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Cedar Knolls Historic District
Cedar Knolls Historic District is a landmark district located at Bronxville, Westchester County, New York.

Significance
"Cedar Knolls, a quaint suburban neighborhood in the northeast corner of Yonkers, is in many ways a community frozen in time.

The subdivision of narrow and meandering streets exists today mostly unchanged since it was built in the early 20th century: its boundaries intact, its neo-Classical style architecture preserved, and its current residents still reflecting the spirit of community shared by the first people to move there.

A home is more than a shelter or abode, Frank L. Walton, a former resident, wrote 41 years ago in his introduction to an anniversary issue of the Cedar Knolls Neighborhood Association booklet. It is a place where people with the same thoughts and ideals join together to create a fireside around which to bring to fruition all their dreams for the future. Mr. Walton's sentiments would be familiar in Cedar Knolls today.

Approved as a subdivision in 1913 and given landmark status by the city of Yonkers in 1996, the 104-acre, 143-home neighborhood numbered among its residents in the 1920's both Jerome Kern, who wrote the musical Show Boat while living here, and Charlie Chaplin."

The Lenape Nation
The Lenape Indians were once sovereign over a vast domain stretching along the Middle Atlantic coast from New York Bay to Delaware Bay, between the Hudson and Delaware River valleys. They were divided into as many as 20 different groups variously referred to as bands, clans, villages, or tribes. Their language belonged to the widespread Algonquian linguistic family. Most Lenapes lived in bustling communities made up of one or more bark and grass-covered longhouses. Their life centered around the close bonds of kinship and family. The Lenapes lived in a varied land of ocean beaches, vast marshlands, deep forests, fertile river valleys, and rocky highlands. Their land provided all the necessities of life. What little their land did not provide they obtained peacefully by trade, often over long inland distances. Lenape life followed the seasons. Every spring, Lenapes living along the coast came together in large camps near waterfalls and rapids. There they trapped, netted, or speared salmon, herring, and other migratory fish swimming upriver. Other Lenapes living farther inland gathered in small camps to gather berries, hunt deer, or overpower bears as they sluggishly emerged from their dens after a long winter hibernation. As spring edged into summer, many Lenapes moved to small communities located on rich soils, where they planted crops of corn, beans, and squash in garden clearings. Summer was given over to tending crops, gathering berries and other wild foods, fishing, and trading. In autumn, Lenapes harvested and dried their crops. Drying preserved much of the food supply for the winter. Hundreds of deer and other animals were taken during fall communal hunts. At the approach of winter, people returned to their longhouses in the heart of their respective territories. By the time Europeans came among them, the Lenapes were expert traders. They had a thriving trade in shell jewelry much prized by the Europeans. Piece by piece, the Lenapes sold their land to the Europeans for mutual benefit. Exploiting the widespread opinion that Indians were often victims of land fraud and taking advantage of unclear wording and vague boundary descriptions, Lenape leaders often challenged the legal validity of deeds to their lands. They also played rival landowners against one another. Years passed before some conflicts were resolved; one dragged on in the courts for more than 50 years, through the American Revolution. Other Lenapes learned to manipulate European land laws to further their own interests; they transformed Indian deeds from simple contracts into legal devices approaching the status of treaties, often allowing them continued hunting and fishing rights on the land, or continued possession of land while cases dragged on in court. What we call Cedar Knolls was originally part of the hunting, fishing, and farming grounds of the Wiechquaeskeck tribe of the Lenape nation. The tribe made their settlements on the banks of the rivers great and small that flowed between the surrounding hills, and on knolls which held special significance for the Lenape. One of their longhouses actually served as a wintertime school, and was located on a knoll overlooking the present site of School 8 on Bronxville Road, then a major trail. After forcibly displacing the last of the Mohicans, the Wiechquaeskeck eventually decamped to upstate New York where they reside today.

