Lakenridge history

White Plains, New York

How Westminster Ridge got its lake

A hundred and twenty years ago this hillside was one man's land: open fields and woods, with no streets and no lake. This is the story of how it became a neighborhood, told through the maps, magazines, and photographs that survive.

White Plains in 1910. Westminster Ridge would grow up near the eastern edge of this map. Westchester County atlas.

Mr. Todd's land

For most of its history White Plains was farm country. The Weckquaesgeek called the area Quarropas, usually translated as "white marshes." English settlers bought the land in 1683, and as late as 1820 only about 675 people lived here. That began to change in 1844, when the railroad arrived from New York City.

In 1893 the hill north of the village was still farmland. That year's atlas shows Orchard Street running northeast from Broadway past a handful of houses. Beyond it lay the 65-acre farm of Mrs. Ellen Donahue, the 15 acres of John Berry, and a tract labeled "Columbus Park" that ran up to the North Castle town line. At the top of the hill, a stream drained a 20-acre marsh owned by the Westchester Water Company, which had a pumping station nearby. There were no streets on the hill, and no pond.

1893. Orchard Street, the Donahue and Berry farms, "Columbus Park," and the water company's marsh near the North Castle line. Westminster Ridge would be built on this land. Joseph R. Bien, Atlas of Westchester County, 1893. David Rumsey Map Collection.

By 1901 the hillside that would become Westminster Ridge belonged to A. C. Todd. The county atlas from that year prints his name across a large tract of open land. There are no streets on it yet, and no lake.

Todd was not a farmer. He was a Manhattan businessman who dealt in real estate from an office at 92 Spring Street. In 1905 his A. C. Todd Realty Company was running small ads in The New York Times offering hundreds of "building lots for sale at White Plains."

1901. The tract is marked "A. C. Todd." No lake appears. Westchester County Archives.
1911. A "RESERVOIR" has appeared, with a dam drawn at one end. Westchester County Archives.

By 1910 Todd had drawn a subdivision on the hill and named it Westminster Park. A Bromley atlas from that year shows the whole plan: Colonial Terrace looping up the hill, Gilbert Place across the middle, Garretson Road along the bottom, and every lot numbered. Only a handful of buildings stood on it. At the foot of the hill, on land left out of the lots, is a long pond labeled "RESERVOIR." North of the tract, the map marks a large area as the "White Plains Water Shed."

Westminster Park in 1910. Pink and yellow shapes are buildings; almost every lot is still empty. G. W. Bromley & Co., Atlas of Westchester County, 1910. David Rumsey Map Collection.

People were already calling the water Todd's Pond. On October 7, 1913, the entomologist J. R. de la Torre-Bueno spent a warm autumn day turning over stones "on the hill-side by Todd's Pond" and wrote down the insects he found. He came back to "the Todd hillside" in 1917. Years later he remembered collecting on the "sloping, grassy, weedy north shore of the pond, in what is now Westminster Ridge" with a friend who ate a caterpillar there and claimed to know "the taste of 300 kinds of caterpillars."

We still don't know who dug or dammed the pond, or whether it began as a spring, a stream, or a wet meadow. But it was there before almost any of the houses.

Westminster Park goes to auction

Lots sold slowly. In May 1916 Todd hired the Manhattan auctioneer Bryan L. Kennelly to sell "116 villa plots and 100 building lots in Westminster Park" in a single afternoon. The sale was held on Saturday, May 20, "under mammoth tent, rain or shine," on Orchard Street. There was a free bus or taxi from the White Plains station, and buyers could pay "part cash and small monthly payments."

The auction advertisement. The New York Times, May 7, 1916.

The next year a builder tried a bigger plan. In January 1917 a New York real-estate journal announced 52 houses at Westminster Park, at a total cost of about $200,000. In July it listed the first one: a two-and-a-half-story frame and stucco house costing $10,000. Norman W. Walker was president of the Westminster Park Company, Joseph J. Eberle was the architect, and M. W. Walker was the builder.

January 1917: 52 houses planned. Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide.
July 1917: the first house, and the men building it. Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide.

Three months after the first notice, the United States entered the First World War, and building slowed across the country. We don't know how many of the 52 houses went up. Todd kept selling. In 1919 a sale map titled "Subdivision of property of A. C. Todd" was filed with the county, and his ads in the Times offered "lots, plots, acreage" at Westminster Park, "near depot." As late as 1921 he was still selling single plots on Hall and Woodland Avenues.

Fred Stafford's Westminster Ridge

The next developer was Fred Perry Stafford. He was well known in Briarcliff Manor, where he had founded the Briarcliff Laundry and ran the local coal company and water board. He was also a Sunday-school leader and a campaigner for Prohibition. Friends said he "crowded into his life enough activity for a half dozen men." In the late 1920s he began selling the White Plains hill under a new name, Westminster Ridge, and kept six lots at the top for his own house. He called it "Fanrock": a large two-story house with a curved, glassed-in porch, set on a rock ledge. It appears under that name in White Plains in Pictures, a 1927 picture book published by The Daily Reporter. In January 1930 the Staffords hosted five tables of bridge there.

