Pleasantville’s history was given quite the platform when Pleasantville High School Senior and Troop 12 Eagle Scout Conor Sweeney created the Pleasantville Historical Audio Tour, an hour-long journey that details the history of the village.

Among the places and landmarks mentioned in the tour was The Marmaduke Forster House, the second oldest building in Pleasantville.

The building, which was partly built by slaves in 1786, is significant to Pleasantville’s history, said Nancy Rosanoff. She, along with her husband John Krysko, is a managing member of “The Friends of Marmaduke,” an organization created to preserve the building.

“The building is significant in a few different ways,” Rosanoff said. “It’s significant because it connects us to our history… and it also shows how things change over time: The house started off as a farmhouse, but over the years it was built upon and there were several different major reconstructions to make it a larger, grander house in harmony with the times, and the people living there and their needs.”

Rosanoff, Krysko and others in the village consider the building important to not just Pleasantville’s history, but American history. Thus, when there were plans to demolish the building, they stood up to prevent it from happening.

“[The building] was kind of left there to rot and it was really run down, so we got together to try to save the building, rehabilitate it and to get it on the National Registry of Historic Places,” Rosanoff said. “And that was a huge community effort that we did and we decided instead of just having that building taken down and having some brick condo put up there, we wanted to preserve a little bit of our history.”

Through the hard work of the community, The Marmaduke Forster House earned recognition on the National Registry of Historic Places in 2011, and it is now a workplace home to a variety of professionals and small business owners.

“As challenging as it was,” Krysko told the Pleasantville Patch in 2011, “when we finally cleared it out, it created such a nice community space that we’ve had it open for non-profits and for various groups in the community.”

Rosanoff said she recognizes the building may not be considered to be interesting by everyone across the U.S., but it’s important for those in Pleasantville.

“It’s not like an architect like Frank Lloyd Wright or some famous person made it, and it’s not as if any famous person lived there ever… but I still hear from individuals who walk by it every day that are happy the house is there, because it just adds more character,” she said. “It has an essence that I think shows a friendliness of Pleasantville, and the idea that we love beauty and we like to preserve things that are unique and tell a story about our past.”

Rosanoff said she appreciated that Sweeney brought more attention to the site in his audio tour.

“I’m very pleased that he did that, and I’m not too surprised because there are some very talented, interested young individuals out there, and I’m glad to support them.”