Colonial Era
In 1524, the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano ventured up the estuarial inner harbor of New York and wrote about the "the river of the steep hills." It was another 75 years before Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch East India Company, ventured farther up the river that today bears his name. Thus began the Dutch colonization of New Amsterdam. Adrian Van der Donck was issued a royal grant to territory along the banks of the Hudson River encompassing present day Yonkers. The name Yonkers has been variously described as a variant of Van der Donck’s honorific, Donck-Heer (or Jonkheer). Soon after the surrender of the New Amsterdam colony to the British in 1664, Frederick Philipse was issued a royal grant to the Van der Donck land. On his estate, Philipse built a large manse (restored as Philipse Manor Hall), and attracted settlers to develop the town along the banks of the Hudson River. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Yonkers flourished and became a significant coastal city supported by farming, light manufacturing, and river-based trading. In 1760, pioneer settler Eleaser Hart bought 154 acres of farmland containing a small house erected in 1725 and named it Cedar Knolls Farm. Incorporating the original house, he erected a larger farmhouse that still stands at 243 Bronxville Road. In present day terms, Cedar Knolls Farm extended from the Bronx River west to Birch Brook, and from Palmer Road north to an east-west line corresponding to Wiltshire Street.

19th Century
Yonkers became an important manufacturing city in the 19th century, famous for its metal works (Phelps Dodge), carpet weaving (Alexander Smith Carpets), and Otis Elevator. Wealthy owners of such businesses built stately mansions along North Broadway and in Park Hill, overlooking the Hudson River and the Palisades. Completed in 1852, the New York and Harlem Railroad ran northward from New York City, passing through the Harlem Valley and skirting the eastern boundary of Yonkers. Originally planned to be laid down along what is now Route 100 (Central Avenue), the rail bed in mid-construction was diverted through Tuckahoe to facilitate the shipment of heavy loads from the highly regarded Tuckahoe marble quarries, active in the years 1818 - 1930. The pure white Tuckahoe marble was used to build the United States Capitol and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The white marble can be seen closer to home in the 1911 County Bridge where Pondfield Road West crosses the Bronx River Parkway. Train stations were established every mile or so along the line, and villages were developed around them. One of these stations was built in 1844 at the site of a river ford, Underhill’s Crossing, later renamed Bronxville. Trains ran twice a day in each direction, 90 minutes each way. In 1876, Nathaniel Valentine bought Cedar Knolls Farm and subdivided it. In the early 1880s, the land between present day Cedar Knolls and Bronxville was subdivided and named Armor Villa. Armor Villa was the first of 3 artist colonies to be established around the Bronxville train station. The second artist colony was Lawrence Park, developed in Bronxville by William Van Duzer Lawrence in 1889. The third and final artist colony was Cedar Knolls. Its provenance resurfaced in an offering of 1893-94 that referred to “266 Choice Lots Being a Part of Cedar Knolls at Bronxville in the City of Yonkers.” This subdivision was generally bounded by present day Bronxville Road, Chatfield Road, Bayberry Street, and Palmer Road. The subdivision offering was never fully actualized as planned, and it contained a large, blank portion referred to as Plat A. Early in the next century, Plat A was to be subdivided as present-day Cedar Knolls. It is hard to imagine now that Cedar Knolls in the late 1880s and early 1890s was considered a frontier outpost. The only nearby thoroughfares, Bronxville Road and Palmer Road, were mere paths unconnected with the hamlet of Bronxville and only vaguely connected with Yonkers. There were no other roads, no utilities, no services, and no stores. Just a farm and a train stop, a rowboat’s ride away.

20th and 21st Century
Between 1902 and 1910, title to the Plat A area exchanged hands several times, finally subdivided as The Cedar Knolls at Bronxville in the City of Yonkers. Map 2026, dated May 18, 1910, illustrates a neighborhood nearly identical to today’s Cedar Knolls. The boundaries are the same, with the later addition of Adele Lane constituting the only modification to the 1910 plan. By 1911, the subdivision plan was illustrated on a Yonkers city map. Illustrated complete with sewer lines were the first 3 roads to be built: Swain Street (now Pondfield Road West), Dellwood Road, and Beachbrook Avenue (now Birch Brook Road). Marketing of the subdivision by the ultimate developers of Cedar Knolls, the Merrilees Corporation, first appeared in a local paper (The News) in 1912. By 1912, extensive excavation of an extension of Swain Street allowed for connection to Pondfield Road in Bronxville and its being renamed Pondfield Road West. This coincided with the building of a stately stone bridge, the 1911 County Bridge, over the Bronx River, providing a very marketable access to and from the Bronxville train station. A second stone bridge over the newly completed Bronx River Parkway was constructed nearby in 1917. Also at this time, a shanty town between the bridges and Cedar Knolls was replaced by the tall brick apartment buildings present along Pondfield Road West.

