Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 4432 March Home&Garden Matters 2017 I If the walls of our homes could speak, what tales might they tell of the people who lived there before us? Maplewood’s neighborhoods are full of interesting old houses that in their lifetimes have embraced a multitude of families and their stories. Take the century-old house at 53 Curtiss Place. This handsome Colonial was built on what was The Hickories, the estate of Cornelius Roosevelt, who had combined the acreage of several farms along Ridgewood Road into a hundred-acres parcel. Roosevelt built an impressive mansion and fashioned the estate as his country retreat, adding tall trees, an orchard, flower and vegetable gardens, and a pond. His nephew, Teddy Roosevelt, would come there as a boy in the 1870s, and loved to explore its flora and fauna. Cornelius Roosevelt died in 1887, and after his wife died in 1902, his executors sold the property to South Orange businessman William H. Curtiss. Capitalizing on the surge of city dwellers moving to the suburbs, Curtiss began a housing development called Roosevelt Park, taking advantage of the property’s link to the popular new President, Theodore Roosevelt. Cornelius Roosevelt’s mansion burned down in 1905, but by then Curtiss had sold the property to developer Thomas B. Ackerson, who wasted no time in laying out the roads and advertising distinctive home designs. Rustic stone entry structures were built at the Ridgewood Road entrances to Curtiss Place and Roosevelt Road, designed to make a grand statement. By mid-1908, 100 of the 125 lots were sold. Architect George Edward Krug designed his first house in Roosevelt Park in 1913, at 9 Quentin Court. Born in Brazil, Krug had studied at the University of Pennsylvania and later opened an architectural practice in New York and in Orange. Home on the Hill The social history of a Maplewood residence BY GAIL R. SAFIAN PHOTOS COURTESY OF VISUAL MARKETING & DESIGN