Post war boom brings change to Scarsdale life

The “war to end all wars” marked a clear dividing line in the tempo and style of Scarsdale life. A postwar building boom redrew the map of the community while land prices climbed sharply.

Automobiles began to displace carriages on the town’s dirt roads, although cars were still banned from Emily Butler’s 500-acre Fox Meadow estate. Visitors were free to stroll, ride horses, or drive carriages on her property, but cars—except those of house-guests—were prohibited on the estate grounds.

Even the Fox Meadow estate was shrinking, however, for Miss Butler began to sell and give away bits and pieces of her land. All around the Fox Meadow Tennis Club the sounds of construction could be heard, as roads, schools, and houses were built.

Miss Butler sold twenty-five acres between the Club and the Post Road to the Village for Scarsdale’s first public high school, which opened in 1919, and for the recreation area now known as Butler Field. The limited-access Bronx River Parkway—the first road of its kind in the world—opened to traffic in 1924, part of it on land donated by Emily Butler.

Source: Diana Reische, Fox Meadow Tennis Club – The First Hundred Years, 1983