Van Doren sells lumber business to former Hopewell official

Bob Van Doren began working at the business as a boy, back in the 1920s.

By John Tredrea
   What has been known as Van Doren’s lumberyard for as long as most Hopewell Borough area residents can remember has been sold.
   The Model Avenue site really wasn’t a lumberyard when his father, Jacob, bought it in 1923, Bob Van Doren recalled Friday.
   "It was more of a coal and feed place," Mr. Van Doren said. "It became a lumberyard over the years."
   Bob Van Doren began working at the business as a boy, back in the 1920s. On Friday, he was still on the job, filling orders from customers and doing his paperwork in the small trailer he has used as an office since a fire destroyed part of the lumberyard last year.
   Now, after more than 70 years, his time at the yard is drawing to a close. Mr. Van Doren has sold the business and property to borough resident Henry Wittman, who says he will continue using the site as a lumberyard.
   Asked why he decided to sell, Mr. Van Doren chuckled, shrugged and said: "Well, I’ll be 90 next year!" Asked what he would do with the time he would have after leaving the lumberyard, he thought a second and said: "Go dancing, I guess. I’m looking forward to retirement. It’s time for me to move out of here."
   Looking back over a tenure in the yard that began before the Great Depression, Mr. Van Doren, whose defining trait may be saying a lot with very few words, said: "All is different now. Lot of changes." He pointed to an abandoned railroad siding at the edge of the yard. "The trains quit stopping here in the 1960s, I think it was. They cut a lot of other people off, too. And you have to deal with the competition from the big outlet places that used to not even exist. It’s a tough business today. Everything is big business."
   Mr. Van Doren said he expected to be out of the yard in "four or five days. Just finishing up some paperwork on it," he said.
   Mr. Wittman, a real estate attorney, licensed home builder and former Hopewell Borough councilman, said Sunday: "I’m planning to keep on using the place as a lumberyard. My sons Mark and Hank, who are of high school age, will work there with me. We’ll need to do a little learning as we go. I’ve never operated a lumberyard before."
   Asked why he had bought the yard, Mr. Wittman said: "Why not? I had an account with Bob and got to talking to him about it. We’ll try to keep it the same as it’s been."
   Mr. Wittman, a resident of Taylor Terrace, has lived in the borough since 1991. A graduate of Somerville High School and the University of Delaware with a bachelor’s degree in finance, he got his law degree from Seattle University.
   Prior to graduation from law school, he worked with the public defender in Juneau, Alaska.
   Mr. Wittman also is a former member of the Millstone Borough Planning Board and Millstone Borough Council.