Lakeside's history, as seen through photos and documents

A reminder of what Greenwood Lake area was like in the summers of 1800s will be featured at the Lakeside Artist Exhibit on Dec. 10 WEST MILFORD — Lakeside is a community of 150 log cabins and homes nestled between the western shore of Greenwood Lake and the foot of Bearfort Mountain in the Highlands of Northern New Jersey. Like most lake communities, Lakeside has a rich history, but one that is all but forgotten today. There will be a special display that rediscovers Lakeside’s history through period photos and documents as part of the Lakeside Artists Exhibit at the Lakeside Community House from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 10. Northern New Jersey is dotted with lake communities that sprung up in the late 1800s as summer escapes from the heat, smell, and diseases of nearby large cities, where sanitation departments and air conditioning were yet to be developed. Greenwood Lake, nine miles long and straddling the NY-NJ border, was one of the main destinations for these Victorian travelers. Many large and fancy resorts were built along its shores throughout the 1870s and into the turn of the 20th century to accommodate these visitors. While some reports date Lakeside back to the 1830s, it was not until the Lakeside Inn was built in the 1860s that the community began appearing on published maps. Local historian Steve Gross said that Guy Sejuine La Tourette, a visitor in the early 1870s, described the Lakeside Inn as “a beautiful place half way down the western side (of Greenwood Lake) where summer boarders are taken.” According to Steve Gross, among the Inn’s amenities offered to nineteenth century guests were a tennis court, stables, a livery, and dogs and guides for hunting. The Lakeside Inn (later the Lakeside Hotel) also offered a beach and boating. In the early 1900s, Lakeside’s boathouse boasted a 3-story dock and deck. The boathouse, which is all that remains of the hotel complex, still stands today as the Lakeside Community beach house. During this Resort Era, travel from New York City was actually easier than it is today. The Montclair & Greenwood Lake Railway ran from Jersey City through Montclair and on to Greenwood Lake’s eastern shore at Sterling Forest. Here, the railway also operated several steamboats — the Montclair, the Milford, and the Arlington — that provided service to the hotels and their docks on the lake. These steamboats met the trains and took passengers to the various resorts around the lake. In winter, passengers would use horse-drawn sleighs. A period train schedule lists a 2 hours and 10 minutes travel time from New York City to Lakeside, at a cost of $1.20 each way. The Lakeside Inn’s proprietor in 1901 is noted as John Hagen. But by 1914, W.S. Gordon is listed as the proprietor. Gordon and his family would own and develop Lakeside and several neighboring communities in the decades to come. Because a fire destroyed the hotel and its records, there are only brief glimpses into Lakeside’s development from a handful of charred papers saved by community resident Mary Ann Schechter. But these few papers tell the story of the community and the country at that time. W.S. Gordon began to develop the area as a summer rental community. After his death in 1928, his sons Stephen and William Gordon took over the business. There are letters from Stephen from this period, showing how the new Lakeside Company began renting vacation parcels, building roads and supplying electricity and water. The company also began building log homes on the parcels. A promotional letter from 1933 offers “cottages from $100 to $600 for the season” and “genuine logs cabins for sale at $1,579, complete with the lot.” Most of these cabins were built with chestnut wood, from trees that died at the turn of the century from a blight that wiped out the stately chestnut tree in America. Jim Van Der Camp, of the West Milford Museum, recalls cutting down chestnut trees for log cabins with his father in the 1930s, and selling the scrap logs as firewood for $20 a cord “because it burned better than oak.” Then came the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Scattered correspondence from the hotel reflects this difficult time in America and in Lakeside. Real estate agents write to tell Stephen Gordon that his prices are too high in the post-crash housing market. Builders offer materials and labor at discounted rates or on speculation, in order to gain Lakeside’s business. And renters and buyers regularly plead for extensions on their payments. By 1935, the Lakeside Company is struggling, leasing the Lakeside Hotel and grounds to be run by someone else. The company is also leasing large tracts of land for summer camps, such as Trinity Camp for Boys and Furnace Brook Camp. Passenger train service to Greenwood Lake also abruptly ends in 1935, probably due to decreased ridership. However, by the 1950s, the Lakeside Company appears to be flourishing once more. In the post-World War II era, Americans have money and leisure time. Lakeside in the 1950s is now a community offering a variety of attractions, from summer bathing and boating to ski trails in winter. Furnace Brook is also established as a residential community under the Lakeside Company during this time. Stephen Gordon continued to oversee the community’s development. However, as noted in Wilbur E. Christman’s book Tales of Greenwood Lake, “Steve ran a tight ship, and at that time restrictions were a normal thing in some of the developments. Steve had these restrictions in his deeds. He set up a clubhouse, of which he kept ownership and control for many years. If someone sold, they had to get approval of the new owners from him if they wanted lake rights. Today these restrictions would not be tolerated or be enforced.” Many current homeowners are second and third generation Lakeside residents. To most, the “good old days” were the 1950s, when Lakeside as a residential community began. Few reminders remain of sleigh horse rides along frozen dirt roads or summer steamboat trips to arrive at Lakeside. Contributed by Kerry O’Brien