Living In Nutley Like It Was 1850

A residential home in the 400 block of Passaic Avenue in Nutley is currently drawing attention on the real estate market for its singularity. It is a repurposed carriage house that is listed as being built circa 1850. At that point in American history Millard Fillmore was in the White House and many of the future soldiers who fought at Gettysburg were still in grammar school. But what really sets this house apart from most homes is that over the years it has been remodeled, reimagined and restored and, nearly 170 years after it was built, it is still a work of art, a strong, sturdy and charming structure that continues to appeal to contemporary buyers.

Carriage houses were a fixture of the mid-1800s when horses were used for local transportation. You could ride to the next town, conduct your business, and then return home before sundown and sleep in your own bed. Horses pulled wagons, plowed fields and raced for money at state fairs. If you owned a horse, it could be kept in the barn. But if you were a wealthy landowner, such as the Satterthwaite family in early Nutley, you needed a carriage house, where men were hired full time to care for the herd.

But in the early 1900s, when the horse was being replaced by the automobile, carriage houses faded into obscurity. And, at some point thereafter, the carriage house on Passaic Avenue in Nutley was converted into a residence. Successive owners came and went. The house was modified. A neighborhood grew around it. And today the home is still appealing, but it is also unique by all standards of comparison. How many homes, for example, have a secret set of stairs going down to the basement, a possible throwback to the age of Prohibition?

The carriage house today is nearly hidden behind the street-level foliage at the entrance on Passaic Avenue. A cement driveway climbs up and around to the front of the house where the driveway levels off. The home maintains the appearance of a wealthy landowner’s carriage house. The facade is stucco with a shingled roof of various shades of reddish brown. The slide-away front doors, tall enough to accommodate a rider on a horse, can be opened during a warm-weather party to allow guests the opportunity to wander from the outdoor patio to the inside. The home is two-stories tall with a huge crown and an apron of cement pavers that have a pale inset design. The pavers currently provide an area for sunbathing, a barbecue for outdoor cooking, a firepit and a basketball net. All of those activities could easily be done simultaneously on the expanse of the paving stones. 

The house is surrounded at a distance by bushes, bamboo and trees, which lend privacy to the site. 

You enter the home through a small mudroom where a large wood-burning stove is embedded in the stone wall. A bench allows you to remove your footwear. An exposed stairwell, made of thick wooden planks and fitted iron supports, twists almost vertically upward and climbing them is similar to climbing the interior steps of a thin lighthouse. These steps go to the second floor. 

A few facts: The home, if you don’t count the large granny flat in the basement, has three main rooms — two of them very large and one quite small; the smallest room is right off the mudroom and is used as an office. Upstairs, there is one full bath and a half bath. The house is slightly more than 3,000 square feet in size. There are four bedrooms upstairs, all of them off a central hallway, and each of them is very large, with multiple skylights, floor-to-ceiling windows and all sorts of architectural flourishes. 

And now, a magic trick. Three steps lead up to the stairs to the second floor. If you trip a hidden switch, the stairs fold upward and — abracadabra — steps to the basement appear. Cool, very cool.

And now to the main room.

By all standards, this room is large. Easily the size of a New York City loft. The floors — yes, the room has two levels — are mostly polished wood, golden in color. The ceiling is constructed of wood from the original house, so it is dark. 

The current owner has filled the room but it is by no means cluttered and the high ceiling adds to the spaciousness of the room. In one area is a full-sized pool table, with plenty of room for the shooters. The media area has an extra-wide couch and a huge screen TV. The area is big enough for 10 viewers to stretch out and enjoy themselves. On the other side of the room is an L-shaped kitchen area with a small stand-alone table for six. And, set at a distance from the kitchen, is a long dining table that should serve to handle most occasions. The old carriage house doors, which dominate one wall, can be slid back like opera stage curtains to expose the patio and sky outside.

To reach the second floor we return to the mudroom and climb the stairs, an enchanting experience on its own. The room upstairs is smaller than the main room downstairs. It is more intimate. The current owner has a media section, a large couch and other personal touches. A comfortable room. A family room. A place to spend a rainy day, catching up on your emails, reading or binge-watching television. The four bedrooms are down the hallway and the bathroom has a large jacuzzi. 

Overall, the home is comfortable and there is a rugged theme that is tamed but not eliminated by the size of the main rooms. Very unique, built by expert craftsmen from almost two centuries ago.