Donna

Before 1960

 After 9/12/60

minus the third floor

2011

about to be demolished

I loved this house.

Milltown Road

 The Smith Family home is being sold and torn down.

c 1930

c 1947

Bill and Peter in the front yard with the Stoudts (boarders) and Oma (H Beck's grandmother). Note the fluttering chicken in the foreground. Many an Easter chick was dropped off in the front yard. No walking under the trees, no sleeping in.

My painting of his home for my husband"s Christmas present.
History gone like the Lawrence Smith Orchard and Farm up the road.

Update with some pictures from Facebook 

Wheel with tree grown around it.  I hope this gets saved!

Some photos from real estate listings .... 3+ acres, 1890 house.

675 Ocean: Further Comment on Elberon

After writing about our old house, comments on my Facebook Hometown Long Branch page and getting feed back for Nancy I think I'll add on.  Nancy mentioned a Mrs. Wolf living in the house.  I'm betting that was Florence Wolf.

She owned a house where Harbor Island Spa was built. Here's a great article about the house.

That was there when I knew her and her son Sammy Wolf.  They were friends of my Aunt Jean and uncle's crowd.  That included  Marty Schneider.  He delighted in taking off his wooden leg to shock folks.  At his parties the kids would collect champagne corks.  He was rumored to have been a rum runner in the old days.  "Boardwalk Empire" anyone?

There was Jack and Gwennie Wagner who lived in the "servants" part of 1023 Ocean.  He sold ambulances and hearses and she was a special friend of our friend Bam.  It was complicated.  Bam used to entertain at lunch with cocktails and gourmet food (my introduction to poached salmon) on his patio.  I think of him every time I poach a fish.

Frank Holmes was also in the group.  In 1946 as Director and Sec. of the State Department of Conservation, Division of Commerce and Navigation Council in Trenton.  he was partly responsible for the "T" jetties being built on the Elberon ocean front.  This group were heavy drinkers all, on the order of  "Mad Men".

Any whoo...Sammy gave great parties.  Barbecues on the beach.  I've never had better hamburgers.  They were really not kid parties by anyone's standards.  His mother Flo was strange even then.  She would appear on the third floor balcony that circled the central hall of the house, what ever the weather, in a bathing suit or the all together, a sight to behold either way.  Sammy always wore a bathing suit, even to go to the store in winter.

From what I can gather Flo had a falling out with her son over the house.  Here's a Red bank Record article about the fire in her house.  This link goes to a great issue, have a read.

And here's a second article.  Having lost the house to the mafia I think she was living at 1165 Elberon with her cats in August 1963.

I wish I had pictures from this era. I love digital.  This would have been some group to record.

Read the whole six part series about Harbor Mansions.

Sunset Ave Part 1

This post started out to be about a house, in Verona New Jersey. As I dug back in time it grew into a history lesson.

New Jersey now is pictured as a crowded suburb of New York City and Essex County is home to the Sopranos and Jersey Housewives. Back in the 1600's it was the frontier Indian country. Even today there are wild and woody places in the state that are hidden gems. We ARE still called the Garden State!

Politically the road has often been rocky. Control went from Indians to the Dutch (1609) to the Brits (1664), back to the Dutch (1673), back to the Brits (1674), and to freedom from Europe for the Colonies(1776). Religious factions, European wars and political factions all impacted the new world.

1603

The British took over the area of New Amsterdam from the Dutch in 1664-5. Land grants were awarded to the English Proprietors Lord John Berkeley and Lord George Carteret who sold shares to other investors, regulated settlement and collected rents. The Dutch recaptured the territory briefly in 1673. The English were back in possession a year later. The end result was a confusion of land ownership.

 1603

Many of the early settlers were Puritans. The Puritans fleeing European intolerance who settled Connecticut were not so tolerant themselves. Religious refugees from the Connecticut area, led by John Trent, along with members of the French Dutch Reformed Church from New Amsterdam and Staten Island moved to Nova Casnoa's Newark Township. This encompassed the area up to the Watchung Mountains.  Both my French speaking Dutch Reformed Demarest and Quackenbush ancestors were among those moving to the French Patent in the Patterson/Kearny area near present day Newark. Claremont Avenue (the Old Road in 1716) led from Newark to Cranestown (the future Montclair) farmed by numerous members of the Crane family and through the Horseneck (Verona) and on to Morristown.

1703

The town of Verona in Essex County has an old history dating back to the 1702. Men from Newark Township bought land from the Indians on the frontier. Thomas Jocabus purchased 14,000 acres known as the Horseneck from the Lenni Lenape tribe (see The Red Road, a Sundance TV series) for about $350 in goods. The land lay between the First and Second Mountains of the Watchung Range. Farms owned by the Jocabus, VanRipen, Personette, Canfield and Bowden families spread across land that became Montclair, Verona, Cedar Grove, and Caldwell. Those names appear on maps into the 1900's.

1730
A Mr. Butters followed a woodland trail and settled by a brook near the Pompton Pike (Bloomfield Avenue) on what became Butterstown Road (still named such on maps in 1833), now called Sunset Avenue.

This hamlet, right on the border with Montclair, included the properties near Prospect and Sunset settled by Nathaniel Baldwin (NJ tax records 1780), Calvin Schaffer and others who in 1776 incorporated Butter's holdings. The Schaffer house (built 1771) located at #77 Sunset (or #79 depending on the maps and census sources) passed thru the family until at least 1870 and still stands beside the brook.
 