The imposing Colonial Revival house at 98 Pondfield Road West was the first house built in Cedar Knolls. Work on the house had begun by 1911 and was completed in 1913, when the Petruzzis became the first residents. Other lovely houses quickly followed in an era characterized by craftsmanship, classical lines, and proper proportion. About this time, noted golf course architect, Devereux Emmett, designed and built an 18-hole golf course at the boundary of Cedar Knolls that was named Grassy Sprain Golf Club. The par 3 third hole played steeply downhill along Pondfield Road West, its green located in what is now the Will Library parking lot. Holes 4 and 5 paralleled Birch Brook before playing west, away from Cedar Knolls. Thus many of the early residents of Cedar Knolls had sunset views across a golf course built by a historic course architect during the Golden Age of Golf. In the 1940s, Grassy Sprain Golf Club was closed and some of the land later converted to parkland and the Will Library. In the 1920s and 1930s, Cedar Knolls had to accommodate its own growth. Automobile traffic and speeds were addressed for the first time with traffic signs and speed limits. The illumination from the original gas-lit street lamps proved inadequate, and in the 1920s the lamps were replaced by the first electric streetlights. With increasing sources of fire, the newly established homeowners association, Cedar Knolls Colony, successfully petitioned the city to build Fire Station 11 at the corner of Bronxville Road and Bayberry Street in 1921, and to install the first fire hydrants in the neighborhood in 1935. The source of the water for the hydrants ultimately comes from a 20 foot diameter aqueduct cut through the underlying granite about 250 feet below Cedar Knolls and completed in 1942 as part of the Kensico-Hillview Water Tunnel. Next, the numbering of houses became confusing because the original houses had no numbers; mail was simply addressed to a homeowner’s name in Cedar Knolls, Bronxville, New York. Eventually in the 1930s a uniform numbering system was adopted, but at one time there were three contradictory numbering systems vying for validation, the remnants of which remain to this day. The numbering of the houses on Birch Brook Road was particularly confusing. Houses on Birch Brook Road were not numbered in chronological order and each side of the street had both even and odd numbers. In 2013 this confusing situation was corrected when the 25 homes on Birch Brook Road were given new numbers that conformed to standard house numbering practices. Similar confusion reigned in phone service; all homeowners in the Bronxville area were assigned a Bronxville 2 (BR2) exchange that was incompatible with the rest of Yonkers and elsewhere in Westchester. To avoid extra toll charges and after a 30-year battle, BR2 was converted in the 1950s to the existing local exchanges. The neighborhood stands as a testament to an era that in a short period of time experienced the initial commercial development of the radio, the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, electrical lighting, and electrical appliances. It witnessed the birth of both Broadway and the movie industry, as well as the move from Rag Time to the Jazz Age. Those first twenty years must have been very heady times in the Knolls.

The archives reflect little worry about the Great Depression of the 1930s. The association continued to meet regularly and effectively, but as a sign of the times the annual neighborhood golf tournament failed to be held in 1931 and 1935. After 1931, some homes were empty or in foreclosure, and housing starts were very few. Cedar Knolls Colony challenged real estate tax rates in the neighborhood and won concessions. During the Second World War, little was recorded about activities either inside the Knolls or beyond, but meetings continued to be held and the golf tournament continued to be played. In personal letters between members that found their way into the archives, there are a few references to sons fighting in distant lands. There is an inferred sense that the satisfactory conclusion of the war was never taken for granted, and only late in the war was cautionary optimism expressed. The war years were subdued times in the Knolls. Things picked up after the war. The first history of Cedar Knolls was written by J. Howard Rhoades and published in the association’s first directory in 1945. In the early 1950s, Frank L. Walton (18 Dellwood Road) wrote the Pillars of Yonkers, the definitive history of the city, and with Anthony Caputo (250 Pondfield Road West) formed the Yonkers Historical Society. At this same time, fearing an onslaught of tract houses being built in the Knolls, Cedar Knolls Colony successfully petitioned the city to zone the Knolls as S75 lots requiring a minimum 75 foot frontage and 7500 square feet of acreage for all new construction. 50 years later, Cedar Knolls Colony would investigate a special zoning overlay to restrict the construction of overly large houses, so-called McMansions. The early roads in Cedar Knolls were heavily crowned with cobblestone swales instead of now-conventional gutters and curbstones. Portions of these roads in the 1950s were leveled and curbstones installed (at homeowner expense). The original crowned design remains on Dellwood Road and lower Pondfield Road West, although their original swales were later paved over. The only original crown and exposed cobblestone swale design that remains in Cedar Knolls is on Chatfield Road bordering 98 Pondfield Road West.

