Oral History
Peter Holmberg | We’re going to ask about your recollections of town dating back to, what year? |
Pete Haas: | 1939. |
PH: | We’ll head over to your first residence. Where would that be? |
Haas: | 8 Larchdale Way. |
PH: | Did you go to the Mountain Lakes school system? |
Haas: | Yes, Briarcliff. Grade 7 through 12. There’s a great story about this property, too. [The car is passing St. Catherine’s Church.] |
PH: | Would you share it with us? |
Haas: | If you were a Catholic you went to Mt. Carmel of Boonton, which was difficult, because it was uphill and all on street parking. In Denville there was a priest there [who was not liked]. So as more and more people came to Mountain Lakes and for some reason, Catholics seemed to have a lot of kids, and you had the Hapgood houses with four, seven, eight bedrooms. The Catholic families that came here, we always wanted a church. Finally a guy named Freddy Schwartz–he got the contract to build all the Esso stations north of New Brunswick. He bought a house down on Maple Way below the tracks. That was the first big development in town about 1947 or so–90 houses. |
PH: | He developed those houses? |
Haas: | No, someone else did. He bought a house down there. So we had mass there at his house, typical little house down there, and out on the lawn. So we wanted more space. So we came to the Mountain Lakes Club and they were very gracious to let us have Sunday mass. Then they came to four of us and said: “Gee you can’t use the club any more. It’s too many people.” It was loaded. Easy parking. Great view. What a place to have mass.We had to find a place. We went to the Masonic Hall on the Boulevard. There was a piece of land here where St. Catherine’s is. We went to the mayor and council. We’d like to buy it. No can’t buy it. Dick Wilcox was the mayor then. He worked downtown at JP Morgan and I worked at the stock exchange. So I’ll meet you outside. He said, “Next Tuesday night at the borough meeting, come in and bid…”–I think it was $19,000 per lot. I said, “Okay.” We bought it and built the church there–borrowed some money down in Jersey City. Anyway, Rosemary and I got married; we wanted to live in town. I wasn’t making much money and during World War II when I was a volunteer air raid warden and we had up on the hill by the water town a lookout station and we’d report any German planes coming.
This house we heard came on the market. The owner was a member of the American Stock Exchange. He said, “Well my mom wants to sell, she wants $15,000.” I said “Okay.” |
PH: | What year was this? |
Haas: | This was 1955. I had about $1,000, maybe. In those days Rosemary was selling real estate. So we bought it. We fixed it up inside. All these trees I planted. This was a denuded piece of property. Our sons Peter and son Brian were born there. Loved it. Made more money. Then Ed said, “You need a bigger house.” He lived over on Lake Drive. He said, “I’ll sell you a lot for $6,000.” I said, “Sold.” |
PH: | This house [8 Larchdale Way] has a lot of history, correct? |
Haas: | First church, school and borough hall. Behind is the lot, where Hapgood had his sawmill. They cut down all the trees to make the chestnut wainscoting that lot of people now paint purple and yellow. |
PH: | When was this the church? |
Haas: | Way back, when it was built. It was like a church meeting place. Then they built the Community church. And then the town built the borough hall up on Briarcliff and the Boulevard. |
PH: | Where the Christmas tree is currently lit? |
Haas: | Yes, that was the borough hall and the fire department. The police department was down where the guy sells Lionel Trains now. The fire trucks were here, underneath. And there was a room to sleep. When I was married, to make some money I would come over here at six o’clock at night till six o’clock in morning and sleep here. People would call in fires; you’d push the code button on a panel to sound the siren. The town was laid out in codes. You’d push say 22, so the [volunteer firemen] would know where to go, down to Morris Avenue and Midvale, or something. |
PH: | Really. |
Haas: | The sirens were here, over by the lake, and downtown by the railroad. So you’d hear two then three; no one would come here except other drivers. The volunteer firemen would all boogey on to where the fire call was and the fire trucks would eventually get there. During World War II the junior fire department was the fire department, because all the men had gone.Lydia Klintrup was the real estate lady. And that’s one of the two reasons we’re hear. Two people were so phenomenal to my family that that’s why my family came to this town. |
PH: | We’`re now at the Community Church. Do you have any recollections of this building or this area? |
