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On 6 June 1938 Father Vincent Amberg, prior in Morristown, proposed to the St. Mary's Abbey Chapter the construction,of a more than thirty room monastery building on the highest point of the Delbarton estate, just east of the water tower, for a total cost of $15,000, It was meant to house the juniors, theological faculty, and the brothers, until then residing in the mansion (and, perhaps, the so called brothers House). The building, first known as St. Mary’s Monastery, is now aptly named Vincent House.
PV’s proposal was approved, thus implying the intention of the community to establish a school in Morristown in the now available Kountze mansion. A canny PV managed to bring the building to completion by the summer of 1939 by (oral tradition has it) leading the lay brothers to the site to continue the work of carpenters and masons after they had gone home. The cost of building the structure was further reduced by recycling the bricks from the former Kountze chicken house, an imposing structure which once stood near the present South Gate entrance. The clerics were set to work cleaning the bricks from the demolished building for reuse in the new monastery on the hill. The cost, nevertheless, grew beyond that projected and consequently Abbot Patrick asked for and received the approval of the Chapter to sell three houses on Niagara Street in Newark that had belonged to Abbot Ernest’s family. The $5,900 realized from the sale completed payment for the building.It should have come as no surprise that on 8 May 1939, responding to a request by Bishop Walsh’s former secretary, Bishop McLaughlin, newly appointed first bishop of Paterson, that the Chapter, by a vote of twenty-three to nine, approved the foundation of a “residential high school” at Delbarton to commence the following September.