What to See in Fair Lawn - Top Sights and Attractions

Building in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. The Naugle House is a historic house of the American colonial architecture style called Dutch Colonial on Dunkerhook Road in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, adjacent to the Saddle River County Park. It was constructed in the 1740s or 1750s on a small hillside along the Saddle River and is approached from Dunkerhook Road via a roadway that permits access to the park. The National Park Service Heritage Documentation Programs Historic American Buildings Survey took photographs and made architectural drawings of the house in 1938, and the National Park Service added the Naugle House to the National Register of Historic Places on January 9, 1983.

Since its construction, the Naugle House has been a neighbor to the Jacob Vanderbeck Jr. House; Jacob Vanderbeck Sr. constructed both houses. It is typical of the Dutch Colonial architecture of the region in featuring coursed ashlar sandstone block walls, but is unique in having been built into the side of a hill, giving it two and a half stories. The lowest level was a kitchen, and its top floor is wooden frame construction. Its plan and appearance are remarkably similar to the now-demolished Zabriskie Tenant House, which sat a short distance away from the Naugle House across the Saddle River in Paramus. Its small size, unique appearance, and configuration near one of the entrances to the Saddle River County Park have made it a recognizable and beloved landmark building in Fair Lawn. The Naugle House may have a further historical link, having possibly been visited by the Marquis de Lafayette, a close associate of George Washington, in 1784.

In 2010, Fair Lawn purchased the Naugle House for $1,700,000, a combination of borough funds and monies from the Bergen County and State of New Jersey Open Space and Green Acres funding programs, in order to protect the house and to create a greenspace of trees and lawns around the house in perpetuity. That purchase followed plans for the construction of town houses on the Naugle House's property. Although Fair Lawn and Bergen County held a dedication ceremony for the house in the fall of 2011, the year that the historic preservation organization Preservation New Jersey placed the house on its "Ten Most Endangered" List, the Naugle House has come under pressure of demolition or neglect by nature of development plans for the Jacob Vanderbeck Jr. House that involve the construction of parking lots and driveways completely around the Naugle House, thereby endangering its structural and historic landscape integrity. A group of preservationists and concerned citizens continue to fight for its preservation for future generations.^[3]

Historical place in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. The Jacob Vanderbeck Jr. House, in Fair Lawn, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, is a typical historic house of the American colonial architecture style called Dutch Colonial on Dunkerhook Road, adjacent to the Saddle River County Park. It sits on a bluff above the Saddle River and is approached from Dunkerhook Road via Barrister Court, a condominium development it is now part of. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 9, 1983.

Jacob Vanderbeck Sr. who also built the neighboring Naugle House, built the original section of the house in 1754; it was a small, wooden-framed home on to which a larger wing, to the west, featuring coursed ashlar sandstone walls and one and a half stories under a gambrel roof, was added in the 1780s. Shortly after the National Park Service Heritage Documentation Programs Historic American Buildings Survey took photographs and made architectural drawings of the house in 1938, the house's owners, the Walter Squires, replaced the original east wing of the house with an architecturally compatible addition with sandstone blocks and a gambrel roof that updated the house and significantly increased the home's size. The interior of the house retains many of its original features.

After the death of its most recent owner, Henrietta Vander Platt, developers showed interest in demolishing the house, removing all of the trees, and placing on the lot an assisted living facility. A group of devoted preservationists and citizens engaged in an effort to save the Vanderbeck House, bolstered by its listing as one of 2013's "Ten Most Endangered" historic properties by the Trenton-based historic preservation organization Preservation New Jersey.^[4]