Haas: | See that tower? Used to be a big bell in there. George Wilson and I would pull the rope down and cut the rope off [as a practical joke]. And the Revered Laurel Pancake, we called him Mr. Flapjacks. You know, wise kids.But back to St. Catherine’s–we built the church, big parking lot. When you went to mass, you put seat money down. Lot of Boonton people coming here to park, especially in the wintertime. Our first three priests we had were so wonderful. Short sermons. Dynamic. We were very fortunate, so a lot of people came and helped pay for the church very quickly. |
PH: | What years were you on the borough council? |
Haas: | It seemed like seven centuries. I really forget. I worked on the floor of the stock exchange and you had to forget what happened yesterday. It’s what happens today in the world of the stock market. I had probably the first case of Alzheimer’s because you develop a habit down there–you forget yesterday and you build around today and tomorrow. And the same thing with your life.They told me, you’ve got to have a new borough hall. We had a system, if you went out on bids for curbing. We did so many feet per year, for anything. We’d open the bids in public and the contractors would come. They’d stand up. There was a porch out front. It was a pretty little building. We’d open the bids in front of everybody. There was no Mickey Mousing. Guy named White, Buzz White, I think. He was an army veteran. West Point. Engineer. I had a little extra time, since the stock market was open 10 to 3 at the time, and there was no homework if you worked on the floor. You don’t take anything home. So what I did, I rode to about twenty or twenty-two towns. I walked into their borough building and fire department. I’d walk in and ask: “You got any plans of this building? We’re thinking of building a new borough building in Mountain Lakes.” I’d take them out for a drink or coffee. I’d trace things, a skill I learned in Mountain Lakes schools.
I got all kinds of stuff. Buzz and I would meet up at his house on Tower Hill Road. We’d take all these pieces of what buildings looked like. Shape and size, I took pictures. Finally we came up with a plan. Then he got an architect. We said, “This is what we want.” Board of education office. The fire department. The police department with that courtroom right next to it, instead of transporting back and forth. I don’t know if that came from Bloomfield. Then we built that and had a budget of $330,000 to build a new borough hall down there. We were lucky. There was a company that sold carpeting. There was a heating and air conditioning thing you put up on the roof. And Mercantile Stores and Minot Milleken–big carpet people. They had carpeting with steel wire embedded in it for commercial use. So I called them up and said, “How’d you like to be the showcase for a brand new borough hall up in northern New Jersey?” They sent a guy out of New York City. He saw the plans and he measured and said, “Yeah, this would be great.” Brand new borough hall, nice town.” And we got all the carpeting. Now to get the money. T here was no budget, so. I knew Vladdy Scerbo since 1939. He wanted to expand. The borough garage used to be on Rt. 46 where BMW is now. I think I got around $127,000 for that. There was a courthouse out there on the highway. You should have seen that courthouse. That was part of the old construction, part of the borough maintenance garage. So I would go around and find, for example–between that house and the next house, piece of borough land. It was very, very tight zoning here. But I would go to this house–“You want to buy half of that lot? Your taxes won’t increase. You can maintain it or not. It will be a good deal.” I’d go to the other people. And we’d make a deal at the other house. I forget how many, maybe 90…we didn’t ask for that much money, maybe three or four thousand from this guy, three or four thousand from that guy. Then they had a bigger piece of property, and they can’t build on it. So we got money here. We sold all kinds of little tiny pieces to maintain the integrity of the town. That was in the 60s. |
PH: | We’re still here at Briarcliff and the Boulevard, you said Mrs. Klintrup Had a lot to do with you staying in town. |
Haas: | Quick story. The Haas family…I’m fifth generation born in New York City. We lived out on Long Island. My sister Janet, I’m 80. She’d be 83. She died eight years ago. Infantile paralysis, very deformed. No schools would take her. For about three and half years she lived on an iron lung. Pumps going all the time. Everybody would read to her. My sister came out of that in a wheelchair and my dad lost his business in the Depression. We had a very nice house in Atlantic Beach about 30 miles from New York City, but lost the house in the Depression. Someone heard about my sister Janet and about us losing the house and they offered to let us in their nearby fishing cabins. We lived there a couple years. We had great time. We fished almost