Knickerbocker Knolls Ad – July 1954

Here's a full-page ad that ran in the Lorain Journal on July 24, 1954 – 60 years ago this month – for the Knickerbocker Knolls development in Sheffield Lake. Built by the Great Lakes Realty Company of Lorain, Knickerbocker Knolls represented a huge undertaking of more than 300 Early American homes on Irving Park Boulevard and its many cross streets all the way south to Oster Road.

Amenities included Sheffield Lake's ubiquitous bituminous cold-mix paved streets, the new water treatment plant (built in Lorain in 1954), cooling lake breezes, and a convenient location one mile from stores, school, fire and police protection.

Gretchen of Sheffield Lake emailed me some scans of a photocopy of the promotional flyer for Knickerbocker Knolls last year. I'm glad I could finally use a few of them!

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The back of the Knickerbocker Apartments,
facing its parking lot

After I moved out of the Overlook Apartments in the mid-1980s, I moved into the Knickerbocker Apartments on Irving Park Boulevard (foreshadowing my future as a Sheffield Lake homeowner). 

You can see the future location of the Knickerbocker Apartments indicated on the middle plat plan above, as the larger of the two areas proposed for business zoning.

Although they didn't have the classic ambiance of the Overlook Apartments, the Knickerbocker Apartments were pretty nice. I kept a post bird feeder outside my apartment window, and by George I had a pretty interesting mini-crop of various grains growing under it.

I remember having a nice, large storage locker. I used to drop off my dirty laundry at my parents' house in Lorain, and dear old Dad would deliver it – clean and folded – to my storage locker!

The Knickerbocker had a great bunch of tenants, including Mr. and Mrs. Surface and other neighbors. They all sat in lawn chairs out in the parking lot at one end of the building, and were happy to shoot the breeze with anyone coming or going. A real nice bunch of people.

My only bad memory of the Knickerbocker Apartments is that one resident used to play a rollicking electric organ regularly after I went to bed. I'm surprised that I didn't dream about rollerskating every night!