PARAMUS – A 250-year-old borough house listed on local, state and national historic registries will be demolished to make way for a pair of luxury residences, the borough Planning Board determined Thursday.

The board voted unanimously to approve Paramus-based developer Quattro 4’s proposal to tear down the Zabriskie tenant house on Dunkerhook Road and subdivide the property. The vote followed months of opposition from historians, preservationists and a family who said they could trace their ancestors to the freed slaves who were among the house’s original occupants.

“I’m a student of history, and I like history,” Planning Board Chairman Gary Pucci said. “I may not like the fact that this house is going to be demolished, but legally there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The decision ended a frantic effort by opponents to find a buyer to make a competing offer, with the understanding that the house would be used as a residence and its historical features restored.

The decision also came despite a last-minute offer from a Passaic Valley non-profit group, the Passaic River Coalition, to help find money to preserve the house and negotiate an alternative to demolition that a representative said could please everyone involved.

“The demolition of Dunkerhook’s Zabriskie house would be an absolute travesty and an egregious mistake for Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey and America,” said Laurie Howard, a Passaic River Coalition board member.

Howard implored the board to postpone its decision, saying her group had learned about the house’s eminent demolition from an article published in The Record on Sunday.

She said her group has experience helping municipalities come up with money to preserve historical sites throughout the state and could do the same for the Zabriskie house if given adequate time. She added that her group had contacted state legislators about the issue.

Quattro 4’s representatives described the house throughout the hearings as an eyesore whose historical value had been irrevocably compromised by decades of neglect and renovations that had all but obliterated its original features.

Attorney Mark Sokolich, who represented the developers, also said the elderly owner, Margaret Horton, saw his clients’ offer as the only way she could afford to remain in the assisted-living complex where she has lived for the past two and a half years. Sokolich, who is also the mayor of Fort Lee, added that his clients had given the borough and opponents of the proposal ample time to come up with alternatives since the project was first proposed over a year ago.

“This wasn’t a rush to judgment,” he said.

Sokolich has declined to say how much the developers paid for the property.

The two-story stone and clapboard Zabriskie house was built by the wealthy Zabriskie family, and was used later as tenant housing for African-American farmers. It was willed to two longtime family employees by a Zabriskie descendant in 1892, according to Bergen County Historical Society records.

The house is listed on the Bergen County Historic Sites Survey and the National Register of Historic Places for its Dutch sandstone structure and its connection to a settlement of freed slaves in the area. Those registries do not prohibit private owners from changing or demolishing historical structures.

It is also one of 22 properties listed in the borough’s historical preservation ordinance, which requires a six-month review period before a structure can be demolished but does not provide the borough any other legal authority to deny such a proposal, borough representatives have said.

The developers plan to split the 48,000-square-foot property to make way for residential construction similar to three large stone and stucco houses they built across the street.

Anthony Pucciarelli, a Quattro 4 partner, said his group will move forward with the demolition as soon as a required 45-day grace period after the Planning Board decision expires.

Opponents said they would explore their options to appeal.

“It’s not over until the bulldozers come,” said Peggy Norris, a Ridgewood historian who spearheaded the opposition.

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