every day, and we worked on a farm and we’re given food that supposedly didn’t sell. My mother would go to try to find schools. All over Long Island. No. No. No. Because 90 percent of the schools, like Briarcliff and Lake Drive, were two stories or three stories. The old schools were that way.My mother borrowed a car from the family who lent the cabin.. The neighbor who lent us these two buildings on their property, on the sound out there, let her borrow their car. The fourth day she went to Essex Fells and mailed postcards. Here’s where I am. Bergen County. No luck. Winter afternoon, little bit of snow. My mother got to know the Essex Fells postmistress who happened to know about Briarcliff School being built by the WPA and Lydia Klintrup, the realtor in Mountain Lakes. My mom came up here. Borrowed car. Sleeping in it. Knocked on the door: “Mrs. Klintrup, I’d like to speak to you for a few minutes.” That was about 3:30 in the afternoon.” She said: “Why don’t you stay for dinner.” Turned into a big fight, because my mother insisted paying 80 cents or something. About nine o’clock at night, Mrs. Klintrup said “I have to make a phone call.” My mother saw her use of those old upright telephones. She talked for about a half hour. She said–my mom’s name is Betty: “Betty, Betty, telephone. It’s Mr. Anibal, the superintendent of schools. Mr. Anibal, the superintendent, principal, boss, teacher, what a man. I can imagine him. He had a big Adams’ apple with a bow tie. He said, “Mrs. Haas, you have a problem.” “I know I have a problem.” He said: “School starts nine o’clock tomorrow.” |
PH: | Wow. |
Haas: | My mother went berserk. Mrs. Klintrup said, “You’ve got to stay here overnight.” Next morning they get up, beautiful day in Mountain Lakes in the winter, about an inch or two of snow. The sun was out. Mrs. Klintrup says, “I’ve got to check some houses.” She was making many phone calls. They go around and they check four houses and the fifth was 26 Condit Road. Went in. It was empty. Beautiful parquet floors, chestnut wainscoting, sun coming in. Then they went down to Boonton National Bank…and they met with Mr. Blackwell….See that house over there–see that big house up there, they had a huge ballroom behind it, against that wall, and a big swimming pool—that goes all the way through to Cobb Road. We used to break into it all the time. We were wise guys. We’d go swimming in the pool. Someone did tear down that big, big ballroom. Extraordinary place. See what they’re doing? They’re resurrecting the pool.
Here’s another well-known place. Grigsby Station–This used to be a magnificent piece of property. See the stone wall. They subdivided it. I don’t know where they got the name. That’s a new house now. Uphill was the Woolworth family. |
PH: | I’m going to hold you to the Condit story. |
Haas: | There used to be a solarium back there–see that building. I tried to by that. The people didn’t want to sell it. I did buy this for 400 bucks–the old “card” house, probably the smallest house in town. One room, big fireplace, small bathroom. The family had it built to play cards. |
PH: | This is the corner of Briarcliff and Lookout. |
Haas: | They played cards here. This is the estate. I bought it at a tax sale. Eventually sold it and gave all the money to build the first bleachers down at Wildwood Field. I bought it and took the American Legion in here. We had a Legion post in town. |
PH: | World War I? |
Haas: | Yeah, and then World War II. A social group. Beautiful place. Oh my god, the fireplace. But then someone came to us and said, “Mountain Lakes will be a hospital facility for civil defense when the Russians come.” So they sent this hospital package. The damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. A packaged hospital. And we stored it here, until I sold this, then we hustled it to the railroad station, and up in the upper half we stored this hospital. Civil defense hospital. |
PH: | Really. |
Haas: | Beds and operating room. Unbelievable. It was a field hospital. Legion post was gone, so we sold that and gave the money for the bleachers. All of a sudden we get a knock on the door and a federal agent’s there. They wanted to lock me up. Because a man in town turned me in. |
PH: | For what? |
Haas: | For moving the civil defense hospital without authorization. I got turned in and they were going to lock me up. I had a hell of a time. Someone bought this and made a beautiful house out of it. |
PH: | This is the Woolworth house? |
Haas: | Yes. And they had relatives. The whole thing was along here. A whole walled in property. |
PH: | 98 Lookout. And there are some unbelievable pictures on the Mountain Lakes Web site of this being constructed. |