Social History
In its first fifty years, many of the homeowners in the artist colony of Cedar Knolls were in fact artists, broadly defined. They were noted actors, film studio executives, artists, musicians, lyricists, playwrights, writers, publicists, architects, horticulturists, landscape designers, and dress designers. Ironically, some of these early artists suffered a social cost – exclusion from Bronxville Village. Many early residents came to Cedar Knolls because their profiles ran counter to the religious, political, or ethnic preferences of those across the river. Bronxville’s loss was Cedar Knolls’ gain, with humor by Chaplin, couture by Petruzzi, and music by Kern. What became known as modern Broadway began with Jerome Kern, one of the most prolific of American songwriters and playwrights. He wrote most of his musicals and songs in his library at 107 Dellwood Road. Before Kern, musicals were disjointed vaudevillian reviews. After Kern, Broadway musicals established a story line, often containing pointed social commentary, with music to match. In 1927, he wrote Show Boat, considered to be an American masterpiece and a milestone in the history of musical theater. Eventually, the demography of the neighborhood reflected the changing demography of New York City, as professionals and businessmen replaced the artists. Creative juices still abound in Cedar Knolls, just no longer limited to the arts. But like a returning echo of the literary past, a coterie of writers, commentators, columnists, and editors moved into the Knolls in the 1990s, mostly on or near Dellwood Road. They formed a literary social circle called the Writers’ Block. The Knolls has been host to many sports figures and people associated with sports, especially during the 1940s and 1950s. Ford C. Frick, ghost writer for Babe Ruth, President of the National League (1934-1951), founder of the Baseball Hall of Fame (1939), and Commissioner of Baseball (1951-1965), lived at 129 Dellwood Road during much of this time. Prior to the invention of reliable stop-action photography, artist Alonzo “Lon” Keller (25 Beechmont Ave) pioneered the drawing of sports figures in action poses for magazines such as Sports Illustrated. He also designed the world famous NY Yankees logo, incorporating a baseball bat and top hat; Lee McPhail, owner of the Yankees in 1949, wanted a patriotic post-war Yankee logo, and he got it with Lon’s use of Uncle Sam’s top hat with a red, white, and blue motif. The Yankees needed good legal representation then and attorney Tony Caputo (250 Pondfield Rd W) provided the team with it for many years. For nearly 100 years, Public School 8 had been a virtual private school for the community. Generations of Cedar Knolls children attended School 8, its teachers were part of the neighborhood lore, and the school was a fundamental element of the community. In the 1980s, the city of Yonkers submitted to a Federal Court desegregation plan that mandated forced busing of school students. Soon thereafter, School 8 had no community children attending, and Cedar Knolls Colony lost contact with the school. Twenty years later, the city was permitted to return to a neighborhood school system, but the return of School 8 to the status of its storied days remains a work in progress. As the founding residents of Cedar Knolls and other “Old-Timers” began to fade away, activity in the Colony began to wane or change. Starting in the 1980s, many of the minutes of Colony meetings were either lost or never recorded. The seasonal dances became more infrequent, and the golf tournament was honored more in the breach than in the observance. Some of that changed in the 1990s, with some legislative help. In 1991, Yonkers enacted the Historic and Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, modeled after hundreds of similar ordinances nationwide and in compliance with Department of the Interior guidelines. For the first time, it provided for the designation of historic districts and landmarks to benefit the economic, cultural, and general welfare of the city. In 1996, Cedar Knolls became the second neighborhood to be declared a historic district in Yonkers; over a period of years, Clif Payne (132 Pondfield Rd W) and Mary Cosgrove (45 Cedar Lane) organized the research contained in the nomination package for Cedar Knolls, which Clif submitted to the Planning Bureau for eventual approval by the City Council. The ordinance imposed architectural restrictions on the homeowners in the historic district, while bestowing a certain cachet. It also provided an architectural oversight committee, the Landmarks Preservation Board, to review applications for Certificates of Appropriateness involving proposed architectural changes. In 2003, the residents of Cedar Knolls overwhelmingly signed a petition reaffirming their support of the Historic and Landmarks Preservation Ordinance and its protections for their historic district. This sparked a revival in the Colony. In 1935, the triangular park at the confluence of Pondfield Road West and Dellwood Road was officially named Fedden Park in honor of John Fedden (2 Dellwood Road), an early resident who improved and maintained the park. (This was no easy task because the park had originally been a dumping ground for builders’ debris). 50 years later with the name Fedden a distant memory, it was unofficially referred to as Daley Park, in recognition of similar contributions made by John Daley (59 Dellwood Circle). In 2004, the City Council provided for the care of the park by the Parks Department and this time officially renamed it Darcy Plaza, in memory of Dwight Darcy (10 Dellwood Road) who died on September 11, 2001, in the attack on the World Trade Center. In 2005, Cedar Knolls was awarded a state grant for neighborhood beautification. The funds were used to design and purchase period street signs and portal signs. Two bronze plaques were installed on the stone columns on Birch Brook Road. Street signs and posts were installed on each corner borrowing their design from the last gas light stanchions that stood forlornly in Cedar Knolls after the other gas lights were last turned off and removed in the 1920s.

