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John W Boylston: Architect of Idylease

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John Butler Snook Designed the Original Grand Central Terminal in NYC

John W Boylston was the architect that designed Idylease for Dr Edgar Day who was the founding member of the Newfoundland Health Association. He was born in 1852 and died at the age of 79 on April 19, 1932 in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He retired in 1927 after long association with the New York firm of J. B. Snook Sons. He was Snooks son-in-law.

Snook was responsible for the design of a number of notable cast-iron buildings, most of which are now in and around the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, as well as the original Grand Central Depot for Commodore Vanderbilt, which preceded the current Grand Central Terminal. He also designed several Vanderbilt Mansions that adorned 5th Ave for William Harry Vanderbilt.

Boylstons work was concerned chiefly with the designing of office buildings and hotels. In 1920 he became an associate of the American Institute of Architects and was affiliated with the Brooklyn Chapter.

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Idylease: What’s in a Name?

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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.

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David Banks Sickels Authors the Poem Idylease in 1909

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A Crisp Autumn Day at Idylease Taken on Halloween — 2016

DAVID BANKS SICKELS

David Banks Sickels (1837-1918) was a Civil War Correspondent, Fiscal Agent for the State of Arkansas, a Diplomatic Representative of Siam and Acting Consul of The Netherlands. With Lyman W. Griggs he founded the American Surety Company and upon his retirement, focused on literary work. He authored a prolific amount of poems, many of which were published in “Leaves of the Lotos” and “Flowers from the Wayside”.

He authored this poem entitled ‘Idylease’ in 1909 while a guest of the hotel.

We love to hear the wild birds greet
At morn their comrades in the trees
And feel the heart of nature beat
With Joyous throbs at Idylease

To gaze upon the pine-crowned hill,
And watch the streamlets downward flow,
From foaming falls and roaming rills.
Along the steeps of Ramapo.

To linger mid the shady scenes
Where rest Invites the weary mind,
And evil never Intervenes,
For thoughts are pure and unconfined.

To lie upon the dewless grass
And view above the radiant sky.
Then count the fleecy clouds that pass
Like scenes before the dreamer’s eye.

To mark the parent bird’s delight,
As nestlings plume their eager wings,
Intent upon their infant flight
In quest of more etherial things,

To muse o’er rocks and running rills,
And trace Pequannock’s whirls and bounds,
Whose liquid laughter
In the hills Fills all the air with soothing sounds.

To walk the woods alone with God
As Enoch did. unseen awhile.
And know the paths our feet have trod
Were lighted by his loving smile.

—David Banks Sickels (1837-1918)

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