The Indian Trail Club

Indian Trail Club, a quiet escape from the hubbub of modern life, is recognized as a local racket club and banquet facility, but is lesser-known for its deep-rooted history in town. Let’s hop back in time, for a brief moment and consider what was here before us. 

It’s hard to imagine, but a little more than 50 years ago, Franklin Lake, which Indian Trail Club is perched on, stood in the midst of farmland and dairy mills. The arrival of charismatic and entrepreneurial Nevins McBride—my grandfather—1955 is when it all changed. 

It is uncertain what prompted this young man, formerly involved in the plumbing industry in Paterson, to take on such a largescale development project as this, but if you happen to see a flock of birds swooping down for a rest on the warm surface of the lake with the vibrant sunset in the background, you will undoubtedly understand. 

For the same reasons that J. Nevins McBride and his two brothers Frank and Joe came to turn this undeveloped land into Urban Farms and Indian Trail Club, hundreds today visit the lakeside spot for a quiet respite with their families. It’s simply beautiful.

“Nevins believed a social and recreational facility on the lake should be the focal point of the town,” Nevin's son (and my father), Peter McBride explained.   

So, after a few years of planning, construction began around 1958 with the transformation of the former colonial barn on the property into the main clubhouse and the addition of a few tennis courts and boat docks. 

Simultaneously, Urban Farms was developing around the club, starting with a renovation of the gas station that sat right where the Exxon was (before it closed), the establishment of Franklin Lakes National Bank (now a TD Bank) and a grocery store (now Market Basket). 

The McBride trio encouraged family and friends from the Ridgewood area, where the family grew up, to uproot and migrate over a few miles to this developing community.  A town that initially comprised 2,500 and was based around the downtown Camp Gaw area, developed into a community of more than 12,000 residents at one point with a second hub now in the Urban Farms-ITC-Market Basket area.

Since first construction, Indian Trail Club has remained a backbone of the McBride family and vice versa. Joe was president of the club for 40 years, followed by family members Peter McBride and Bevinn Romaine, who currently serves as the club’s third president. 

Over time, and with much love and attention, this summertime swimming and tennis club has transformed into a year-round facility complete with platform tennis, dining, boating, sailing, and day camps and swim team for the kids, serving 700 families from the surrounding area.

French officer Marquis de Castellux, en route to finding his camp on a trip in 1780 recalls, “I enquired for some crossroad to this quarter, and one was pointed out to me, by which, passing near a sort of lake which forms a very agreeable point of view, and then crossing some beautiful woods, I arrived.” 

A spot that was referred to by the Leni-Lenapi as the Crystal Eye, and known by settlers in the 1700s as Christian Pond, is equally cherished for its natural and uplifting beauty today.