A 'bucolic setting' near Route 17? See this Saddle River home listed for $1.6M

David M. Zimmer, NorthJersey.com
Updated ·3 min read

SADDLE RIVER — A prominent biochemist who helped one of America's leading 20th-century manufacturers develop sulfa drugs, anti-malarial drugs and anesthetics lived just a stone's throw from the banks of the Saddle River.

Now, Paul Hadley Bell's former 3,500-square-foot colonial-style home is for sale for $1.6 million. Surrounded by trees and an intricately landscaped yard, 26 East Saddle River Road is a suburban escape, said Madeline Rapp, the listing agent with Terrie O'Connor Realtors. The property sits amid one of the densest patches of woodland in the triangle between Route 17 and the Garden State Parkway.

"No matter where you look, you have privacy and you have nature views," Rapp said. "It really is that bucolic setting."

The expanded 1950s colonial at 26 East Saddle River Road was once the home of Paul Hadley Bell, a leading biochemist for the former American Cyanamid Company. The home in 2023 features lush gardens cultivated by its most recent owner.
The expanded 1950s colonial at 26 East Saddle River Road was once the home of Paul Hadley Bell, a leading biochemist for the former American Cyanamid Company. The home in 2023 features lush gardens cultivated by its most recent owner.

The home, dating to 1952, sits on roughly 1.25 acres directly across the street from the Joe Jefferson Club. A private fishing club formed in 1905, it was named for the property's previous owner, a star 19th-century actor who fished there, lived at 933 East Saddle River Road in Ho-Ho-Kus and hung out with President Grover Cleveland and Mark Twain. A historic bungalow-style clubhouse dating to 1925 still stands on the site, but the property is otherwise undeveloped.

The home at 26 East Saddle River Road was significantly modified. The original sandstone home sits on the south end and features dormers poking out of a gambrel roof. The larger, 21st-century addition includes a lower level that was used in the past as a ballet studio, Rapp said. In all, the home has four bedrooms, four bathrooms and an attached two-car garage. The gourmet kitchen has two islands and two dishwashers.

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In the 1970s, the home was owned by Bell, a leading research chemist in the American Cyanamid Company's Lederle Laboratories pharmaceutical arm. American Cyanamid bought the original Pearl River, New York, labs in 1930 to further diversify a company that started in fertilizer and had already branched out into dyes, heavy chemicals and acids.

The expanded 1950s colonial at 26 East Saddle River Road was once the home of Paul Hadley Bell, a leading biochemist for the former American Cyanamid Company. The home in 2023 features lush gardens cultivated by its most recent owner.
The expanded 1950s colonial at 26 East Saddle River Road was once the home of Paul Hadley Bell, a leading biochemist for the former American Cyanamid Company. The home in 2023 features lush gardens cultivated by its most recent owner.

A 1936 graduate of Marietta College in his native Ohio, Bell earned a doctorate at Penn State in 1940 and joined American Cyanamid amid its World War II-era push into typhus vaccines, blood plasma and anti-gangrene medications. Records from the U.S. Patent Office show Bell helped develop automated devices to collect and supply samples, allowing researchers to manage samples more quickly and accurately with minimal resources. Records show Bell also helped develop methods to purify organic compounds, including anti-clotting agents found in blood plasma.

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Bell worked for American Cyanamid for 40 years, according to his obituaries. For most of that time, he lived in Bergen County. Although he started with the company in Connecticut, he moved to Ridgewood in 1956, when he became American Cyanamid's head of biochemistry.

Bell lived at the end of North Murray Avenue in Ridgewood with Adelaide Russell Bell, his wife and the town's head librarian, for 13 years before moving to 26 East Saddle River Road in 1969. That same year, Bell became a research fellow at Lederle. He shifted his focus solely to tackling disease through biochemistry after successful efforts to synthesize hormones, such as calcitonin and ACTH, a product of the pituitary gland.

The expanded 1950s colonial at 26 East Saddle River Road was once the home of Paul Hadley Bell, a leading biochemist for the former American Cyanamid Company. The home in 2023 features lush gardens cultivated by its most recent owner.
The expanded 1950s colonial at 26 East Saddle River Road was once the home of Paul Hadley Bell, a leading biochemist for the former American Cyanamid Company. The home in 2023 features lush gardens cultivated by its most recent owner.

Bell's Saddle River home was a contrast to his work environment. A place to relax amid nature, 26 East Saddle River Road has a large front veranda and a rear stone patio as outdoor living spaces. Inside, there are hardwood floors and cabinetry. The primary suite has its own fireplace, a private rear deck and an expansive master bathroom with garden views from the bathtub. Rapp said the current owners spent two years planning and growing a wide variety of plantings inspired by their extensive European travels.

"The result is fragrant gardens that are in bloom, alive with texture and color, from April through November," she said.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Saddle River home listed for $1.6M in 'bucolic setting' near Route 17