Mullica man buys old school to fulfill late wife’s day care dream

From the Press of Atlantic City, Wednesday, November 4, 2009. Rob Spahr-Staff Writer.

Tom Messina, of Mullica Township, has bought the historic Gertrude Lauer Schoolhouse on Moss Mill Road, in Mullica Township.

MULLICA TOWNSHIP - Rita Messina dreamed of one day turning the Gertrude S. Laurer School - a vacant two-room schoolhouse down the road from her Darmstadt Avenue home - into a day care center.

The retired nurse died from cancer in 2007, a week shy of her 71st birthday and without having the chance to fulfill that dream.

"She loved children and always thought that that would've been a good location for a day care," said her husband, Tom Messina, 77. "But we never tried to go buy it."

When the Mullica Township School District put the building up for sale earlier this year, Messina jumped at the opportunity.

"My vision is a complete day care facility, fully furnished and acceptable to the public," he said. "That is what my wife wanted."

The little red schoolhouse was built in 1910 on the corner of Moss Mill Road and Darmstadt Avenue and called the Agriculture School before being renamed after Gertrude S. Laurer, who was teacher in the township.

It sits on more than an acre of land and features two bathrooms, a kitchen area and a wooden flagpole.

"I'd like to keep it, but it sure is old," Messina joked while looking up at the weathered flagpole Wednesday.

Mullica Superintendent Richard Goldberg said the sale of the Laurer School was "bittersweet" for the school district.

"It is a building that has been around for nearly 100 years and has meant a lot to the people in this community," Goldberg said. "But we are pleased with Mr. Messina's plans for it."

The Egg Harbor City School District once paid the Mullica Township School District $1,500 per month rent so it could operate full-day preschool at the building. The agreement lasted for two school years, 2004 through 2006, until Egg Harbor City was able to make room at its Charles L. Spragg School for its preschool services.

Spragg School Principal Adrienne Shulby, who was the facility supervisor of the preschool at the time, said the schoolhouse had a nice setting and plenty of acreage.

"But due to numbers and to save the district money, we moved our full-day preschool back to Spragg," she said.

Messina, a disabled Korean War veteran, has owned and operated the township-based Tom Messina General Contractors for 55 years. He is also the board chairman for Home Quest, Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides permanent housing for veterans.

The group is building 24 residential units for veterans on Main Street in Tuckerton.

But Messina said he will never tear down the historic schoolhouse - which he purchased for $53,200 - in favor of building residential units.

"Are you kidding? They'd run me out of town," said Messina, a former township committeeman. "Mullica needs a day care. The economy is set up where both the husband and wife need to work. And they need a place to put the baby."

Messina did say, however, if he cannot get approval to open the day care center he would consider opening a library at the location.

He said he is tempted to rename the building in honor of his late wife.

"But I don't know, I'll probably just end up naming it 'Mullica' something," he said.

Messina said it would take him six months to a year to rehabilitate the building and grounds to be suitable for a day care center.

"I have a lot of work ahead of me," he said. "But I've been through worse. I've been through a war. This isn't anything I can't handle."

The only concern that Messina said he has is getting all of the environmental permits he needs to renovate the building.

"Pinelands is tough. But I'll work with them all the way because I'm very determined to see this through, 100 percent," he said of the Pinelands Commission. "I'm going to accomplish what my wife wanted to achieve. I'm going to accomplish it."