Architectural Overview
There developed in the late 19th century a tradition of controlled, picturesque settings for planned landscapes, called the Aesthetic Movement. A reaction to American society’s increasing industrialization and urbanization, this movement sought to emphasize the bucolic and restorative qualities of rural home life. In these planned rural landscapes, nature was manipulated for aesthetic purposes. Typically, the often-hilly topography was accommodated by serpentine roads and lanes organized to enhance already scenic views, in what was called the Curvilinear Plan. The Curvilinear Plan was to become a primary element for developing Cedar Knolls. Starting in 1910, the Cedar Knolls subdivision was executed as planned, embracing a unique period of American architecture, utilizing a curvilinear plan, and resulting in the architectural cohesiveness in evidence to this day. The Merrilees Corporation created the layout for the subdivision, forged the first streets, and marketed the subdivision. There was apparently no effort on its part to become a builder of houses. In a period of rising national optimism, the houses were designed and built by individual builders, one house at a time. A builder would construct a house over a two-year period, then move on to the next one. In this manner, most of the houses in Cedar Knolls were built in the first twenty years, based on a commonly understood yet unwritten architectural theme. Thereafter, its architectural integrity remained relatively intact, while neighboring communities fared not as well.

American Period House
Cedar Knolls was planned and primarily developed during the era of the American Period House, 1910 - 1930. The Period House can be defined as an overall building layout, rather than a particular façade style. It initiated the modern concepts of an open interior plan, and a close relationship between house and private recreational garden, clad in a variety of revival architectural styles. The plan of the Period House reflected a change in lifestyle for the middle class American, coinciding with a move away from a household staff. (To be sure, butler’s bells and maids’ rooms were sometimes incorporated, but they were more vestigial than functional.) Gone were the maze of small irregular rooms, front parlors, and obligatory wrap-around porches. Gone was overly frilly ornamentation both inside and outside the house. And gone too were circular driveways, pass-through driveways, and vestiges of horse drawn carriages. Rooms in a Period House are generally rectangular in plan, and are larger than those of typical Victorian era houses, albeit fewer. A standard size Period House in Cedar Knolls customarily has a living room, dining room, and kitchen on the ground floor, with a modest entry hall. A large Period House in the district incorporates a more formal entry space, a second porch, a library or den, as well as additional bedrooms and baths. The long axial dimension of the Period House typically paralleled the street, in contrast to the Victorian era houses whose axes typically extended toward the back where the carriage house or stable stood (sometimes connected). The Period House celebrated the arrival of the automobile and the informal freedom for American society that it ushered in. Period Houses in the district constructed pre-1920 are characterized by a detached garage, often a mini-version of the house. By the mid 1920s, garages were an integral element of the house, possibly owing to the improved safety of internal combustion engines. Regardless, garages in Cedar Knolls were relegated as much as possible to locations in the plan where they and their cars could not be seen in the frontal view. In some cases, as on the southern side of Beechmont Avenue and a midsection of Dellwood Road, the driveways themselves were banished altogether from frontal view to the side or rear of the property. Instead of a wraparound front porch, the Period House often incorporated for private relaxation and entertaining either a side porch or rear patio, or an element singular to Cedar Knolls, a stoa; many of these were later screened in or totally enclosed. In Cedar Knolls, the wraparound front porch was also replaced by shrubbery wrapping around all four sides of the house, with a larger screening buffer of shrubs and trees between houses. Thus each house nestles within concentric wreaths of shrubbery under a canopy of tall shade trees. The Period House was typically sited close to the street with fewer steps than were common to reach the distant, high porches of the 19th century Victorian houses. Basements were commonly built halfway below ground to reduce construction costs and to expose a portion of the stone foundations, leaving the first floor well above ground level. Because of the hilly topography, houses in Cedar Knolls are sometimes reached by garden steps; nevertheless, they are generally closer and lower to the street than would have been executed in earlier, Victorian era designs. In fact, many foundations were cut into rock outcroppings and quarried on site to provide a street level approach, rather than be perched atop outcroppings as was done earlier in Lawrence Park. Moreover, consistent with the informal Period House philosophy, the Cedar Knolls plan adopted an open landscape design with inviting front lawns unobstructed by fences, gates, or screening privacy hedges.