The way in was through a pair of stone gates on Orchard Street. "Drive out North Broadway," one 1929 ad said, "turn right on Orchard Street, enter stone gates to Westminster Ridge, keep right by Private Lake for exclusive use of residents." The roads followed the slope of the land instead of a grid. Stafford advertised "large wooded plots with fine views, $2,300 up," and pointed out that the tract was surrounded by the 400-acre city watershed, a county park, and the new Central Westchester Parkway. Visitors, his salesmen said, called it "the Switzerland of White Plains."

He sold it hard. In Manhattan, anyone could "see Westminster Ridge in miniature" as a model at his office on East 42nd Street. In the spring of 1930 a furnished model house, "The Small House Aristocrat," opened for tours. It was a six-room Normandy-style cottage with a colored tile roof and a view of the lake. The ads also promised that "restrictions insure good neighbors" and protected buyers "against any undesirable surroundings." Deed restrictions in suburbs of this period set minimum house costs and often barred buyers by race or religion; the Westminster Ridge deeds themselves have not yet been checked.

The houses went up fast. There were 12 families in April 1929, 16 by June, and 26 houses by November. By January 1930, 28 houses had been built and all but three were sold. The Times listed some of the first owners: Charles W. Fowle, Frederick M. Holbrook, Wells F. Wise, W. C. Collins, William R. Foster, and Frank B. Madden. The houses sold for roughly $15,000 to $40,000, and the new George Washington School stood at the entrance to the property.

Tropical water lilies in the garden pool of Mrs. F. M. Holbrook on Garretson Road, about 1930. The photo won a prize at the International Flower Show. It is the earliest ground-level photograph of the neighborhood we have found. Photo by Walter P. Daniels. William Tricker, Inc. catalog, 1932.

Stafford lived on the ridge until the end. One night in September 1933 he collapsed at home at 19 Gilbert Place while getting ready for bed. His wife, Catherine, called a neighbor, Dr. James De Wolf, who hurried over, but Stafford died a few minutes after the doctor arrived. He was 61. The next year the city renamed Colonial Place in his honor. It has been Stafford Place ever since.

According to a 1939 magazine article, the property "was once an estate," and the original house was still standing. Nobody has yet proven which house that is. The strongest candidate is 20 Stafford Place, a large stucco Colonial on nearly three-quarters of an acre. Property records date it to 1907.

Owner-supplied lead. The current owner describes the street at 20 Stafford Place as Colonial Terrace, briefly Chadwick, and then Stafford Place. They also report that early White Plains house-history books identify the house as "Fanrock." The family has an older image of the house that was given to them by the White Plains Historical Society. This strengthens the link between 20 Stafford Place and Fanrock, but the image and book reference still need to be inspected. The image is not published here because we do not yet have a scan or reproduction permission.

The red marker shows where 20 Stafford Place sits today. We added it; it is not on the original map.

From swimming hole to Lakenridge

Before the houses, Todd's Pond was a local swimming hole. The editors of The Daily Reporter were not impressed with it as a place to swim, but, they wrote, "the younger generation is not so discriminating." In August 1927 a boy named Bellantoni drowned in the pond, The New York Times reported.

As the houses went up around it, the new owners objected to having a public "swimmin' hole" in their midst. In July 1929 they incorporated the Lakenridge Club. Stafford was one of the founders. Membership was "limited to residents of the Westminster Ridge section," the club expected about 150 members, and "the swimming pool in the development will be under the supervision of the club." The local children noticed. A girl wrote to The Daily Reporter to complain about "discrimination" against the children who used Todd's Pond. The paper sided with the owners but admitted the loss: "Todd's Pond has passed from public domain, if such it might have been called, by general consent, to leased private property. The rules and regulations of the Lakenridge Club will govern it from now on."

For a few years the water had a new name, Lake Westminster. On Christmas Eve 1929 the club held a skating party there, and on Christmas morning children and grown-ups were back out on the ice. On May 31, 1930, the club opened a Colonial-style community house on the shore. Stafford formally handed over "the new building, grounds and lake" to the club's president, Mrs. Willard Allen, and Mayor Frederick C. McLaughlin gave a speech congratulating the residents on living in such an ideal community.

That July the club held a Fourth of July party, with American flags flying from all the hilltops. About 75 members and guests joined a treasure hunt and games, then competed in swimming races and a contest for the biggest splash. Through the early 1930s the clubhouse hosted bridge tournaments, Halloween and Valentine's parties for the children, a New Year's party, and steak roasts. In February 1934 the club lent the pond to the city for its winter ice carnival. More than 500 people came to watch speed skating and a hockey game. William Gill won the city senior speed-skating title by circling a two-mile course in 8 minutes and 34 seconds, and Edna Simmonds won the senior girls' championship.

