'MASH' actor's former Bergen County home on the market for $1.8M. Check it out

Before housing Alan Alda, the celebrated actor who played an Army surgeon on TV, a Park Avenue Colonial was the home of a real-life war hero.

Recently listed for about $1.8 million, 177 Park Ave. is in one of Leonia's most coveted neighborhoods, said Rosemarie Bracco, owner of Cavalier Realty Group. Still, 177 Park has more than its location to offer, she said.

The home has six bedrooms, five bathrooms and a dining room with custom stained-glass windows. The kitchen boasts high-end appliances, marble counters and a beverage station with its own sink. In the backyard of the nearly half-acre lot, there is a full-size tennis court and a large garage.

In the late 20th century, it was home to Alda and his multi-talented wife of more than 65 years, Arlene. The two moved to Leonia in 1963 and spent nearly 40 years in the borough before they sold the home in 2002.

Down the street from All Saints Church and just a short walk from Overpeck County Park, the home was built in or around 1926 for 36-year-old James C. Stagg. The Leonia native was a captain in the U.S. Signal Corps during World War I. He was also the vice president and treasurer of Cornish Wire Co. Inc., a New York-based producer of radio and electrical wire, and the father of Betsy Stagg.

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An Army hero's home

Stagg, an ambulance driver for the Northern Valley Motor Corps of the Red Cross, also lived in 177 Park along with her husband, the future Maj. Henry L. Mills. Engaged in August 1941, the two were soon separated, as Mills the next month enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

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Leaving his pregnant wife at 177 Park, Mills went to Tulsa for service pilot training before being shipped overseas to Merseyside in the United Kingdom. There, the former U.S. Marine joined the No. 71 "Eagle" Squadron as a pilot officer in the days before U.S. involvement in World War II combat, according to records kept by the American Air Museum in Britain.

In October 1942, Mills transferred to the United States Army Air Forces. He racked up six kills in air-to-air combat before nearly becoming a victim himself on March 6, 1944. After that dogfight, the newly promoted major was shot down. His engine failed, and he was forced to bail out above enemy territory. Area newspapers reported that Mills, 28, was missing in action.

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That May, however, U.S. War Department officials informed Stagg, then Mrs. Mills, that her husband had been captured. Mills was a prisoner of war held at Stalag Luft III, a German camp in Poland.

After a forced march as Soviet forces converged on the camp in early 1945, Mills and his fellow prisoners were liberated by U.S. forces in April 1945. On May 8, 1945, Victory in Europe Day, he sent a telegram to Stagg, The Record reported. He asked her to come to New York City so he could see his 2-year-old son, Henry Jr., for the first time. Mills was discharged the next year, and in 1947 he founded Mills, Talbot and Co., which still operates as an electrical supply sales company.

Later, the home of Alan Alda

Though respected in his own right, Mills would not be the most famous person to reside at 177 Park. That title may forever belong to Alda, a six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner. A relative unknown when he arrived in Leonia, Alda in the early 1960s was on the rise in the acting world. He, along with his wife, Arlene, nonetheless made the conscious decision to settle outside of New York City instead of in Los Angeles.

The proximity to Broadway, where Alda would be nominated for the 1966 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, would prove vital. Still, Arlene on several occasions credited the decision to family. A native of the Bronx, she said the couple wanted their children to live in a neighborhood where they could safely walk to school and play in the neighborhood.

Arlene Alda was a Fulbright scholar who became a professional clarinetist in the Houston Symphony. She retired after marrying Alda, however, to raise the couple's three children. In her spare time, she became an award-winning photographer and children's book author.

Though Alda would make it big in Hollywood in the 1970s with the hit show "M.A.S.H.," Leonia remained very much his home. While filming the series from 1972 to 1983, Alda famously flew home on weekends.

In a 1973 interview with the Star-Phoenix of Saskatchewan, Alda said the separation was not easy but it was "better than uprooting the family." At the time, his daughters were 12, 13 and 14.

"It would be wrong to transplant them to Hollywood, where they would become appendages of my success," he said. "Here in Los Angeles, people are somehow terribly conscious of status and position. But back home, we're treated as individuals, each of us accepted for what we are."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Leonia NJ house of 'MASH' actor selling for $1.8M. Take a look