Short Hills, NJ

Short Hills began as a designed commuter landscape. Roller-shade inventor Stewart Hartshorn acquired 1,552 acres in the 1870s and developed what Millburn Township calls the first planned commuter suburb in the United States. He reviewed house designs, retained rights to maintain roads and utility systems, and left green strips along the railroad so arrival by train would pass through planted open land. Hartshorn also funded a station and persuaded the railroad to make two daily stops. Those decisions joined low-density residential streets to rail access from the outset. Short Hills remains an unincorporated community within Millburn Township, so it has a recognized name, station, post office, and several named residential sections while sharing municipal government and services with Millburn. Commercial life operates at two markedly different scales. The Chatham Road strip consists of small lots and neighborhood-size shops and services.

The Mall at Short Hills occupies a separate highway-oriented district near Morris Turnpike and Route 24; it is the sole property in the township's regional-shopping zone. The mall, its stores, and nearby hospitality and office uses create a large retail and service workplace apart from the station village. Residential neighborhoods fill much of the ground between these centers, including Glenwood, Knollwood, Deerfield-Crossroads, White Oak Ridge, and Old Short Hills Estates. The pattern matters in daily routines. Station-area errands and rail trips focus on Chatham Road, while regional shopping draws traffic toward the western highway interchange. Township administration, the main library, and many cultural destinations are shared with the wider Millburn community. The station village is the compact public center inside that residential plan. The current brick station buildings date from the early twentieth century, and NJ Transit serves the stop on the Morris & Essex Line and Gladstone Branch.

The former westbound waiting room became the home of the Millburn-Short Hills Historical Society; the eastbound building continues its rail function. Chatham Road's first commercial center opened beside the tracks in 1925, using Tudor Revival gables and half-timbering that echoed nearby houses. A 1938 post office and small storefronts complete the cluster. Crescent Park, laid out as part of Hartshorn's station approach, passed to the township in 1944 with a requirement that it remain open. A train trip, a stop at a neighborhood business, and a visit to the historical society all fit within the original station plan. Hartshorn family land also created a distinctive woodland address near the station. Cora Hartshorn began an arboretum and bird sanctuary on 16.45 acres south of Chatham Road in 1923, then left it to Millburn Township in 1958.

Its three miles of trails follow small hills and valleys formed by an ancient terminal moraine, and the Stone House supports environmental classes, camps, workshops, and bird programs. Farther south on White Oak Ridge Road, 41.24-acre Gero Park holds the township pool, a nine-hole par-three golf course, ball fields, courts, and the recreation center. These are shared township facilities, but their Short Hills locations make them routine local destinations. The planned suburb's relationship between rail and retained landscape is easiest to see at the center. A path crosses Crescent Park from the station, Chatham Road's shops sit nearby, and arboretum trails enter wooded moraine terrain a few blocks away.