Famous Names, Famous Homes on Lake Hopatcong

While the middle class vacationed at Nolan’s Point, wealthy New Yorkers and silk merchants from Paterson and Hoboken were building houses near Van Evry Cove high above the lake on rises called Hoboken Hill and Mt. Harry.

Marin Kane’s talk on the history of the lake at the Jefferson House switched sides of the lake and socio-economic classes.

Over the next several weeks, Hopatcong Patch takes a look at the history of Lake Hopatcong. . Today we’ll look at the development of resorts around the lake.

The wealthy built “cottages” on the two hills, also bringing the major hotel on the lake, the Hotel Breslin. Designed by Philadelphia architect Frank Furness, the 250-room Breslin overlooked Van Evry Cove in what was then the Mount Arlington section of Roxbury Township. Concrete steps ran down to the hotel’s beach and boathouse, which is still standing. Not standing are the bath houses at the beach. In those days, Kane noted, bathers had to be dressed to walk through the hotel.

The cottages around the hotel were an early planned development. Soon two churches were built for the workingmen who built the hotel and others that sprang up around the lake. The original Roman Catholic Church, Our Lady of the Lake, was at the peak of Altenbrand Avenue. During an attempt to move it, the wooden structure collapsed and was replaced by the stone church that still stands on Edgemere Avenue.

Also on Edgemere on the other side of the former Breslin is the original Protestant Chapel, taken over by the Episcopal Diocese of Newark in 1926 as a mission and now St. Peter’s Church.

The wealthy and famous came to the Breslin and brought with them publicity. Three small hotels preceded the Breslin, the earliest of which was the Hopatcong House which was advertising by 183. By 1900, there were 40 around the lake.

The cottages became more and more elaborate. The most elaborate was Castle Edward on River Styx. The mutli-leveled house extended up from the lake and was sheathed in metal. Legend has it that when it burned in 1931, it glowed.

Fire was the end of the vast majority of the hotels. They were large and wooden and lit with gas in the early days. Early electricity wasn’t actually much safer.

Kane explained there weren’t fire companies around the lake until the 1920s and roads were barely accessible. Northwood had its own fire company early on because it was not accessible by road until the 1930s.

One hotel in River Styx was begun as fireproof in August 1911 but was destroyed by an explosion in July 1912.

Hotels were built for every clientele. Some were just Christian, some Jewish.

But not everyone stayed in a hotel. Many camped. Some of the most famous camps were in King Cove, River Styx and Halsey Island. By this time the Central Railroad of New Jersey had its line to Nolan’s Point, running under Espanong Road at the peculiar “hump” near Jefferson Lumber and Millwork.

The Lackawanna built a station at the site of the present New Jersey Transit station in Landing. The stone station, now offices, was built in 1911. The first steamboat was the Black Line, which could use the canal and the White Line which could not. For the steamboats, Landing Channel was dredged.

Between the railroad and the boats, every section of the lake was accessible, Kane said, which is why Halsey and Raccoon Islands developed at the same pace as the rest of the lake.

Roads didn’t circle the lake until the 1930s, at the end of the heyday of tourism.

The big years were the 1890ds through the 1930s, but war and its aftermath, the development of highways, led to its demise.

Famous Names

Kane spoke of some of the famous people who spent time at the lake.

Hudson Maxim owned about three-quarters of what is now Hopatcong  Borough. He built a main house, a boat house, a laboratory for his experiments with dynamite, an observatory and guest houses. He also bought a hotel. Two guests houses and a garage are now private homes. The boathouse was blown up in the 1950s by the property owner who thought he was overtaxed.

Still standing is the Lotte Crabtree House in the former Breslin Park section of Mount Arlington.

The second most important residence by architect Frank Furness, after the Emlyn Physick House in Cape May, the Crabtree House looks much like it did when the “Girl of the Golden West” retired to it in 1886. Crabtree was the most famous actress of her day and toured the mining camps of the old West.

Milton Berle stayled at the Breslin, renamed the Alamac in 1918.

Comedian Joe Cook built Sleepless Hollow in 1927 and was a full-time resident until 1941. A vaudevillian and Broadway star, he also kept a suite at the Plaza Hotel. His house on the lake still stands, but now surrounded by the 12 acres and 9-hole golf course.

Cook had his guests sign his piano, now in the Lake Hopatcong Historical Society Museum. One recognizable signature is that of Babe Ruth.