Cedar Knolls is an excellent example of Period House plans incorporating Period Revival Styles in their façade architecture. Period Revival Styles within Cedar Knolls are primarily Tudor Revival, (Vernacular) Colonial Revival, and French Norman Revival, with a smattering of Norman Cottage Revival, Dutch Colonial Revival, Cotswald Cottage Revival, Italian Renaissance Revival, and Mediterranean Colonial Revival. In many instances, Cedar Knolls houses represent eclectic blends of these styles such that no two houses are alike, and few houses exhibit just one style. Significantly, while some houses demonstrate minor flights of architectural whimsy, there are no houses with any vestiges of Queen Anne or Victorian architecture in the district. A clean break with the vernacular of the past was intended and was achieved. Nearly 80% of the houses in the district were constructed prior to the Depression and World War II, which together interrupted almost all construction in the Knolls for the next 15 years. Consequently, Cedar Knolls is unique in that it represents an intact and cohesive residential neighborhood populated with Period House, Revival Style residences for the comfortable middle class homeowner. For these reasons, it is architecturally and historically significant. Moreover, Period House communities such as Cedar Knolls became models for post-war suburban communities all across America. In its recommendation to designate Cedar Knolls a historic district, the Landmarks Preservation Board determined that Cedar Knolls Architectural features of every home in Cedar Knolls are on file in the Planning Bureau, and are available for viewing.
 * 1) has special character and special historic value,
 * 2) represents one or more periods or styles of architecture typical of one or more past eras, and
 * 3) geographically combines such factors in a distinct and identifiable portion of the city so as to constitute a discernible entity.

