The Meyer House on Route 23 in Newfoundland, featuring Western garb, hobby items, collection pieces and unique gifts, was a shopper’s Paradise 30 years ago. Mike Triolo, for the Community Fire Company of Newfoundland and Oak Ridge in 1998, thanks store representatives for support money donated from Beanie Baby sales. Carol Gargone, Mike Triolo, Barbara Jones, and Kathleen D’Agati are pictured. (
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It is doubtful that anyone who shopped at the Meyer House, 2950 Route 23 North in Newfoundland, has forgotten the extensive variety of gift items and collectables available there 30 years ago. The business was originally opened by Mr. and Mrs. Bill Meyer at the Whistle Stop complex near the entrance to Green Pond Road. Before the highway was dualized both north and south traffic lanes passed in front of the business. This location was a bus terminal for the Northeast Coach Line buses to take travelers to Paterson and New York City and return them to Newfoundland. At one time or the other, there was just about anything there that a traveler by vehicle or bus needed - gas pumps, a public phone booth, a restaurant/milk bar, pizza and deli, Mrs. Meyers gift and antique shop and Stanley Jennings taxi service.
Later the gift shop was moved to a new location at Route 23/Oak Ridge intersection. Besides the variety of quality and diversity of sales items available, the store is remembered for the “classy” neat and professional demeanor of well- groomed, fashionably dressed, always pleasant ladies who served customers well.
Today Harbor Lights lighthouses that often sold for as much as $200 each are now found on eBay for as low as $20. The company ended production in 2010. David Winter Cottages and Lilliput Lane collectable houses have also lost value at a time when people apparently are no longer interested in collectables. Among other popular items sold at Meyer House were Hopi (turquoise jewelry), western style hats and clothing, Cherished Teddies, Precious Moments, Yankee candles, Swarovski jewelry, plates, dolls, Thomas Kincaid artwork and sparklers in July.
Sometimes guest artists were at the Meyer House to meet shoppers. On Nov. 17, 1996, during a Fenton Art Glass family signing event, third generation family member Dave Fenton signed purchases. There was an exclusive basket in Fenton’s Georgian pattern available. Made of rich cranberry glass, it is hand painted with a Starflower pattern. A spruce green vase with a white magnolia was also featured. In November 1996 Mark Dudley Department 56 showroom designer and special guests Walter Motiuk and Tony Giampietro of Department 56 Village and North Pole were scheduled to be at an event arranged by Meyer House at Oak Ridge Presbyterian Church. The gift store closed and the building is now an Alpha Developmental facility for handicapped persons and elder care.
Gull Cottage Gallery, another shopper’s destination, was nearby on Route 23. Kearn’s Kabin, a popular log cabin luncheonette, was located there when the current Grasshopper Irish Pub was the three-room Newfoundland school. The site is now a restaurant parking lot. The Gull Cottage Gallery did framing, period design, shadow boxes, needle art framing. The owner advertised “Museum quality framing at reasonable prices with all work done on premises.” In 1996, the second annual sidewalk art sale was held.
In 1953, shoppers began stopping at a Union Valley Road stand to buy garden vegetables raised by William Wallace Cluff. An honor system required them to leave payment in a box on a table where the produce was displayed. Today the business is known as Eden Farms. William’s (deceased) late son George Cluff and his grandson George Cluff Jr. expanded the business. Flowers are on display outside and plants and garden decorative items are available in a shop on the premises. In. 2011 Eden Farms became the first ever preserved farm in Passaic County. The county used $272,000 in Farmland Preservation funds to buy the development rights. The eight-acre Eden Farm includes 6.8 acres for greenhouses with the rest of the tract used for the business.