1740's
After mismanagement by the Lord Proprietors all land grants reverted to the King who did not recognize the settlers dealings with the Indian tribes. Crown forces began action on land ownership and demanded payment or re sold farms in the Horseneck region farmers had owned for decades. This led to expulsions and imprisonment. Local militia were called out but were not about to jail many of their neighbors. Samuel Baldwin was one of those locked in the Newark jail in 1747. Neighbors armed with clubs and farm tools set him free and rioters harassed the new owners of farms. The rioting died down as the case dragged on in court. Indian raids from the wilderness in northwest Sussex county threatened the territory and drew the attention of the local troops. The land issues was not resolved until after the Revolution. This little noted Horseneck incident was one of the the first open rebellions against British rule. The idea of resistance spread to other hamlets and towns.

1777/1779
Washington marched up the Pompton Road to use the Watchung Mountains as a stronghold to spy on the English forces.  Twice troops camped in close by Morristown for winter headquarters.There were several important mines in the area to be protected.

NY Public Digital Library Collection Maps

1777

After the Revolution Caldwell Township incorporated the area along the Peakman River called Vernon Valley. There was already a place named Vernon so the Post Office added an "a"to the Vernon section and it became the Verona PO. Verona was still a part of Caldwell as was Cedar Grove. As towns grew up around crossroads, farms and centers of commerce the place names changed. Newark, Bloomfield, Caldwell and Franklin Townships, Buttertown, Cranetown, Speertown and Horseneck all changed names and boundaries over the years.

1800s
The 1806 Newark and Pompton Turnpike funded by Israel Crane of Montclair improved the road to the top of the First Mountain. There was a toll gate near the top of Sunset Avenue. This aided the transportation of goods, especially New Jersey apple cider the favored drink of choice, to the city. In 1814 Doctor Bohn dammed the Peckman River for a grist mill. Farming and timber reminded a mainstay until after the Civil War when progress arrived in the form of a rail line. The Panic of 1878 slowed local growth. It closed down a railroad plan to tunnel through the mountain.  Still land development schemes abounded attracting a wide group of investors including many Civil War veterans. Captain (Company D, 5th New Jersey volunteers) Hiram Cook (1827-1911) was one such speculator. He built his 1884 home on the lake front and developed the recreational park that is now Verona Lake. His first wife died and he married Mary Jane Mills. The Mills name appears on census sheets as a farm family on Sunset Avenue. A daguerreotype of John Mills exists that was rescued from a house sale in 1986.

1881

In 1890, the Caldwell Company was formed as a subsidiary of the New York & Greenwood Lake Railway. Two of the owners held also shares in the New York Suburban Land Company, interested in developing the Essex Fells area. The original tunnel plan proved too costly and a new right of way, via Verona and Cedar Grove, paralleled Bloomfield Avenue as a connection to the Overbrook County Insane Asylum (great stories and photos here) and the Newark City Home reform school. With the rails came more land speculators. In 1892 to improve the town image (ie. disassociate with the insane, criminal and rural elements) Verona broke off from Cedar Grove and Caldwell to incorporate as a township.

1891

One of the houses I grew up in was in Verona. That story next time.

Green Shingles

My husband was looking at Historic Preservation's real estate listings and went on line to see what else was on the market in Aiken, South Carolina.

The Aiken Winter Colony was the winter home to some very well off folks from the north ... a Vanderbilt, an Astor, W. Averell Harriman, and E Grace, president of Bethlehem Steel among others.   Polo and golf were the sports of choice.

Green Shingles, 1928

Among the listings he found "Green Shingles" a place we knew...a wonderful place in Aiken SC. It was owned by the Bishop of Charleston....given to the church thru the charm my husband's cousin, the Rt Rev Msgr. George Lewis Smith (1904-1978),  bestowed on some of the wealthy area matrons. He was the chaplain on the winter cruises the ladies took. The house was his home. He loved brass plates labeling things. Every door had a name plate. He was quite the guy, having been a lawyer in New Jersey who became a priest late in life. He drove a fancy car in Aiken, but when he came north to fund raise he borrowed a clunker.

Always dapper in his white suit, he married us. We visited him at Green Shingles in 1972 when our kids were 4 and 2. Note the brass plate by the door.

photos from real estate listing

Now I never saw the kitchen but I doubt it looked like this.

We had drinks on the veranda.

Then lunch in the dining room...where there was white carpet on the floor and a bell under his place to call a maid. The table was set with finger bowls. You can imagine how I controlled the kids!

The house has really been totally renovated!

Very ritzy. It was on the market for $2.75. New pool addition, old stables.

The Monsignor rode in his youth. The family story is that his fiancee died in a riding accident and he went into the priesthood. He's listed on the application for historic district designation. Along with the area's history Aiken is quite the interesting place.  If you love horses this is the spot. The Aiken Thoroughbred Racing Hall of Fame and Museum is right next door to Green Shingles. All manner of horse related activities abound...polo, trial riding on the 65 miles of trails, flat racing, steeplechase, and hunting. There's golf and tennis, lots of culture and the University of South Carolina at Aiken. I noted a good selection of homes/farms for sale.

La Clementine: Interior

Continuing with the interiors of

 

 La Cuisine:  Then

 

Now:  Looking down into la cuisine.  Stairs to the cave and laundry to the right.

 L'entree most used.

Up stairs from la cuisine we find le Salon, then:

Now

 Powder room to the right of the main door to the eastern terrace.

 

 

 Looking down from la chambre level.

Up the stair from the cuisine is la Bibliotheque level.

 

 View of the valley

 Looking up from the salon bathroom door to the left.

Main chambre a coucher (sorry, can't figure out the accent marks) is up some more stairs steps.  If you're counting there are five levels total.

Looking back to the steps.

Second set of beds.

The viewing the valley.

Living in a cave brings many visitors.  Here are "the Girls" as the spiders were dubbed.  They earn their keep in flies.

 

More to come:  The Valley.