The Depression, and a second start

Then the market collapsed. In June 1930, 80 empty lots went up for auction. The ads called them "the last of the vacant holdings at Westminster Ridge," and the sale was held, like Todd's, under a large tent, "rain or shine." Few, if any, sold: eight years later, 80 lots were still empty. In 1936 another company filed plans to build on 95 lots at Westminster Ridge, but nothing came of it. In the two years before 1938, only two or three lots sold. The roads and utilities were in, but the hill had stopped filling up.

In 1938 an architect and builder named Lee Perry bought all 80 lots through his firm, the County Housing Corporation. His idea was to build good houses that cost much less than Stafford's. "I can see no reason," he told American Builder, "why the prospective home owner considering a house worth only $6,000 is not entitled to as much architectural consideration as though he were planning a house costing $40,000."

The owners of the big houses did not like the idea. According to Architectural Forum, they "feared undesirable neighbors" and fought to keep the rules that blocked cheaper homes. They lost, and the magazine said the ill feeling faded once the new families moved in.

Perry's plan for Westminster Ridge, with the lake at the center. Architectural Forum, March 1939.

Perry drew every house himself and fitted each one to its lot. On the steep sites he put the dormers on the side facing the view rather than the street. The first house went up in April 1938. By September, 41 were finished or under construction, and sales were running ahead of the builders. His ads said a house could be had for "as little as $598 cash and $48 per month."

Buyers chose from a handful of standard designs, described below, and Perry adjusted each one to its lot. Prices ran from about $5,800 to $8,600.

Every house was heated by gas. That caught the attention of the American Gas Association, which made Westminster Ridge a showplace in its national campaign for "all-gas" homes. Two demonstration houses opened to the public on September 15, 1938, with newspaper advertising paid for by the equipment makers. To trade on the neighborhood's good name, Perry called his next project, in New Rochelle, Westminster Acres.

The houses Perry built

Perry published four named designs in American Builder in November 1938, with photographs, floor plans, and a materials list for each. Architectural Forum printed several more of his houses in March 1939, with their prices. No record has yet turned up that says which design went on which lot. But the photographs, the plans, and the county's building records together make it possible to recognize them on the street today.

The Lee

The smallest of the named designs: a story-and-a-half Cape Cod about 27½ by 21½ feet, with a small front gable over the door and an open porch on one end beside the chimney. Downstairs were a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a lavatory; upstairs were two bedrooms and a bath. It had no garage.

"The Lee," 1938. The open porch is on the left, beside the chimney. American Builder, November 1938.
The Lee's two floors. American Builder, November 1938.

The Greenfield

A five-room Cape Cod with dormers on the front, a small pediment over the door, and a one-car garage attached to one end. The house and garage together measured about 36 feet across. The living room, 11½ by 20½ feet, ran the full depth of the house, with the fireplace on the end wall; there was a dining room, a dining alcove, and two bedrooms upstairs. American Builder later reprinted the Greenfield as plan no. 113 in its national plan book for builders.

"The Greenfield," 1938. American Builder, November 1938.
The Greenfield's plans, with the attached garage on the right. American Builder, November 1938.

The Westminster

Perry's "English design," drawn for the steep, wooded lots. It was built of fieldstone and shingle, with a one-car garage close to the road and a terrace in front. Steps led up from the front vestibule into a large living room with windows on three sides. Architectural Forum listed one at $7,950.

"The Westminster," 1938, set into the hillside. American Builder, November 1938.
The Westminster's plans. The terrace is at the bottom. American Builder, November 1938.

The Williamsburg

The largest of the four: a full two-story center-hall Colonial, 40 feet wide including its attached garage. The front door sat under an arched portico with built-in benches, and there was a porch at the back. It had six rooms, a bath, and a downstairs lavatory. Architectural Forum listed one at $8,600.

"The Williamsburg," 1938. American Builder, November 1938.
The Williamsburg's plans, with the garage on the left. American Builder, November 1938.

Other Perry houses

Not every house matched a named plan. Architectural Forum showed a long one-story Cape with two bedrooms on the ground floor, priced at $5,975, and a brick-fronted Cape with a front porch and a separate garage. Perry told American Builder that of the first forty houses, "each one is different," because most were built to order and "each prospect virtually becomes an architectural client."

A one-story Cape, $5,975. Architectural Forum, March 1939.
A brick-fronted Cape with a detached garage. Architectural Forum, March 1939.