Haas: | It was the biggest house in town. They made that look a lot different. It used to be just a garage but somehow they got away with making it a home. That was servant’s quarters and a garage. And some wise kids from up on Condit Road used to throw rocks at this garage.That was a small house and look at this, they tripled the size of this… |
PH: | The Joyce’s here. Beautiful home. We’re turning onto Crestview. |
Haas: | And the Van Duyne house. |
PH: | The rumor is this is where Hapgood’s foreman lived. |
Haas: | Could have been. I know a guy hung himself there. One of the four hangings I’m aware of in Mountain Lakes. |
PH: | The corner of Crestview and Van Duyne. We’ll make a right. |
Haas: | That house right up here, that was the most expensive house in town, that big house. Ten thousand bucks. Oh, my god, who would pay ten thousand? It goes all the way to the water tower. |
PH: | These other houses are all new. Were some of these subdivisions done before you had gone around asking for… |
Haas: | A lot of them were done after. I lived right here. Anyway, my Mom and Mrs. Klintrup were in here. Mrs. Klintrup says, “I’ve got to check across the street.” That house, up there. And she handed my Mom a piece of paper to read. Lightly snowing, dark. And my mother Irish Catholic. The sun came out and shone on my mother going out to a porch and she read this piece of paper: I so-and-so Blackwell trustee for the Belhall company in bankruptcy, do sell to Joseph and Francis Haas 26 Condit Road, $4,000. Ten years to pay, with no interest. |
PH: | Wow. |
Haas: | We borrowed a truck and moved. I’m right here, shoveling snow with a newspaper. My dad there. We didn’t have shovels. And a truck pulls up, huge to me. Canvas top, had a chain drive on the outside. I weighed 129 pounds when I graduated. I was little anyway. Big guy, cigar, hat, sleeves road up, colder than hell. He said something in Italian. Guy named Vito Mola. His two people ran this town. Kept it clean, hedges clean, snow plowed. He backed up and they plowed–they couldn’t get underneath there, but they plowed, backed up.Time to go to school. Mom and Dad knew what was going on. They used coal leavings. That would be the grits for the road. We pulled up in front of Mountain Lakes School. My sister Janet and I, and there was four guys at parade rest. Cold miserable day. Knickers, socks hanging down. Country’s at war at the time. And they carried my sister Janice to class. She went to school. Graduated from here. Got a couple of degrees. Ended up with a phenomenal career. And Mountain Lakes took us in. We had nowhere to go, no funds.
And you always left doors open. There weren’t many people living up on the hill. That house wasn’t there. This was the last road to be paved. Summit Road. Only one person had driveway access on it. I think the first cement road–and maybe in the area, was Pollard Road. There’s some kind of history to Pollard Road and the cement road. Bert Benville, the dentist bought that place. Ten thousand dollars. |
PH: | Now we’re on Lookout. Next to the water towers here. Did you spend a lot of time back in these woods here? |
Haas: | Oh yeah, all the time. |
PH: | Such a beautiful setting up here. |
Haas: | Spent a lot of time up here. Great sleigh riding. |
PH: | Definitely want to ask you about the sled run up here. It’s one of the great treasures of the town that we should take some time to restore. |
Haas: | Guy named Hartman owned this property. |
PH: | 47 Condit. |
Haas: | Hapgood and his Mountain Lakes Incorporated built the houses. In the twenties, people [looking to buy a new house] used to get off the train and were met by drivers with horses and buggies, the elegant stuff. Then Hapgood was driven into bankruptcy. The Belhall company with the Boonton National Bank [took over]. The deal was to get people that looked like good people in the homes to take care of them. Condit Road, not this house, they’d have on a tree a red sign with a number on them. That’s how they knew which the Belhall Company owned, and they would go by that number and not the particular address.Anyway, we moved out, went to school here. My brother did. I did. My older brother had just graduated. He went into the army. My sister Jeanne, who was at Pearl Harbor. |
PH: | How many were you? |
Haas: | Five kids. About six uncles and aunts of no relation. We always took people in. We always had people.Dr. Emil Hornick’s house. Hornick and his partner John Roy delivered about 100 percent of the babies for twenty years around here. |
PH: | 50 Lookout. |
Haas: | Guy named Kirby, I think… |
PH: | 21 Lookout. |
Haas: | Yep, his son, a little bit older than me. He was called The Nickel Lock King. He owned a patent on charging a fee to get into toilets—everyplace you had to put a nickel in to get…. He told me once, and Dick Ribble who lived up there–very very famous model, Dick Ribble’s sister, well known around the word. Beautiful woman. He was going to sell me, or me and George, a key to every men’s toilet and women’s toilet for 30 cents. I scrounged up 30 cents and gave it him and he gave me a nickel. I said, “What kind of a key is this?” He said it works, but you can only use it once. That was the first con job that ever happened to me. Boy did I feel foolish. |
