This story is part of a series I’ve been researching, as I rebuild my youthful memories growing up on Lake Naomi in the Poconos. As the series comes together, there is an associated Facebook Group, called Lake Naomi Memories, for anyone to share their memories that help create a digital history footprint on the web. Oh, and they’ll certainly help me remember as well.
As the years pass, it’s remarkable how memories play such an essential part in your life, your family, your friends, and your stories. This is one of those tales I just couldn’t let go of because while I haven’t been back to Lake Naomi for a long time, I have friends and acquaintances who bring it up after seeing some of the history my family and I left behind in the community.
My family’s Pocono journey actually began when I was a little more than a year old. It seems that my father, who was a commercial banker in NYC at the time, was commuting home to Jersey on the train when he read an advertisement in the New York Times offering lots for sale for $1,000 on this place called Lake Naomi in the Poconos, a new development that was in the early stages being offered by this guy named Logan Steele from nearby Summit, New jersey.
So the folks got in a car, drove from Scotch Plains, New Jersey, and decided to take a look. My mother remembers a salesman named Chris, who worked under Carl, the sales lead for the Lake Naomi Development Company. After a number of questions, Chris asked them if they’d like to go see some properties. After they agreed, Chris threw them both a pair of rubber boots and told them to put them on. My mom was quick to ask, “What are these for?” to which Chris quickly smiled and responded, “They’ll protect you from the snakes!” Then he smiled. Carlolyn didn’t.
So the three went looking around the north side of the lake and landed not a single lot for $1,000. but a double adjoining lots for $2,000. I think Chris knew what he was doing, because they left that day owning two lots on Canoe Brook Road, with a set appointment with a local builder to discuss next steps. The first lot was going to be a home similar to the sales display model outside the sales office. For a mere $9,000, the chalet was built and completed in 1966, and two years later, a larger A-Frame model was completed for around $12,000.
The story gets a little fuzzy, but somewhere around 1966-67, my father got the idea to teach the boys how to sail on the lake when he visited on weekends, as he stayed home during the week for work. He had gotten himself a dealership to sell Sunfish sailboats out of our three-car garage after we moved to Westfield, New Jersey.
Commuting and the First Pocono Boathouse
Every Friday night, my dad would load up our station wagon with boxed Sunfish sailboats and bring them to an old horse stable garage next to the Pocono Pines post office, which was just off Old Route 940 on what was known as the Pocono Crest. This massive 2,800-acre development had morphed from an earlier development called Lutherland (see related story). It was here that my Father, Frank Betz, would open the first Pocono Boathouse, located next to the Post Office in that dilapidated 8- to 10-bay garage just off Old Route 940. I’m still looking for some photos!
I’ve already started the Pocono Boathouse story in the series, so please check that out at the bottom of this story.
Memories and More Memories
My List as a Discussion Starter
So, the Betz family spent every summer on Lake Naomi for the next 15 or so years. Okay, so where do you start when creating a dialogue with people about a place you remember? Well…. I started with a list. Just a simple sit-down writing as quickly as I could remember some of the most memorable things I did while spending every summer up at Lake Naomi.
Miller Dam Creates a Lake that Logan Steele Would Later Develop
Thomas and his brother, Rufus Miller, created Lake Naomi by damming the Upper Tunkhannock Creek and started the Pocono Spring Water Ice Company in the early 1900s. The lake spans 277 acres, boasting over 3 miles of shoreline. The Miller’s Naomi Pines House was a landmark until it was destroyed by fire in 1949. It was winter, and the lake and fire hoses were frozen, making efforts to fight the fire futile. The site remained empty for a decade until a new highway (Route 940) provided the stimulus for redevelopment. (Have a great story about that history at the end.)
In 1960, Harry & Anna Eberhart built a small diner-like restaurant called “The Coffee Shop” and the Lake Naomi Motor Lodge on the site of the Naomi Pines House, where one of my first visits began when we first stayed and ate with my parents, sister, and brother. (Would love to find a picture of that lodge.) What kid didn’t love a long trip and a dip in a motor lodge pool?
Harry and Anna Eberhart would sell the 12-unit Lake Naomi Motor Lodge and Coffee Shop to Bill VanGilder in 1968. The Van Gilders would later demolish the Motor Lodge to make room for the expansion of what became known as the Jubilee Restaurant. Why name it the Jubilee, you say?
“You got a regular “Jubilee” up here.” Bill Van Gilder Sr. was told by Rob Ugucioni, then the President of the Pocono Monutain Vacation Bureau. The name stuck! (Bill Van Gilder Jr.)
