The Old Newfoundland Post Office

post-office-history-newfoundland-nj
In April of 1964 a group of students from Paradise Knoll Elementary School tour the post office to observe the process of mail delivery.

Located between Oak Ridge Road and Clinton Road on Route 23 South, The Newfoundland Post Office serviced local residents until it moved into its new location in Lakeland Plaza in the 1970s.

The postmaster at the old location was Jim Norman, who lived in Newfoundland for many years. Jim was also a member of the Community Fire Co. in Newfoundland and a founding member of the North Jersey Historical Society. After retirement Jim moved to Colorado to live with his son and passed away there.

newfoundland nj post office history
The Community Fire Co. No. 1 of Newfoundland and Oak Ridge’s first fire truck – a 1,000 G.P.M. 1917 American La France pumper from a Union City auction – is readied by Jim Norman and Peter Klapmuts.

 

Continue Reading

The Indoor Pool at Idylease

Idylease Indoor Pool

Idylease was widely advertised around the turn of the century as a modern health resort, offering “All Forms of Hydro-Therapy and Massage.” Idylease was established as “quiet, homelike facility with a staff of physicians that made referrals from their respective practices based in Brooklyn, NY.” The facility boasted Norwegian-trained massage therapists, and the “most approved scientific apparatus for administering baths, sprays, and douches.”

The original Hydrotherapy suite (pictured above) where baths were administered to alleviate symptoms of overeating, drinking or for various nervous ailments. After a hydrotherapy session, the now relaxed guest could seek simple pleasures like a game of billiards, reading before Idylease’s impressive hearth during the winter. For communicating with the outside world, the Hotel was equipped with telephones, but most guests relied upon the more conventional, letter or postcard.

On September 3, 1909, E. O. Wakley used one of Idylease’s hand-tinted postcards to write a friend. Wakley spoke of strong wind and nippy 48 degree weather, but indoors, radiant heat, sunshine, and “hot boxes in the treatment room” prevailed. “I’m improving. steadily,” Wakley wrote, and “hope to be my old self some day!”

idylease-poolAs time passed Idylease developed a reputation primarily as a medical facility. In 1954, Dr. Arthur D. Zampella purchased Idylease and converted the resort into a nursing home.

For therapeutic purposes, he constructed a pool in the basement in the space formally occupied by the hydrotherapy suite. Many local resident of West Milford Township learned to swim as part of a YMCA program that utilized the indoor pool at Idylease. The West Milford Township Police Department also utilized the pool in the 1970s and 80s to train for scuba rescue.

Continue Reading

Idylease: What’s in a Name?

idylease inn

For many years two stories have circulated about how Idylease derived its name.

Names for historic structures and landmarks give the people that live in the area a sense of place and speak to those locations and their particular place in time.

Several different explanations prevail about the naming of Idylease. Let’s first determine what is known for certain. Originally the area where Idylease is located was part of a 1,000 acre parcel that was owned by Theodore Brown who established Brown’s Hotel in Newfoundland in 1855. Dr. Edgar Day, a Brooklyn physician, along with 11 other investors built Idylease in 1902-1903. It was a place where cheerful hospitality reigned for persons “wearied or worn with the ceaseless turmoil of the city.” Originally, Idylease was planned as both a vacation spa and resort hotel.

Mention in a 1903 guidebook, yields an entry where State Rt. 23 crosses the Pequonnock River and the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad, narrowing the run between the parallel Pequonnock and a shale escarpment. This is a region of small lakes off the main highway, exploited by real-estate development companies as “The Idyl A While of the East”. Did Idylease derive its name from the locale of this reference? Or… does it’s name originate from the combination of syllables that include: Idyll“an extremely happy, peaceful, or picturesque episode or scene, typically an idealized or unsustainable one” and Ease“absence of difficulty or effort” as in ease of living? Somewhat of a literary romantic, it is also believed that Edgar Day named the resort after Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King,” an epic poem about Camelot and the legendary King Arthur’s court.

The background story of the naming of Idylease may never be known for certain and has probably died along with those who built the structure at the turn of the century.

Continue Reading