Charles Kohler
Just south of Darlington the 235-acre estate and farm of the bankrupt Countess Seckendorff was bought by Charles Kohler in April 1909. He was a native of New Jersey, having been born in Newark in 1868. Kohler attended Princeton, and after marriage to Veronica Byrnes of New Rochelle, learned about the piano business from his wife’s brother. In 1896, he formed, with a partner, the Kohler and Campbell Piano Company in New York City. An original $6,000 investment was worth $4000,000 by 1904. He then formed a network of piano, autopiano, and musical instrument sales companies.
Despite his active business life, Charles Kohler was able to become a well-known sportsman. He was a member of the New York Yacht Club and the New York Athletic Club and was elected president of the Saratoga Association. His particular interest was racing horses, and he put much of his wealth into purchasing and breeding them. this seems to have been his main reason for buying the Seckendorff property in the valley. He renamed it the Ramapo Stock Farm.
Over the next three years Kohler made several purchases of property in the area including one from Henry Furlong in 1912, that enabled him to join the former Price estate with the former Donner farm under his ownership. This made the Ramapo Stock Farm 547 acres. In 1910, one of his horses, Novelty, won $80,000, the largest winner for that year in the United States. In 1911, he bought the entire stock of racing horses of Sam Hildreth, one of the best-known owner/trainers in the United States. Kohler retained Hildreth as his trainer. In the same year Kohler bought the entire crop of female foals (thirteen) of Casteltos studs from David M. Cook. This cost him $15,000. In the spring of 1913, he bought a string of sixteen yearlings from August Belmont. At Mahwah, Kohler turned an old barn over 200 feet long into a “maternity ward.” It is still standing as a home. In 1913, the piano manufacturer had thirty horses in America, twenty in England, and twenty at Maisons Laffitte, as well as seven he was privately rearing in France.
Then while crossing from England to France in late May, 1913, Kohler became seriously ill and died in Paris on June 4. The diagnosis revealed a general breakdown, for he was suffering from rheumatism and kidney and liver troubles. He was forty-five years of age and had a wife and two daughters. (Note: Charles Kohler had three daughters, Olga, Vera, and Rita. ew) His body was brought back to the United States and the funeral was held in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. Although the family had a town house on the West End Avenue in New York City, and although the horses were sold, Mrs. Kohler continued to hold the valley farm and live there until about 1940. At that time, Fred Wehran bought about 250 acres of the estate, including the old Price homestead. R. Merrill and others obtained other sections of the Kohler property. *(A History of Mahwah, New Jersey, 1700-1976)
Note: Emerson McMillin III, the grandson of Emerson McMillin, was the third husband of Olga Kohler.
