BY KRISTIN BEUSCHER
OF NORTHERN VALLEY PRESS
TENAFLY, N.J.—The only remnant of this Victorian-era mansion that once stood in Tenafly is a couple of stone columns at the corner of Engle Street and Forest Road.
The Victorian-era house at 226 Engle St. once belonged to Robert J. Waddell, a wholesale druggist who commuted from Tenafly to his office in New York City. The 1880 census lists household members as 42-year-old Robert, 30-year-old wife Sarah, and four kids: Mamie, 18, Martha, 17, Robert, 10, and Sarah, 4. We can infer that the teenage girls were from a previous marriage.
Waddell’s will, dated 1892, speaks to the family living in comfort. It mentions oil paintings, books, oriental rugs, bronze figures and pedestals, ornaments, French clocks and other valuable collectibles. His New York offices were similarly outfitted.
In 1923 the mansion became the Mary Fisher Home, a retirement home for female professionals. Former school teachers, nurses, artists, businesswomen, doctors, lawyers and musicians—all born too soon to benefit from pensions and Social Security—took up residence in the stone house’s 18 bedrooms.
By the 1970s, the mansion was in disrepair and in desperate need of renovation to meet building codes. High ceilings with ornate moldings needed to be lowered and sprinklers installed. A cracked girder caused the building to sag, the electrical wiring violated codes and a third floor stairway was too narrow.
Rather than take on the extraordinary cost of upgrades, the Mary Fisher Home moved to the former convent of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church on Magnolia Avenue.
Despite some efforts to see it preserved, the mansion was later demolished.