MONTVALE—Having stood for decades at Spring Valley Road and Summit Avenue, Jerry’s Villa was the scene of so many banquets, parties, weddings, and other events that it was more of a landmark than just a restaurant. Of course, when most people think of Jerry’s Villa, they are picturing the second one, which opened in 1959. Let’s head back in time a little farther…
Italian immigrants Ciro and Assunta Della Bella opened the original Jerry’s Villa (“Jerry” is the Americanized version of “Ciro”) shortly after they moved to Montvale in 1932. Spring Valley Road was called Main Street in those days, and Montvale was in the midst of its transformation from “the sticks” to the suburbs. The western half was still largely rural, filled with sprawling farms rather than corporations, and about 1,200 total people lived in town—up from just 450 a generation earlier.
The food the Della Bellas served was primarily Neapolitan. Their restaurant was the first place in Montvale to serve pizza. The place proved to be very popular—so much so that Ciro and Assunta were able to pass it onto their children.
In 1959 the second-generation Della Bellas rebuilt Jerry’s Villa with a larger and more modern design, across the street from the original restaurant. It was a popular spot for weddings, with a 27-foot cathedral ceiling in the banquet room, space for 300 guests, and a dramatic staircase from which thousands of brides descended over the years.
The family got a scare in 1961 when flames rose up from the corner of Summit and Spring Valley—but it was the old 1932 building that had gone up in flames. By then the place was sitting vacant, so when a pre-dawn blaze destroyed it on Aug. 25, 1961, the loss was sentimental rather than financial. The owners and their families watched the blaze from the roof of their new restaurant. Afterwards, they served coffee and refreshments to the firemen.
For two more decades the Della Bellas continued to run Jerry’s Villa. Shortly after selling it out of the family, on one frigid night in January 1982 a huge fire reduced the building to smoking rubble. Of the 100 firemen on scene that night, the first to arrive had been Montvale’s First Lt. Jerry Della Bella—Ciro’s grandson. Townhouses were later built on the land.
— Kristin Beuscher is president of Pascack Historical Society