Aaron W. Godfrey, who had formerly owned a silver mine in Mexico, made his first foray into real estate development in 1906 by shopping for land in Upper Montclair. With Anderson Park newly created, he bought about 18 acres immediately south of the park and promised the park’s landscape architect, John C. Olmsted, that he would build “fairly good dwellings” surrounding it. The result is Oakcroft, and for more than 110 years the park and its adjacent residents have been friendly neighbors, creating what the original Oakcroft sales brochure called “a residential park.”

In 2019 the Township of Montclair will begin a cultural resource survey of Oakcroft, which could lead to the nomination of the area as a local historic district. The survey area includes about 115 houses and is bounded by Anderson Park to the north, train tracks to the east, North Mountain Avenue to the west, and Brookfield Road to the south.

This website is intended to be a showcase for the neighborhood’s history; a resource residents can use to learn about district designation; and a way to follow the process.