Cedar Knolls Colony
In the spring of 1918, six of the first homeowners of “The Cedar Knolls at Bronxville in the City of Yonkers” met to form the second oldest homeowners’ association in the city of Yonkers, and officially named their association The Cedar Knolls Colony. The six were William Riggs, Gardner Taylor, Thomas Massey, A. Carlisle Porteus, A. H. Babcock, and Wentworth Hicks, at whose house at 119 Pondfield Road West they first met to form the association. There they elected William Riggs the first president and wrote the first bylaws. Their stated purpose of the association was Today those stated purposes continue to guide its residents. The Colony typically takes no political stands on issues that do not directly affect the neighborhood. Consequently, Cedar Knolls remains a tranquil refuge at the day’s end. In 1920, the association’s newly adopted name was engraved on a sterling silver Tiffany trophy presented to the winner of that year’s inaugural winner of the Cedar Knolls Colony Golf Tournament. The trophy was designed and executed by Louis Comfort Tiffany himself shortly before shutting down his world-renowned Tiffany Studio in Manhattan. The trophy was executed in a nautical racing cup style that allows for perpetual engravings of the names of each year’s champion – and for a ceremonial swig of champagne by all the contestants. The cup design mirrors that of the sterling silver Wanamaker Trophy of the PGA Championship, whose inaugural tournament was played nearby in 1916 at Siwanoy CC, the same site as the Colony’s inaugural championship four years later. The trophy cup was donated to the Colony by its first winner, Jerome Kern. The tournament was held annually with some interruptions from 1920 to 2010 and in 2013. The trophy is generally known as the Cedar Knolls Colony Jerome Kern Cup. The association was initially a gentlemen’s club, with membership by invitation only; therefore, not all homeowners were members. Each prospective member was sponsored for membership, and was required to pay an initiation fee. Mandatory annual dues were $5 (equivalent to $100 in today’s currency). Special assessments were sometimes imposed for special projects. With time, changing social mores brought a more relaxed style to the Colony. By the 1980s, the formal bylaws gave way to consensus guidelines and practices, membership became available to any adult resident, and dues became voluntary contributions. During its first 50 years, Cedar Knolls Colony was known for its social gatherings and dances. There were dances in the fall, winter, and summer. In addition, Cedar Knolls homeowners took great interest in horticulture, gardening, and landscaping. The Colony coordinated directly with 5 garden clubs in Bronxville and Yonkers, and less formally with other clubs in the county. After World War II, Cedar Knoll Colony found a way to combine its gardening and gala activities. In 1949, the National Tulip Society designated Cedar Knolls the Tulip Center of Westchester County. The Associated Bulb Growers of Holland donated 5000 tulip bulbs to Cedar Knolls residents for the cultivation of tulips, and held an annual tulip contest in Cedar Knolls. Bulbs at that time bloomed later, in time for the Colony’s Tulip Tea. There nationally prominent horticulturists judged the bulbs and chose winners in each of eight categories. The Tulip Tea and the contest lasted for 25 years. The remaining Colony galas and dances lasted another 25 years before succumbing to changing styles. The Colony still celebrates with an Easter Egg Hunt in the Spring, a Summer Block Party in June, a Fall Cocktail Party in October and a Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony at Darcy Park in December. In addition, the Cedar Knolls Colony Golf Tournament is contested annually on the basis of full handicap and is open to all residents of the Knolls and their guests. For each year’s tournament, the name of the resident with the lowest net score is engraved on the Jerome Kern Cup, while the guest with the lowest adjusted score is awarded a prize. Historically, the venue has changed to reflect the rich golfing heritage in Westchester County. In 2003, the Colony adopted a calendar fiscal year, abandoning the old school-calendar fiscal year. It holds meetings on the third Monday in January, March, May, September, and November. Held at the home of a member, meetings generally begin at 7:30 PM. The meetings are conducted in accordance with a relaxed form of Roberts Rules of Order and provide an agenda of matters of interest to the homeowners: real estate transactions, civic matters, historic district activities, landscaping, maintenance, safety, and schools. Like old papyrus scrolls, the long lost Cedar Knolls Colony archives were discovered in 2004, revealing procedures of many decades past. The archives document the minutes and activities of the association since its formation; unfortunately, the records from 1918-1925 and 1980-2000 remain lost. The forgotten 1918 letterhead was revived for formal communications. The whimsical squirrel-on-post symbol of Cedar Knolls, which derived from an original Cedar Knolls sign and which first appeared in print on the back of the 1945 directory, remains an informal logo and a basis for streetscape designs. It has taken much work to keep Cedar Knolls the way the early homeowners would have remembered it. The Grassy Sprain Golf Club no longer buffers the western edge of the Knolls, but thanks to the Cedar Knolls Colony, holes 3, 4, and 5 were developed as the Will Library and Andrus Park, not apartments as originally proposed. Likewise, Pondfield Road West does not connect with Central Avenue as originally planned, and the neighborhood remains secluded. To preserve this unique neighborhood, every generation of Cedar Knolls homeowners has indeed “cooperated with one another in matters pertaining to mutual welfare.”
 * 1) to promote good fellowship and intellectual intercourse among the homeowners,
 * 2) to encourage the enhancement and development of Cedar Knolls, and
 * 3) to cooperate with one another in matters pertaining to mutual welfare.

CKC maintains a directory that serves as documented history and residential listings. In print today is the 9th Cedar Knolls Colony directory. Prior printings of the directory occurred in 1945, 1960, 1978, 1997, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2013 and 2015. Copies of the directory can be obtained by request to the current CKC President.