PH: | That’s great. [Laughs.] Now I had a question about Mr. Cobb up here. |
Haas: | Noel Cobb? |
PH: | His home burned down recently. This street was named after him or his family, I assume? |
Haas: | Could be. This used to be closed in the wintertime. The best sleigh rides in town. Glen Road. They’d have guides there. They’d have the pots out, black pots burning oil on the corners. We’d start way up and come down. This and Pollard Road were closed for sleigh rides. |
PH: | Let’s go downtown. |
Haas: | Anyway, we built the borough hall and we were short money for painting. So I got some good guys and we painted that whole place inside, way ahead of schedule. |
PH: | Just some local volunteers. |
Haas: | Yeah. |
PH: | Who were some of the gentlemen who helped you do that? |
Haas: | Jack Hildreth was one. Firemen. They’re all gone. I’d go there every night, paint for five hours. And on weekends. |
PH: | The Little Theater. Can you tell us anything about it? |
Haas: | Zero. I just don’t remember anything about it. Never saw it used.When we came here, again, I think there was 647 homes for sale and almost 400 of them were empty. There was almost no one would go to school that came from this side of the Boulevard. But you walked of course. And rode your bike, which was very difficult going home. Anyway, we built the borough hall–$330,000–borough hall, board of education, course they all claim now it’s not enough space.
Mountain Lakes Club. I had no part in this, now George did. New Year’s Eve, we go up these back steps. It’s changed a little bit, because off Pollard Road, a lot of people had chickens for eggs, during World War II. When we’d go in we tried to steal chickens and let them loose during fancy dances at the Mountain Lakes Club. You should have heard the noise. Don’t know if the chickens were louder or the women. Up on the top of Pollard was the Hill Circus, elephants and tigers, all that kind of stuff. |
PH: | We’re coming up on Memorial Park. I’d like to get your thoughts on this. How did this come to be? |
Haas: | It was here, when I came. |
PH: | This memorial is for World War I, I believe, and this is for all others. |
Haas: | My son’s on there, so it means something to me. On Memorial Day, everybody came here. It’s nice now, but EVERYbody came. And the mayor would give a talk. Mountain Lakes did everything together. Everybody came to everything. Course I love it because I’m here. Mr. Blackwell from the Boonton National Bank. That’s why my family was dedicated to do as much as we could for the town. |
PH: | The town gave to you and you gave back to the town. |
Haas: | It was easy. |
PH: | You were on the council. You were police commissioner, you were the recreation… |
Haas: | Charlie Pitcher and I mostly did the recreation commission and they hired Bill Kogen. Someone knew him, a swimming guy up in Fayson Lakes. Back in 1953 there was a guy named Sherman who developed Birchwood Lake, and Dick Wilcox didn’t want that developed. They wanted to keep 50 percent or more of the land owned by the borough of Mountain Lakes. So they got together and they put in an ordinance.Mountain Lakes, I think, paid $52,000 for the property. It was written up in Time magazine. Got big publicity. Second time. Mountain Lakes got huge publicity when the “trackless wonders” won the Penn Relays. We had a track team here in 43, 44, class of 46–I graduated in 45. They used to run down at the railroad tracks. There was no track here. There was Wildwood Field, which was built by hand. |
PH: | Wildwood Field was? |
Haas: | Yes it was. Trees were cut down. Horses came in from the farms out in the valley, with those big metal scoops with the handles. You’d dig dirt and dump it over the side. It was built by hand. |
PH: | They were the trackless wonders. |
Haas: | They won the Penn Relays. Huge publicity. No track. Dean Noll. Howie Tizzer. Al Van Duesen. And John Smith.White swans. We’ve always had swans on this lake. |
PH: | We’re here at Midvale Boat Dock. I wanted to get your impressions of when this came in, Island Beach, and what we’re seeing. |
Haas: | Island Beach was about one-third of the size. Very, very small. |
PH: | But there was another beach. George Wilson told me, over by the dam. That was more commonly used. |
