Learn the history of your house

The library is such a great resource. The house files are now on line! Go to the first page of MOL. Click on Local Link, then Library. Then click on Digital Resources followed by Digital Archives. Click on Maplewood Real Estate Files. You'll see your street and house number. There are pictures and info. A few homes are missing but the majority are there. Really fun to check out.

This is very cool. I am really interested in knowing who built my house aside from when and who purchased it in the past. My house and 3 of my neighbors houses are all built basically exactly the same and at the same time. I'm interested in the developer and who was building in my area in 1927!

Thank you for sharing this!

Is this a work in progress? My old house only has one card, that my house was sold to someone in 1944 for $6,000. Nothing else.

Here's the direct link:

http://www.digifind-it.com/maplewoodlibrarydigitalarchive/realestate.php

Mumstheword - These cards were donated by the late Jackie Faupel.She headed the real estate company Dunn and Hartford. These were the Board of Realtor cards from the early days of Maplewood real estate. I'm sure a lot is missing as this was years ago.

It looks like mine just lists the bill of sale for the property. My house was built in the early 50s, and this card is from 1947, listing no details about the building itself. I was able to quick google search of the buyer, though, who is listed in the 1940 Census as living in Indiana Street.

Very interesting! I knew we were the third family in our home, and I knew who we had purchased it from, but had never known the name of the first family who lived here. Now I do! Thank you for posting this info and the direct link!

My hideously ugly house is on a spot that had once held, what appears to be, a victorian house with a slate roof. My neighbor's house too (now almost as ugly as ours) - and theirs was gorgeous, with lots of ornamentation and a full wrap-around porch.

I've always assumed the previous old houses burned down. Perhaps I can find more clues from this.

Saw this a few weeks ago. So cool. And it allowed me to take a deep, deep, breath about a possible oil tank since records from 1960 indicate that the house had a gas furnace back then already. There is still a chance that there is a tank on the property but considering the house was built in 1947, well I am hoping not... really hoping...

Ours shows that the house was heated by oil yet we have never found evidence of an outside tank. Could the oil tank have been in the basement?

Are there similar resources for South Orange?

Is this info available for South Orange?

pmartinezv said:
Saw this a few weeks ago. So cool. And it allowed me to take a deep, deep, breath about a possible oil tank since records from 1960 indicate that the house had a gas furnace back then already. There is still a chance that there is a tank on the property but considering the house was built in 1947, well I am hoping not... really hoping...

Funny, I had the same reaction. You can file an OPRA request with the town to see if they have records for a decommissioned or removed oil tank. The OPRA request forms are on the township website.

rhw said:
Ours shows that the house was heated by oil yet we have never found evidence of an outside tank. Could the oil tank have been in the basement?

There are three possible locations: In basement, above ground, underground. We also don't see any evidence of an outside tank but I have something nagging at the back of my brain the words..."filled with sand"... We bought 25 years ago and regulations were different.

bigben_again said:

pmartinezv said:
Saw this a few weeks ago. So cool. And it allowed me to take a deep, deep, breath about a possible oil tank since records from 1960 indicate that the house had a gas furnace back then already. There is still a chance that there is a tank on the property but considering the house was built in 1947, well I am hoping not... really hoping...

Funny, I had the same reaction. You can file an OPRA request with the town to see if they have records for a decommissioned or removed oil tank. The OPRA request forms are on the township website.

We did that when we purchased before the oil tank craze, and there was no record of a tank installed or decomissioned, but well, there is always a chance..

Would there only be records if the tank was in the ground as opposed to in the basement?

The website is really cool. However, if you want more detailed info you can also go to Newark where all the deeds are filed and there you can search them going back decades.

The people who work in the department (at least the ones I have dealt with are not that familiar with the systems/books, but if you're friendly with one of the title searchers who are always down there they can help as they know the place like the back of their hand.

Where in Newark

spontaneous said:
The website is really cool. However, if you want more detailed info you can also go to Newark where all the deeds are filed and there you can search them going back decades.
The people who work in the department (at least the ones I have dealt with are not that familiar with the systems/books, but if you're friendly with one of the title searchers who are always down there they can help as they know the place like the back of their hand.

Damn--I knew we overpaid! ;-) Thank you for this! I had seen it a long time ago in the library, but forgot the details. The owner before us was there for 74 years, and paid $11,500. The previous owner drowned. The floors are oak, the screened-in porch was once glass, and the house didn't originally have a garage. The "open listing" date on the card is 1928, but I think the house is older--maybe around 1914, from a letter I found under the floorboards. (It's cool--I'll post it sometime--it was promoting the new grocery store in town, which I think was a Piggly Wiggly.

valley_girl said:
Damn--I knew we overpaid! Thank you for this! I had seen it a long time ago in the library, but forgot the details. The owner before us was there for 74 years, and paid $11,500. The previous owner drowned. The floors are oak, the screened-in porch was once glass, and the house didn't originally have a garage. The "open listing" date an the card is 1928, but I think the house is older--maybe around 1914, from a letter I found under the floorboards. (It's cool--I'll post it sometime--it was promoting the new grocery store in town, which I think was a Piggly Wiggly. ">

I know right? Look at those taxes!!! Although the tax rate has not changed much...

Essex County Hall of Records

465 Dr Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, Newark.

I don't know the hours, but I'm guessing 9-4 or something similar.

sprout -- Obviously, occasionally a house burns down. But more often a house has been replaced because it was considered too much of a white elephant to buy or keep up, especially when the Great Depression kicked in, or is considered totally out of style. There are several houses on the west side of Scotland Rd. (downhill), a little more than a block south of Montrose, that replaced earlier Victorian and Edwardian houses like the ones you see on most of Scotland Rd. One of those houses that is long gone was designed by George Maher, one of the greatest of Prairie School architects out of Chicago. There is still a Maher-designed house in Montclair, on the uphill side of S. Mountain Ave. I love the idea of a PRAIRIE style house on MOUNTAIN Ave. in MONTCLAIR. There was a large Edwardian house on Montrose (on the south west corner of the Charlton intersection I believe, similar in size to the existing Victorian across Charlton) that was replaced by a ranch house. I have a book about the original house somewhere. There are several houses on the uphill side of Ridgewood Rd. (not too far from St. George's, if memory serves) that replaced earlier Victorian houses.

Anyone know the history of local Tudors?

Mine does not have a lot of information about previous owners but in 1968 taxes on the house were $722 and it sold in 1969 for $20,000.

The Tudor style was especially popular in the 1920's, but some buildings are from earlier decades. The (no-longer) South Orange Village Hall dates to 1894, I believe. the Durand-Hedden House has information on several architects who specialized locally in Tudor-style houses.

Tudor Revival

chopin said:
sprout -- Obviously, occasionally a house burns down. But more often a house has been replaced because it was considered too much of a white elephant to buy or keep up, especially when the Great Depression kicked in, or is considered totally out of style.

Thank you for the insights.

Perhaps a developer snapped them up? But I can't see how they thought these totally ugly ranches were an improvement over the ornate Victorians in the 1960's. Then again... Penn Station happened. So, who knows what people were thinking.

Bummer! I can see my house in the background of the house next door, but mine isn't listed.

JLJohn -- Yeah, I sometimes nitpick, too. Tudor Revival (Style) = Tudor style, just as Colonial Revival (Style) = Colonial style. Real Tudor would be from the age of Henry VIII (in Britain), and real Colonial (in the U.S.) would predate 1776.

Everyone should remember that the above website only has realtor's cards, not legal documents. What drives me wild is they often don't have a date.