When Thomas Edison Wired A Hilltop Health Resort: The 1928 Electrification Of Idylease, A 1903 New Jersey Highlands Landmark
NEWFOUNDLAND, NJ – July 20, 2026 – By 1928, Thomas Edison had been visiting Idylease for years. The 1903 health resort in the New Jersey Highlands sat within reach of the mining operations Edison ran in nearby Franklin and Ogdensburg, where he was conducting some of his later commercial experiments. The property’s hillside location, fresh air, and structured daily routine made it a place where Edison could both work and rest. What he did at Idylease in 1928 became part of the property’s permanent history.
That year, Edison oversaw the installation of electrical wiring and a power plant that allowed Idylease to generate its own electricity. Until then, the building had been lit by gas. Each evening, lamps had to be lit by hand. Each morning, they had to be turned off. After Edison’s installation, the daily life of the building changed. Flame gave way to the light bulb. Switches replaced matches. Wires ran through walls and ceilings. Poles carried power through the trees from the generating plant back to the house on the hill.
The story of the electrification of Idylease is one of the many threads documented at the property’s renewed public-history website at www.idylease.org. The site brings together archival research, restoration documentation, walking-tour material, photography, video, and historical writing connected to the property’s more than 120-year history, with the goal of making the history of Idylease more publicly accessible.
Edison’s connection to Idylease sits within the broader history of the property as a place that drew prominent Americans. Other notable guests at Idylease included Mary Teresa Norton, one of the first women to serve in the United States Congress; Horatio Collins King, a Civil War veteran and Medal of Honor recipient; Joseph French Johnson, William B. Hanna, David Banks Sickels, Victor Harrison-Berlitz, and Grace Abbott, the social reformer who served as Chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau. Their lives elsewhere were tied to industry, government, finance, journalism, education, language, and social reform. At Idylease, they entered the same routine as every other guest.
That routine was the point. Idylease was conceived as a modern health resort, located thirty-eight geographic miles from New York City and organized around rest, fresh air, regular hours, wholesome food, exercise, hydrotherapy, massage, baths, and medical care. The building stands high on a hillside, one thousand feet above sea level, with wide porches and long balconies. A working farm supplied food. Outbuildings supported daily operations, including a barn, blacksmith shop, pump house, ice house, and after Edison’s installation, a power plant.
The renewed website at www.idylease.org is maintained by Richard Zampella, who assumed stewardship of the property in 2016 after a career that included years at New York hospitality institutions including the Rainbow Room, Le Cirque, and The Plaza Hotel, followed by work as a documentary producer and editor whose work has aired on public television.
More about Zampella’s broader work is available at www.richardzampella.com.
The property was designated West Milford’s first local historic landmark in 1988. Zampella has long maintained that Idylease is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
The continuing restoration of Idylease is not being treated as a single unveiling. It is an ongoing process of repair, research, documentation, and care. The website presents the property not only as an architectural landmark, but as a working historic place shaped by the people who passed through it, including the inventor who returned in 1928 to bring it into the electrical age.
For more information about Idylease, visit www.idylease.org. For more about the work of Richard Zampella, visit www.richardzampella.com.
About Idylease
Idylease is a historic 1903 health resort located in the Newfoundland section of West Milford, in the New Jersey Highlands region of northwestern New Jersey. Built in 1902 and opened on New Year’s Day, 1903, Idylease was originally operated as a modern health resort offering rest, fresh air, hydrotherapy, massage, baths, and medical care. The property was designated West Milford’s first local historic landmark in 1988 and remains under the stewardship of Richard Zampella.
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Website: https://www.idylease.org
