history

(Editor's Note. With the help of Linda, Van & Dorinda, Bob has pieced together a bit of the early history of Chappaqua.)

More than Horace Greeley's Farm or the Saw Mill River Parkway or the Harlem Division of the New York Central, Dodge Farms and Lawrence Farms (along with Seven Bridges) set the tone and style of Chappaqua for decades. A tone and a style that set Chappaqua apart from Pleasantville and Mt. Kisco more than geography. And it would have been fun to hear what went into the buying of the land and the decisions about the landscape and why the houses are the way they are.
So we asked Dorinda and Linda if they would tell us a little about the history of Dodge Farms and Lawrence Farms.

At about 3 pm on July 16, 1904, a tornado dipped down in Chappaqua along Quaker Street, between present-day Gray Rock Lane and Dodge Farm. It destroyed the five homes, together with several barns and outbuildings. Much of the debris remained on site, but some was scattered over a distance of several miles. A savings passbook belonging to Warren Tompkins, whose ruined home is seen in the first photograph, was later found in northern Armonk. (click on picture for full-size view)

Lawrence Farms by Linda Lawrence
    Lawrence Farms was part of a failed dream.

    In 1926 my grandfather and his brother, both of whom had been working under their father, hatched a plan of their own. They decided to plan and build a an entire community in what was then considered Northern Westchester.

    Their first purchase was in 1928, when they bought ninety acres on both sides of Roaring Brook Road from Bedford Rd. down to the tracks. This was to be the location of the village with shops, a post office, school, churches and a theater surrounded by cluster housing. (Apple Tree Close, where Ann Decker grew up, was later built as a sample of this). A narrow band of 4.6 acres was purchased from the New York Central RR for a station and parking lot. Lawrence Park South, (formerly Glen Acres) was the next acquisition followed by the Daly Farm (186 acres) which was slated to become a golf course. The cost for these land purchases of 420 acres was $625,000 much of which was financed by mortgages from the seller.

    The final purchase in 1928 was Annandale Farm from the estate of Moses Taylor, one of the richest men in America. It was 240 acres with barns, a stable, the Kittle House (a guest house) and a palatial mansion at the top of Taylor Rd., called Skywood. The farm was next to the golf course so one of the barns was converted to a club house – I believe we were there not long ago! The rest of the property was to be developed with spacious lots.

    By December ‘29 the project was well underway. All the roads had been built with water, gas and electric buried. The lots had been platted with many sold and several houses had been built. It should be noted that the house plans needed approval, but I don’t know what the rules were or how they were enforced. The golf course promised to be ready by spring.

    The depression didn’t have a severe impact for a few years. My parents built their house in 1930 and it stayed in the family until a couple of years ago. Plans for the village had been on hold until the community grew large enough to support it, but it soon became obvious that this was not to be. Growth came to a standstill. Taxes, interest etc. became an impossible burden. In a desperate attempt to salvage something, the company was divided into four separate enterprises, two of which survived – Annandale, Inc. (Lawrence Farms East) and The Farms (golf club). In 1935 the remaining properties were turned over for foreclosure and the Lawrence Farms Corp. dissolved – a very sad day for my grandfather.

    As a child I used to go through the woods and up to Skywood which was roofless and ghostly. The "playhouse" was fairly intact – it boasted an indoor pool and a bowling alley. Sad to see such an incredible place in such a state but we had great games of hide and seek.

Dodge Farms by Van and Dorinda
    Chappaqua, as we all know, was originally settled by Quakers who came North from NYC in the 1740's. Their original meeting house on Quaker Road still stands and still functions. It was the center of town in those early days. The Dodge's were among those early Quaker settlers. For decades the land that would later become known as Dodge Farms was literally that...a farm. In 1841 the railroad came to Chappaqua and gradually the center of town shifted to where it is now. Horace Greeley founded the NY TRIBUNE in about 1846 and was an early and daily commuter.

    Enter Courtney Dodge, Rindy's father, who was very smart, enterprising and hardworking. He might have had some high school education in the 1920's but that was about it. I remember hearing stories about how they used to walk to school in PLEASANTVILLE!

    Coutney was a natural at building things. With hardly any training, he could just do it. So he would buy land in Dodge Farms from his mother, build a house on it, move in, build another house, put them both on the market and sell whichever went first. They moved many times cause people usually wanted to buy the house the family was living in. So Rindy would leave one house in the morning, go to school and come back to the next house at night..almost everything unchanged. They had it down to a science. Courtney would work alongside his men and after work, they would adjourn to the Central, which some may recall as the town bar. There he would recruit his workers for the next project. Quite a guy. We often meet people who have or still do live in those houses.

    Rindy thinks her father built around 25 houses or so starting in about 1938 with time out for the war. The houses were of a colonial design, mid-sized by today's standards, and Courtney designed and helped build all of them. .He was basically building these houses for his own account, so to speak, rather than as a general contractor for someone else's project. Maybe the houses would get sold while under construction but both houses, the one he was building and the one they were living in would be put on the market ...usually the one they were living in would sell first, hence the family's frequent moves.

    Rindy remembers houses in the early days selling for under $10,000, then of course rising. Now those houses sell for over $ 1mil. During the war years, Courtney assisted the effort as a ship builder somewhere in Connecticut. His last house was built probably in 1961...As labor unions began to predominate, he could no longer do things the way he liked ( going down to the Cental Bar and hiring his crews, then working with them.)...Thus he retired in about 1962. He had a wide range of interests including business, the stock market and politics. An avid and knowledgeable collector he was a good family man and a wonderful father-in-law. No formal education but a smart smart guy.