Haas: | Lot deeper water, not much beach. Wildwood was used. We tripled that, we kept bringing in sand and sand. One thing I remember about this. We spoke to Joe Klockner, who put in all the metal for the swimming piers at Birchwood Lake. Klockner Steel did. We said, “Joe we’ve got to have something.” People were just dumping stuff all over the place. Boats and canoes. So we were going to build a dock here. Charlie and I were in charge of the recreation commission. We put up flags around town when the lakes were safe to skate. So we measure the ice. Joe said he needed six inches of ice. “Yeah, you’ve got six inches of ice,” Charlie told him. Well, Joe gets in his truck with a big thing on the back and starts putting those things to put a dock out there–this is totally new. His truck gets out there. One, two, maybe 60 percent of the way out. “Where’s Joe’s truck?” The lake was only maybe four feet deep. I think Joe’s brother was running the truck. Joe was a big wonderful guy. He looked at it. I said, “We’re going to get killed.” Joe started to laugh. They were so great.We’d have fires here. They would bring a big steamer trunk, which was batteries and a megaphone–and they’d play music here. And most of the skating was done over on Wildwood, off the Boulevard. Vito and Smitty would bring wood–we had big bonfires and that big black box that had batteries in it and they’d play music. Wildwood would freeze a lot better. |
PH: | That’s still true today. I don’t know why that is. |
Haas: | There’s good springs around here. Plus, years ago they didn’t freeze too much because of the sewers. When they built these things, most of the septic tanks were built out of wooden walls. Everybody had sewer problems. |
PH: | Coming down Midvale. |
Haas: | The guy Hartman, back up on Lookout, he was caught selling oil and gas to a German submarine. He had an Italian gardener and a Japanese houseboy. He got caught. But before we found out, this was maybe ’43, one day, the Japanese houseboy was down here at Yaccarino’s. And Decker, one of the guys from Dixon Brothers, called him [deleted] and he took him right through the door. |
PH: | Really? |
Haas: | Yeah. I was here. We used to hang around on this wall all the time. Sit there. Big shots. |
PH: | We’re here at the Midvale stores. What’s your memory of these buildings. I know you mentioned earlier about the police station being down here. |
Haas: | Judge Roberts. About 80 feet tall with a black robe. Huge guy. |
PH: | What is now the Mountain Lakes garage. |
Haas: | Hamilton’s garage. The guy who ran that was the head of the German bund on the East coast. |
PH: | What is the German bund? |
Haas: | It’s a bad group of Germans who were against this country. They had some organization. When Mountain Lakes found someone bad, they ran them out. They got rid of him. Then Bill Fedo came and made a gas station out of it.The basketball court was built by hand. By kids. |
PH: | Do you remember that? |
Haas: | I certainly do. I led the charge. We needed a basketball court. Town said all right. |
PH: | It’s dedicated to a classmate of yours and a close friend. |
Haas: | Ken Morrison, yes. We took the dirt and shoveled it over the side. Went to Marcello’s in Boonton, and for about one-tenth of the price… |
PH: | What year was this? |
Haas: | When I came home from Korea, I decided to do more work for the town. I had some town saws. Boy Scouts, scoutmasters. Ninety-two kids. |
PH: | Ninety-two kids here working on this? |
Haas: | No, that was in the troop. Got some of the older guys. Some of the firemen. Said bring shovel. So we cut down trees. Leveled it off. |
PH: | How long did that take to build? |
Haas: | Took about four weeks. Then we hustled, I think it was Joe Liva from Boonton. He’s still in the business of blacktopping. He did the first blacktopping. Six inches. There used to be big time volleyball every night, with lights. I started the Hub Lakes league in about 1947. It started because of the volleyball. Mountain Lakes, Rainbow Lake and Rock Ridge Lake. Then it became Indian Lake, and Cedar Lake. It started with Joe DeVale, he started the citizen, the newspaper. Guy named Williams, Scoop Williams, the reporter from the Daily Record. We started the Hub Lakes League. Basically it was volleyball. Big time volleyball with lights. Every single night. Then we turned it more to basketball. Then it died. George gave thousands of dollars to refurbish that place. They don’t keep it clean. They don’t put nets on the backboards. For years there were trees leaning on that fence. It’s a disgrace. Part of it is, the kids are now home playing video games.Patsy the tailor was on this side. |
PH: | You had a tailor in here… |
Haas: | The post office used to be on that end. Then they moved. Neuf Sodano made a store of out it. Sold cigars, magazines, there were six stools. Stewart’s root beer, sandwiches, ice cream. A lot of newspapers.When I came back from Korea I didn’t know what I was going to do. Decided I had to do something when I got off the train, instead of going up to Pard’s or Stockman’s, two bars up in Rockaway at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. So I bought Sodano’s. I had a contest to name the store. I didn’t want to call it Pete’s place.