Past Presidents

 * 1918-1919: William Riggs
 * 1919-1921: Gardner Taylor
 * 1921-1923:   F. D. MacIsaac
 * 1923-1925:   Alfred Knight
 * 1925-1927:   A. C. Porteus
 * 1927-1929:   Frank A. Berthold
 * 1929-1931:   John Mallon
 * 1931-1932:   William H. Webster
 * 1932-1933:   A. H. Babcock
 * 1933-1934:   A. G. Lampke
 * 1934-1935:   Jesse S. Phillips
 * 1935-1936:   Charles E. Heydt
 * 1936-1937:   Russell Boadwee
 * 1937-1938:   Campbell Hudson
 * 1938-1939:   J. Howard Rhodes
 * 1939-1941:   Alfred Kohlberg
 * 1941-1942:   Jean Nesbitt
 * 1942-1943:   John J. O’Keefe
 * 1943-1944:   William Oehrlein
 * 1944-1945:   Albert E. Thayer
 * 1945-1946:   Denver Frederick
 * 1946-1947:   Edward Saunders
 * 1947-1948:   Charles Hennerbry
 * 1948-1949:   Frank Walton
 * 1949-1950:   Joseph Nye
 * 1950-1951:   William Boal
 * 1951-1952:   Anthony Caputo
 * 1952-1953:   Harold Fallon
 * 1953-1954:   Fred Stock
 * 1954-1955:   Lon Keller
 * 1955-1956:   William Seely
 * 1956-1957:   Arthur Bamford
 * 1957-1958:   Harold Taylor
 * 1958-1959:   Walter Martin
 * 1959-1960:   Frank M. Puzio
 * 1960-1961:   William Donaldson
 * 1961-1962:   Claude Seibert
 * 1962-1963:   Edward O’Shea
 * 1963-1964:   Cortland Nelson
 * 1964-1965:   John Goodner
 * 1965-1966:   William Mitchell
 * 1966-1967:   Peter Mullin
 * 1967-1968:   Robert Faselt
 * 1968-1969:   John Daley
 * 1969-1970:   Stanley Townsend
 * 1970-1971:   J. Dwight Evans
 * 1971-1972:   Robert Ouchterloney
 * 1972-1973:   Hugo D’Amato
 * 1973-1974:   Edgar M. Jamieson
 * 1974-1975:   Edward V. Atnally
 * 1975-1976:   Richard W. Moore
 * 1976-1977:   Robert E. Braks
 * 1977-1978:   Robert L. Marks
 * 1978-1979:   Mary T. Atnally
 * 1979-1980:   Robert O’Connor
 * 1980-1981:   John Attalienti
 * 1981-1982:   William C. Petty
 * 1982-1983:   Richard Fee
 * 1983-1984:   Steve Schneider
 * 1984-1985:   Richard Fee
 * 1985-1986:   Joseph McBrien
 * 1986-1987:   Alice Brennan
 * 1987-1988:   Paul GrandPre
 * 1988-1989:   Peter B. Thornton
 * 1989-1990:   Paul Shiverick
 * 1990-1991:   Clif Payne
 * 1991-1992:   Ford Holbrook
 * 1992-1993:   William Fowkes
 * 1993-1994:   Rebecca Holmes
 * 1994-1995:   Richard Fee
 * 1995-1996:   Margaret Torell
 * 1996-1997:   Tracy McDaniel
 * 1997-1998:   Katy Wallbrink
 * 1998-1999:   Beth Caruso
 * 1999-2000:   Edward Atnally
 * 2000-2001:   Stephen Onesti
 * 2001-2002:   Fred Allan
 * 2003-2005:   Peter Thornton
 * 2006-2008:   Waits May
 * 2009-2010:   Donald Carey
 * 2011-present:   Tim Hurley

Environment
The granite-like stone of Cedar Knolls is distinctive in color owing to the presence of serpentine, an ochreous mineral that laces the rock. Its tan-colored traces are very apparent throughout the neighborhood in the foundation, façade, and retaining walls made of stone that was quarried on-site or nearby. The soils of Cedar Knolls are composed of the products of decay and erosion of the original igneous and sedimentary rocks. This debris of disintegration was added to residual soils and clays, constituting a soil combination of many ingredients favorable to the growth of plant life. In general, the soil is acidic and requires at intervals the addition of lime and magnesium for bountiful plant growth. The quality of the soil plus the elevation and excellent drainage of the area create a favorable condition for an abundance of plants and trees.

Notable Residents

 * Jerome Kern
 * Charlie Chaplin
 * Petruzzi
 * Ford C. Frick
 * Alonzo “Lon” Keller
 * Tony Caputo