Norrice Raymaker, a longtime homeowner in the Heights neighborhood of Jersey City, New Jersey, had cast an anxious eye on the once-dignified house on Beacon Avenue. When she walked by the three-story home back in 2017 and 2018, she admired its wraparound porch and vestiges of earlier landscaping. But Raymaker, who was then a member of the local neighborhood association as well as president of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy, a preservation group, worried its days were numbered.