Local historians and preservationists, including Peggy Norris, Ted Manvell, and H. Michael Gelfand, worked out a plan to move the house to Bergen Community College for an educational adaptive reuse.

The college's campus was also a part of the Zabriskie landholdings, and began to draw up plans for the placement of the house and its use in an educational function.

The county was in the process of petitioning the state for funds to move and rehabilitate the structure [8] when on July 13, 2012, the developers Sal and Marcello Petruzella demolished the Zabriskie Tenant House.

[9] The demolition was a significant loss for the future understanding of the history of Dutch agricultural settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries, African Americans as slaves and freed peoples in New Jersey, and the rural nature of Bergen County that gave way to the massive suburban development after World War II.

That commission, however, was never legally empowered or given voice in borough decisions and so has had no positive impact on historic preservation in a construction-friendly municipality.