perspective

Former mayor has a lot of good to look back on
Henry Shaheen’s public life included 4 terms as WLB leader
By sherry conohan
Staff Writer

FARRAH MAFFAI Former West Long Branch Mayor Henry J. Shaheen

Henry J. Shaheen presided over the business of West Long Branch for four terms as mayor and also as a councilman before he became the borough’s chief executive.

But Shaheen also was immersed in the life of neighboring Long Branch as a businessman.

Now, from his sunny condominium in the Channel Club Tower, Monmouth Beach, the 90-year-old Shaheen follows the activities of his son, S. Henry (Hank), of Rumson, who has succeeded him in his real estate and insurance business, daughter Raja, a physiotherapist in New York City, and grandson Steven, who’s been staying with him since returning from Italy to oversee the Memoria project.

He also enjoys ribbing Monmouth Beach’s Commissioner Bill Barham about his latest hometown.

"I say, ‘Commissioner, how do you like the second best town in Monmouth County?’" he related with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "That always starts a little fun."

Shaheen, who was born in Cranford on Aug. 23, 1912, is a self-described "people person."

"I like people," he said of his reason for enjoying politics for so long. "I get along with Democrats and Republicans. I’m not a ferocious kind of guy."

The GOP stalwart added, "It wasn’t a political thing."

Shaheen’s work as a builder and real estate executive paved the way to politics for him. He recalled starting out in business with his father after dropping out of Lehigh University after one year in 1930. It was "a pretty bad time" with the Depression, he said. His older brother, Phil, had graduated from Lehigh in 1926 and already was in business with their father.

"After one year, I came back and told my father I was not going to be an engineer or a corporate person. I was going to be a builder like he was," Shaheen said. "We were a team."

Shaheen said his father started out with construction in the Elberon section of Long Branch on Park Avenue in the 1920s and worked up to Cedar Avenue building a group of houses. His dad also created a private hotel in Elberon, the Chateau Duchesne, on the ocean side of the Lake Takanassee bridge.

"He bought three estates that were side by side and took the house from the one by the Takanassee bridge and moved it between the other two, making a triangular set of buildings with covered walkways between them," Shaheen said. "The hotel catered to very rich people.

"Now there’s a street that goes down to the ocean there," he added.

Shaheen said his father also built five houses in that area and would rent them for the summer.

"Our family lived in each house as it became vacant for the summer," he explained, then would return to Cranford at the end of the season. Eventually, he said, the family acquired the Elberon estate of former U.S. Sen. W. Warren Barbour for use as a summer home.

They turned it into a two-family house which he shared with his brother, he said.

His brother, Phil, had five lumber yards which became Builders General Supply Co., he said.

Shaheen said he was building in Cranford when he met his late wife, Rose, and married her in 1938. After a honeymoon in Florida, they settled into a five-room house in Cranford.

"She was a friend of my sister," Shaheen said of how he met his wife.

In 1951, he said, they moved to the Shore. He put heat in the summer house and they lived there while Rose looked for another home. When she found what she liked at 344 Norwood Ave. in West Long Branch and took him to see it, he said he was taken aback.

"I’m looking at a mansion," he said. "It was a 30-room house. I said, ‘We’re looking for a ranch house.’ She said, ‘This is my ranch house.’ "

The house is a colonial revival mansion designed by the famed Stanford White and built in the early 1900s for Julian Mitchell, a prolific director of Broadway musicals, and his wife, Bessie Clayton, according to a brochure prepared for the Junior League. The Junior League redid the interior and held tours of it May 4-25, 1997. Mitchell, who had been born in 1854, died in 1926.

Shaheen moved out of the house after his wife died in 1983

"I appreciated the job the Junior League did," he said. "When I went through and came back downstairs, I said I want to move back in. It was so beautiful."

Shaheen has since turned ownership of the house over to his son. He said his son plans to seek the necessary approvals to build condominiums on the five-acre property, with the mansion becoming the community center for the development.

After moving to the Shore, Shaheen became more active in real estate in Long Branch. Among his dealings was the purchase of the Garfield-Grant Hotel on Broadway

Along the way, a councilman in West Long Branch, observing that he was in the real estate business, asked him if he would like to serve on the Planning Board.

"I said if it doesn’t take too much time — and I became a member of the Planning Board," he recalled. "Then the chairman of the Planning Board left, and I became chairman."

Shaheen became a member of the West Long Branch Borough Council when the late Clarkson Fisher, who became a federal judge, left the council.

"I ran for council and I won — in a friendly election," Shaheen said.

When Mayor Fred Chance stepped down to move to Ocean Township after marrying a woman from that municipality, Shaheen said, J. Russell Woolley asked him to seek the post. He said he was in his Cranford office when Woolley, a powerful Republican figure, called him.

The legendary Woolley was West Long Branch borough clerk, Monmouth County clerk and chairman of the Monmouth County Republican Party.

"I said I have to talk to Rose about it," he said. "She said, ‘Whatever you want to do.’ "

"I went from the house to borough hall," he continued. "J.R. was born in West Long Branch and knew everybody. I said I don’t know a lot of people in West Long Branch."

With Woolley’s encouragement, Shaheen said, he ran and won — again, again and again.

"I ran four times and won very nicely," he said with a smile. "When Rose died in 1983, I said I’m not going to run any more."

Shaheen said he got to know his successor as mayor, Democrat Clint Sorrentino, when Sorren-tino ran against him one time. It led to a humorous incident in the campaign.

"I was knocking on doors," he said. "This woman comes out, and I tell her what a great guy I am, and she said, ‘You don’t know me. I’m Clint’s sister.’ We had a good laugh."

Shaheen, who served as mayor from 1967 to 1983, said one of the highlights of his tenure was the construction of Peter Cooper Village, an apartment complex for senior citizens.

"That’s something that to this day I’m very proud of," he said. "It’s on a beautiful piece of property."

He also is proud of the acquisition of land for three different parks which he negotiated.

Shaheen recalled how he persuaded a reluctant seller of the land for what is now Charles Gahler Park at Route 71 and Wall Street, where a shopping mall and bank were planned.

"I sat down with him and said I’m not going to let that happen," he related. "He said, ‘Why not?’ I said because we want that for a public park. He didn’t like that. He said, ‘What are you going to pay me?’ I said the assessment. He didn’t like that either, but we did it."

Shaheen also became a director of the former Central Jersey Bank. He was appointed by Gov. Walter E. Edge in the mid-1940s right after World War II to develop housing for returning veterans, and was appointed by Gov. William T. Cahill in the early 1970s to a commission on senior citizen housing. In addition, he served as president of the New Jersey Home Builders Association and the Metropolitan Home Builders Association, which takes in New Jersey, New York and lower Connecticut. But his most rewarding service was to West Long Branch.

"West Long Branch gave me a wonderful opportunity to do things that have proved to be good for West Long Branch and are permanent and won’t go away," he said. "So I really am proud of those four terms."