The home pictured at above was built on First Street in Demarest, but nowadays it stands on Stelfox Street.
That’s because this week 80 years ago, a full 12 streets in Demarest got new names. Our research has not been able to turn up the exact reason for changing all the names at once, but we have an inkling it had to do with the rapid development that was happening in Demarest at the time. A population of 654 people in 1920 had become 1,165 by 1940.
At the Mayor and Council’s meeting of May 24, 1939, a list of street name changes was approved.
Side streets off of Hardenburgh Avenue had previously been numbered first through seventh, but in 1939 they all got more unque names, as follows:
• First Street—Stelfox Street
• Second Street—Belmar Street
• Third Street—Columbus Road
• Fourth Street—Stewart Street
• Fifth Street—Prescott Street
• Sixth Street—Woodland Road
• Seventh Street—Van Horn Street
A handful of streets also switched names. For example, Orchard Place became Sunset Road, while Burns Avenue became Orchard Street. Railroad Avenue (behind the train station) took on the now familiar name Park Street. Meanwhile, there was already a Park Street off Hardenburgh Avenue to the east, so that road’s name became Lincoln Street.
Most of the new road names are of unknown origin (but if you know any, please drop us a line). We do know that the road shown above, Stelfox Street, was named for a family who lived there.
Reginald Stelfox was a NABISCO lawyer whose family lived on what was then First Street. An original member of the Demarest Fire Department when it formed in 1894, he was killed in an automobile crash in 1906 at the age of 34. The young father left behind wife Irene and two daughters.
Irene continued living in the house and was active in church activities. She taught at the Demarest Baptist Church Sunday School, Closter Congregational Church, and the Demarest Methodist Church (of which she was a founder). She was also involved with the Demarest PTA and with the temperance movement, which supported the prohibition of liquor. Irene passed away from pneumonia at age 65 in 1938, and First Street was renamed for her family the following year.
A Country Haven in Haworth
Published in the New York Tribune in May of 1904, this real estate classified advertises a “country” property at Haworth. With fewer than 500 residents back then, Haworth was largely
undeveloped and was considered rural by a New Yorker’s standards.
The house described, rented at $600 per year, included 12 rooms. Modern plumbing and electric lights were amenities worth mentioning, as these could not be taken for granted. Macadamized road was also a luxury at a time when most routes through the Northern Valley were still unpaved.
A convenient train schedule and quick commute would have been benefits to the man of the house who was likely to work in New York City.
The ad also mentions the golf course, which opened just two years earlier, in 1902, with nine holes. It later transformed into White Beeches.