Noted Guests of Idylease

Thomas Alva Edison’s name appears in the Idylease register, connecting him directly to the hotel during its early years.

At the time, Edison was traveling through northern New Jersey while involved in iron-mining work in Franklin and Ogdensburg, moving between those sites and his laboratory in West Orange. Newfoundland sat along that route, and local accounts recall Edison stopping in the village when his automobile needed service. On some of those trips, he stayed at Idylease.

Edison returned in 1928 for a different reason. That year, the Edison Electric Company oversaw the installation of electrical wiring and a power plant for Idylease, replacing the building’s original gas lighting with electricity. Poles carried wires through the woods from the generating plant back to the hotel, bringing steady electric light to the house on the hill.

Fragments of that system remained for decades — poles in the woods, glass insulators, and the ruins of the old generating plant. They are reminders of the moment when modern electricity reached Idylease, and of Edison’s quiet connection to the building’s history.