like saving Cintra. Underneath, it’s the same dense luxury development the Borough’s own zoning was written to prevent. It still means more cars on Bridge Street across from the New Hope–Solebury schools, more stormwater running toward Aquetong Creek, and mature tree canopy gone for good.