Now, as a kid growing up in Westfield, New Jersey, the Poconos were as wild as it gets, no sidewalks, no street lights, and a kids’ wonderland. The beauty of nature and the wild creatures were so exciting to me. I mean, after a rainstorm, you could go out into the street and find red salamanders that were one of the most incredible things I’d ever seen.
You could go down the street to the lake and catch frogs, go fishing, and pick and eat blackberries along the way. I mean, c’mon, the imagination was only limited to how far you could ride your bike, and my posse did a lot of bike riding!
A couple of guard rails to the story that I hope others might share and tell me more about these events on the Facebook Group. My parents always said no to skiing, so we would rent out our house in the winter to those who wanted to ski at Camelback and Big Boulder. Second, my father didn’t like motorsports, so we never went to the Schaefer 500 on July 4th, but you could always hear it and knew when it was in town cause the drivers would stay at the motel by the Lake Naomi Club. Given those two major activities, the summers on Lake Naomi were our ultimate playground. That would eventually change in my 20s!
Sailing Ground
As my father transitioned from a full-time banker at Chemical Bank in NYC, his entrepreneurial spirit led him to see the lake as an opportunity, and he seized it by starting the Pocono Boathouse and supplying Sunfish sailboats to those on Lake Naomi. We would bring Sunfish to the Poconos every weekend from our garage back in Westfield, New Jersey. I should have known that sailing was on his agenda for me, and looking back, he didn’t disappoint.
We would join a father-and-son regatta on the lake in the summer of 1968. I was just 6 years old at the time, and if you have ever sailed on a lake, you know how unpredictable the wind can be. And when you’re in a sailboat race, which we were leading, it became so frustrating to me as I remember crying that the racers behind us were going to catch up and pass us, and we’d lose. Well, it almost happened, but it didn’t. We won the regatta, and I received my first-place trophy, which I still have today. At just six years old, I was hooked! Sailing became an obsession for my Brother, Brian, and me, and we spent the next decade making our family’s mark on the sailing community and leaving our names on the trophies in the club trophy case. So much so, I have friends who have sent me photos laughing that they couldn’t believe our names are on these testaments to our achievements, leaving such a fun legacy to remember.
My father loved history, and we knew it when he named our boats: “Reddy Gridley “- The famous naval command. “You may fire when ready, Gridley” was given by Commodore George Dewey on May 1, 1898, during the Battle of Manila Bay in the Spanish-American War. Commodore George Dewey directed it to Captain Charles Vernon Gridley, commanding officer of the USS Olympia, Dewey’s flagship. With this order, the U.S. Asiatic Squadron opened fire on the Spanish fleet anchored in Manila Bay, marking one of the first major American naval victories and signaling the emergence of the U.S. as a global maritime power.
My Brother Brian’s boat was “Enola Gay”: Enola Gay was the B-29 bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, during World War II. Piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, the plane’s mission marked a turning point in warfare and led to Japan’s eventual surrender.
My BIG List of Memories at Lake Naomi
Yes, while sailing took up a large part of my time on Lake Naomi, every summer brought so many memories that I decided not only to prepare a series of stories about the history of Lake Naomi, but I also created a Facebook Group so others with Lake memories can share their experience with us all. Don’t worry if ours are similar, because they probably are.
See if you can relate. Then go to the Facebook Group and put yours there!
- Finding red salamanders on the road after the rain
- Wild blueberry and blackberry picking
- Getting the mail at the Post Office (no mail delivery) and remembering that combo
- Party line phones
- Drinking the well water at the house and getting sick
- Swimming to Comfort Island
- Camp Owassia and Ned, Mike, and Nancy Skinner (can’t remember those German shepherds’ names though.) Help me!
- Climbing that huge boulder at the corner of Evergreen and Route 423 (the red road)
- Biking the smooth red road (Route 423) by Dam Beach
- Megargles Golf Course – Pocono Lake – Golf – the par 3 course cost 35c and you got free clubs
- Rudy’s candy fountain and lunch counter by Megargle’s & Mr. Zagnut (Rudy)
- Building forts in the woods and using moss as carpet
- The incredible housing construction boom and those “heart” SOLD signs popping up everwhere.
- Learning how to sail Sunfish, Dusters, and Lasers and race on the lake
- The stumps that would ruin your wooden daggerboard
- Working at the Pocono Boathouse
- Having to rake delivered truckloads of red stones on the driveway every summer
- Huckleberry Island was to the west of Comfort Island. Some call it Blueberry Island. Think it’s now called “Pancake Island.”