How they were built

Perry's houses had no plaster. The inside walls were half-inch insulating board, in sheets as large as 8 by 12 feet, laid out so that each room had no joint at all or a joint only above or below a window. Wallpaper went straight onto the board. Two men could finish the inside walls of a house in half a day to two days, and a whole house could go up in 30 days or less. Window frames arrived from the factory primed and weatherstripped, and the trim came cut to size. The outside walls were oyster-colored cement-asbestos shingles, the insulation was rock wool, and every house had a Bryant gas furnace and a Magic Chef gas range.

Carpenters fitting factory-cut trim on one of Perry's Westminster Ridge houses. American Builder, October 1938.

Which houses are Perry's?

County property records give a building year for every house in the neighborhood. They split cleanly into two groups. About 45 houses date from 1927 to 1937, Stafford's years. Another 44 date from 1938 to 1941, when Perry was building. The Perry-era houses sit exactly where the 1939 plot plan marks his "new development": the west end of Garretson Road, the west side of Chadwick Road, the south end of Gilbert Place, and the streets east of the pond.

Houses by the year they were built. Record years can be off by a year or two, and most houses have been enlarged since.

The houses recorded as built from 1938 to 1941 are:

To tell which design a house started as, look past the later additions to the original block. A Cape Cod with an attached one-car garage and two front dormers is probably a Greenfield. A smaller Cape with no attached garage and a porch or enclosed sunroom on the chimney end is probably a Lee. A two-story Colonial with an arched front portico is probably a Williamsburg. A stone-and-shingle house stepping down a slope, with the garage near the street, is probably a Westminster.

The neighbors buy the lake

The club ran the lake, but the original developers still owned it. When Perry's new families arrived in 1938, the club set out to buy it. In 1939 membership cost $2 a month. The dues paid for equipment, sand for the beach, and a lifeguard's salary, and admission fees went toward the purchase price.

Two county aerial photographs show how the neighborhood filled in. The first, taken on December 19, 1940, shows Perry's new roofs around the pond, with open fields still south of it. By April 20, 1954, there are houses on almost every lot around the pond. Houses also line the streets on the hill to the east, which had been mostly woods in 1940.

December 19, 1940. Westchester County historical aerial collection.
April 20, 1954, from roughly the same angle. Westchester County historical aerial collection.

The fishing was better than it looked. In September 1944 an 11-year-old named June Knapp was fishing in "a tiny pond at Westminster Ridge," water the neighbors considered fishless, when she hooked something too big to handle. A boy who ran to help couldn't land it either. A veteran angler, Carroll Ransford, came along and talked her through it, and she pulled in a 14-inch calico bass.

By the 1950s the club's name was well known around town; one resident's Who's Who in America entry lists a seat on its board. By 1960 Lakenridge had a swim team that competed against other clubs in northern Westchester. It received federal tax-exempt status as a recreation club in 1973. Pasquale "Pat" Barile (1930–2020), a consulting engineer and White Plains civic leader, served as its president for many years. Today it is still run by neighbors. It hires lifeguards, runs a swim team and a kids' fishing derby, and opens each season with a lake cleanup.

A recent Lakenridge membership letter. Swimming, fishing, and the spring cleanup are still the center of the season.

The streets that were never built

Old maps of the neighborhood show more streets than exist today. The 1929–31 county atlas includes Bernard Place and Francis Place north of the pond, and a road called Stang Avenue running north from Colonial Place.

1929–31. The planned streets around the reservoir. Westchester County Archives.
The same area today. Bernard Place and Francis Place are gone.

Most of the old names are still here under new ones. Colonial Place was built around 1908. In 1934 it was briefly called Chadwick Place, then renamed Stafford Place that September. The road now called Chadwick Road started as Colonial Terrace. Its northern extension, added around 1927, was first named Stang Avenue. In 1934 the whole road became Chadwick Road.

Bernard Place and Francis Place were never built. They stayed on the city map as "paper streets," and Chadwick Road stops short of where Bernard Place would have been. In 2012 the city moved to buy the woods between Chadwick and Bernard as a wildlife corridor and connected them to city-owned land along Francis Place. The streets that were never built became open space instead.

Street history from Streets of White Plains ↗ and the Daily Voice ↗.

Who grew up here

Most of the people who lived on the ridge left little public record, but a few did. Stephen Holden III was born in White Plains and raised in Westminster Ridge. He became a local lawyer and civic leader who worked for historic preservation in the city. In 2009 the New York State Senate passed a resolution honoring his work, and it mentions the neighborhood by name.

The 2009 Senate resolution for Stephen Holden III. New York State Senate.

If you have old photographs of the pond, the beach, or the houses going up, or stories from people who remember the early lake club, we would like to hear from you. Much of this history is still in attics and family albums.

Sources

Everything above comes from the records below. White Plains newspapers are from NYS Historic Newspapers. Where a detail comes only from local tradition, the text says so.

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