WESTWOOD, N.J.—Wouldn’t you love to spend a spooky Halloween night exploring this place?
This was the old Haring mansion on Kinderkamack Road in Westwood. Its former location is now home to the Westwood Hills garden apartments. This week, we go back to Halloween in 1928, when the young people of the town gathered here for what must have been a great party.
First, some background about the house. It looked like something out of “Gone with the Wind,” so how did a place like this end up in Westwood?
The late Helen Whalen wrote about it in her book “Did You Know? Stories and History of Our Hometown of Westwood” (available for sale through the Westwood Heritage Society). There is no need to reinvent the wheel, so here is how Helen put it:
“The history of the property goes back before the Revolutionary War. In the 1700s, the English government conveyed a tract of land to the Bogert family. It was acres of farmland along what is now Kinderkamack Road. It stayed in the family, and when Margaretta Bogert married Thomas Haring of New York City in 1880, she brought 13 acres of land and an old farmhouse on Kinderkamack Road to the marriage.”
During a trip to the Southern states, Mrs. Haring became enamored of the mansions she saw there. When the couple returned home, they remodeled the old farmhouse around the turn of the 20th century, transforming it into a Westwood landmark.
Thomas died at home in 1926, followed by Margaretta just eight months later, in the summer of 1927. Both lived into their 80s, which was a longer lifespan than most attained a century ago. Thomas’ obituary stated that “the Haring home is one of the showplaces in Westwood, being the large Colonial house on Kinderkamack Road, near the line dividing Westwood from Emerson.”
This brings us to Halloween night in 1928, when the mansion became the backdrop for a party hosted by Alice Haring, the 27-year-old granddaughter of Thomas and Margaretta.
The interior was decorated in black and orange, with crepe paper strung across the rooms. Lamps were dimmed and candles flickered inside jack-o’-lanterns, giving the place an otherworldly feeling.
All of the guests wore costumes: There were maids, clowns, witches, sailors, farmers, fortune tellers and pirates. Several young women dressed as “old-fashioned girls,” but as this took place nearly a century ago, it is hard to know what “old-fashioned” meant to them. Perhaps they raided their mothers’ closets and took their old corsets, long skirts and high lace-up boots.
A highlight of the evening was a “ghost walk” through the upper reaches of the mansion.
The group was led through darkened hallways, guided only by a faint light in the distance. Well-placed ghosts and skeleton figures elicited shrieks and laughter as the merry group made its way through the “haunted” corridor.
Eventually, the guests found their way back downstairs, where they danced, played party games and roasted marshmallows over an open fireplace. The party lasted until well after midnight.
As mentioned, the house is no longer standing. Its expansive grounds are now home to the Westwood Hills garden apartments, the ones with the red doors off Kinderkamack Road and Old Hook Road.
After they built the mansion, Thomas and Margaretta Haring learned it wasn’t the best choice for a New Jersey home.
As Helen Whalen wrote in her book, “It turned out to be an impractical house with 17 rooms, high ceilings, and big windows. These features were fine in the South, but in the Northern climate, it made it difficult to heat. The house was later used as a rental for many years before it was demolished in 1936.”