- Sliding on the wooden dam, waterfalls, and the splinters.
- Catching super big tadpoles and raising them back in Westfield (big mistake).
- Winning The Owaissa Cup Junior Trophy
- The Commodore Labor Day Regatta (one year our family won 1st, 2nd, 3rd! (Brian, Dad, Brooks)
- The End of Season Sailing Reception at “the club.”
- Fishing off Canoe Brook Road
- Bike riding down the super hill at Woodland Avenue by the Pool Complex
- Tar and stone road resurfacing ruining your bike ride (Woodland Road by the Pool)
- Formal dinners at the Lake Naomi Club – White tablecloths and all
- Lewis’ Store for grocery shopping. Then they made a NEW one down 940. When was that?
- Climbing the water tower behind the Pocono Boathouse to see the Indy cars at Long Pond.
- The Schaefer 500 on the 4th of July weekend
- Seeing NASCAR and Indy (USAC) Car teams at the Jubilee Restaurant and Motel. (Big Hangout during Race weeks). The first NASCAR stock car race at Pocono Raceway took place on August 4, 1974. It was a Winston Cup Series race (now known as the NASCAR Cup Series) and was called the Purolator 500. The race was won by Richard Petty, one of NASCAR’s all-time greats. The Van Gilders owned the motor lodge, which consisted of around 18 motel rooms, a pool in the rear of the property, and a small coffee shop. Initially, the Pocono Pines Inn was located on the property. It was one of many old Inns in the area where vacationers in the early 1930s and 40’s came to vacation. The Inn met its demise in a fire and was demolished around 1980. The Jubilee Restaurant is still going today!
- The Staten Island invasion (my first exposure to such a NY accent)
- The island off North Beach
- How deep the beach falloff was for a kid at Dam Beach
- The super big community Olympic pool opens
- Mary and Jim’s (M&Js) Ranch, Old Route 940, Pocono Pines, and that big shuffleboard table and dart board.
- Day trips to Memorytown, USA, in Mt. Pocono
- Trips to our emergency room, aka Dr. Kitchen (Dr. James G. Kitchen of Pocono Lake). He saved all of us numerous times over our childhood. During research, I found he was also the Monroe County Deputy Coroner (which I never knew).
- The 1st Sunfish Pocono Mountain Invitational
- Rainy day movie trips to the Mt. Pocono cinema: Jaws and The Omen seared in my brain forever.
I even made a map to track some of these memories.
If you can relate to any of these points, start your own list. Join the Facebook Group and let’s see where this goes.
Thanks for reading……and thanks to all who made me think about such a fun time in my life.
Video Memories
I would later, as an adult, become a big motorsports fan and had to share this memory, knowing that my stepfather, Bob Wenzel, would love it, as he was one of the first investors in the Pocono International Speedway in nearby Long Pond, PA, in the 1960s.
What’s On Lake Naomi Today?
Check out this interactive map. Click the square in the upper right to enlarge and click on the markers.
Comments? Now It’s Your Turn
Feel free to post any comments or memories in the comments section below.
About The Author
Brooks founded Mr. Local History and the Mr. Local History project along with his wife Jill. Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, and raised in Westfield, Brooks graduated from Westfield High School in 1980 and later from Bryant University. For over two decades, Brooks, along with his brother Brian and younger sister Cee Cee, spent their summers on Lake Naomi with their parents, Frank and Caryolyn Betz, who had lived on Canoe Brook Road since the mid-1960s.
He and his family owned the Pocono Boathouse (Pocono Pines, PA) and the Cranford Canoe Club in the 1960s through the 1990s.
There are likely many gaps in the history that I hope to fill, along with a return visit to Lake Naomi to reminisce and reflect on these stories. This story is part of a series dedicated to the history of Lake Naomi, Pocono Pines, and the memories of my family spending time together. Thanks for reading.
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On the Way to the Poconos, we had to use Route 22 to 611 to 940….ah the days!
Highly Recommended:
Go Stay at the Mountaintop Lodge at Lake Naomi – https://mountaintoplodge.com/
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The only recollection I have is that in the Late Fifties/Early 60’s we raced Sports Cars on Frozen Lake Naomi.
Someone Plowed it first which left Ridges or Berms on the Ice; so racing around the cleared oval one would hit a few “Speed Bumps’……and enough of a jolt that it ripped the Raer Shock Absorbers off my new Sunbeam Alpine…….which created an issue in trying to drive up and out of this low-lying pond……..
I wonder if any of the other drivers are still around……