I gave a $25 savings bond, and the postmaster’s wife, Millie Harris, was the contest director, and the winning name was The Whistle Stop. We put in greeting cards in the back, magazines, toys, a soda fountain. I would have four kids out here on Sunday. The Daily Mirror, Daily News, wasn’t a Post at the time, Herald Tribune, they had aprons, and you pulled around here –and to make some money, a marine that I knew, Captain John McGlaughlin, worked for Westinghouse. I was on reserve duty, he gave me a little five-page brochure. Toasters, Mix Masters. Twenty to forty dollar items. Electronic stuff. I had an idea. Got some of the kids in. “Here’s how you guys can make some money. Pass these out. Get orders. Come here. We’ll have the stuff delivered here.” We did, I forget, how many thousands of dollars worth of business. All Westinghouse products. I had someone named Natale Fretoni working there. A red headed kid and I used to boot that kid in the butt. He became a big top heart surgeon. Sandy Brown, he lives out in Chicago. He said, “I learned a work ethic working for Haas.” |
PH: | When did it stop becoming a store? |
Haas: | I sold it in 55 or 56 or 57. Al Beatty bought it and kept it for about six years. Ran it into the ground. That man we were talking about before, opened a pharmacy here. He did something I couldn’t believe. He had prophylactics and everything for sale.At the train station was a guy named Red. He was the ticket agent and sold newspapers out of there. He’d bring the mail from the upper floor of the station on a pull truck to the post office. A lot of the mail came by train in those days. He’d drag the five bags all the way to the post office. Folks would go out and help him. The first home delivery in Mountain Lakes was done by George Wilson, a classmate of mine. First class mail twice a day. |
PH: | We’re at the Esplanade here. Tell me what that was like? |
Haas: | It was always beautiful. There are great pictures from here looking out when the trains came in and some of the buggies were pulled up. Some people had cars. Some people had horse and buggies. They’d pull up here in the train in the summertime.I remember we used to hang out here. We’d go to Yaccarino’s for something to eat after school. |
PH: | Let me get your thoughts on the library and the post office. You remember these being built? |
Haas: | Oh, absolutely. The post office was there when this was built. Freddy Schwartz, the same guy who bought the house for the first Catholic Church and helped us a great deal with building St. Catherine’s Church. He bought this. His daughter owns it.[missing section]
On this side as you go into Sunset Lake–Freddy owned some land there. We wanted to swap it for recreation purposes. We had Bill Kogen and we had a good recreation committee, Charlie Pitcher and myself. That’s how Pitcher Field was built behind the YMCA. We went to a guy in town. He was the flag bearer for the Olympics in 1918. We just passed his house on top of Lookout Road, where you said that’s a nice view up there. Tommy somebody—went to him, Kogen, Haas, and Pitcher. We had $130,000 and we wanted to build a swimming pool, because to swim, the kids would have to go at four in the morning down to Patterson to get pool time. So we raised the money to build a pool. We had a whole design. We had all the money to build a great pool and put it where the tennis courts are now. One guy fought and fought and fought, and he knocked it down. It was a sad thing. So finally we got together with Boonton so we could have a YMCA and it was much better because it became Lakeland instead of only for Mountain Lakes. It would have belonged to Mountain Lakes High School and the borough of Mountain Lakes, where the tennis courts opposite the high school are, on Powerville Road. Because he was such a miserable guy, it killed the deal for us. That’s how the Y started down there. Which turned out good. |
PH: | We’re here at Briarcliff. I assume you went to school here. This was your high school? |
Haas: | It was seven through twelve. I came in eighth grade. We had 47 kids in the class. It was built by the Works Projects Administration. They did a great job building it, but they had a deal with the feds. You had to have so many kids come. And there weren’t that many kids in Mountain Lakes. Most of the houses–60 or 70 percent of the houses– were empty. So the train would come in the morning, the old steam engine, and the kids from Montville, Lincoln Park, Towaco would ride it to come to school to help fill the school.We wanted to play basketball on weekends. There used to be bicycle racks here. We’d have a girl or someone jam or leave that second window unlocked. We’d take the bicycle rack, on a Saturday or Sunday. Take it over here and lean it up against the wall and climb up that. One guy would get into the girls rooms room and come down here and open the door. And we’d close the curtains in the basketball court. Mr. Anibal: “How did you get in here?” “Oh, the door was open.” He knew it wasn’t. Mr. Foley and Andy Ferraiuolo, they locked this place up, so the bad guys couldn’t get in. See these bottom windows. George and I worked in there–eighth through senior, we worked in the kitchen. They’d have the gym locked, but we knew that if you’d go up on the second floor there was a storeroom and a hatch up there and you’d get in the hatch and you could go all the way across the top of the gym and come down — there’s a side door there — and you could come down and go in the gym. And the chains would still be on the door. |
PH: | That’s funny. |
Haas: | Leonard’s Beach, over here on Wildwood. We had fun playing here. Old buildings. |
PH: | Here’s the old Wilson Estate, right. |
Haas: | We lived right behind it. We talked George into coming in from Parsippany to buy this house for $17,000. George and his mother in law did not get along. Mrs. Shute When we bought the lot on Lake Drive, we sold that house–we were door to door. We sold it to his mother in law, Addie Shute. That was terrible. |
PH: | I want to go by Lake Drive. A few things of interest. I want to hear about your home here, of course. And also if you remember the lumberyard that was down there. Or was that before your time. |
Haas: | That was before my time. We used to swim up here, too. There’s a swimming pool in that courtyard. Not deep. That’s been there since the 30s. |
PH: | It’s a unique house. I really like that house. |
Haas: | Used to be a boathouse down there. |
PH: | Think it’s still there. |
Haas: | That used to be part of another house. |
PH: | Stansfield? |
Haas: | Yes. Coke Andrus lived here. His father was a general in the 8th Air Force. Big hero in World War II. You know a Medal of Honor recipient came from Mountain Lakes–Frederick Castle, lived down on Pollard.The first mayor, Hansen lived here–back in 16, 17, 18— |
PH: | 95 Lake Drive. |
Haas: | Gracie Hansen lived there. |
PH: | And this is you up here? |
Haas: | I paid $6,000 for the lot and paid $28,000 to have the house built. Sold if for $300,000. Took that and bought the house over in Denville. |
PH: | It’s a beautiful setting. You must have enjoyed the fireworks. When did that start? |
Haas: | I’m not sure, maybe the sixties. The main thing is: Railroad Fusee, which is down on Fanny Road and Morris Avenue. They would give us these flares–the railroad flares were made there. We’d walk around the lake. Everybody did it. Every ten feet there’d be a flare. At nine o’clock or something, we’d light them up. All around the lake there’d be these red railroad flares.I think it was maybe Dick Wilcox. He went down to Fusee, because he knew the heat from those things. So if there was a chimney fire, we’d put tarps in front of the fireplace and hoses up on the roof and ladders, in case–and we’d fire that sucker up and the roar, cause the heat and the fire going up–it would sound like a railroad train going through the chimney but it cleaned those suckers out and it saved a lot of problems for a lot of people. But they were petrified when we’d light that big sucker and hold it up there. They were about 20 inches long and two inches around. It would burn out all the creoste and bird’s nests and other stuff, very effective. |
PH: | Were you responsible for the DPW [Department of Public Works] coming here? |
Haas: | No. Borough hall built it. They gave me the key to it. Two people. We had a committee of two. We didn’t want anybody else.We had two great cops. Great reputation, because Harry Dennis would get a call about 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock, one o’clock in the morning. “Hey Harry, this is Joe.” He was the chief of police down in Patterson or Passaic. “Got a couple left about an hour ago, they’ll probably be up there about two thirty in the morning. How ya doing. Can I come up fishing?” “Yeah, come up.” So he calls Art Ginter who lives over here. Harry Dennis lived over on Morris Avenue and they go over the railroad bridge behind Dixon’s. It’s different now. It wasn’t as high. When the trucks would come up–they had stolen silk from Patterson, which used to be the silk capital. These trucks would lumber up on the old Route 6-46. They’d just drop in the roof and arrest the guys. They’d take the trucks and park them where the old, famous Mountain Lakes Inn used to be. |
PH: | Mountain Lakes Inn? |
Haas: | Yeah, there used to be an inn right where you come in off of 46 where you turn off onto Crane. On the opposite side was a big old building, which was the borough garage. |
PH: | That was an inn? |
Haas: | Got involved in Prohibition problems. |
PH: | Well, we’ve covered a good bit of the town today. Thank you Pete for sharing your memories. |