North Jersey home listed for $2.2 million was built by inventor of low-cost ballpoint pen

David M. Zimmer, NorthJersey.com

A mid-century modern built in Englewood for an ardent conservationist was always meant to be a suburban oasis.

Listed this spring for $2.2 million, 470 Highview Road features floor-to-ceiling windows, an outdoor pool and lush landscaped garden beds. Inside, spacious rooms and custom built-ins give the 70-year-old home a modern feel.

The home was built for a man on the cutting edge, Fred Ferber. An innovator of the low-cost ballpoint pen, Ferber and his wife Hedwig Ferber would later attempt to preserve roughly 7,000 acres in the Northern Highlands while living on a 212-acre animal preserve atop Bearfort Mountain.

The couple's former four-bedroom, four-bathroom Englewood home sits on more than two acres near the Elisabeth Morrow School. Surrounded by trees and a manicured garden, 470 Highview is seemingly enveloped in a protective embrace, said Maryanne Elsaesser, the listing agent with Compass New Jersey.

A mid-century modern in Englewood, 470 Highview Road was built for Fred Ferber, an innovator of the low-cost ballpoint pen who became a prominent North Jersey conservationist in the second half of the 20th century.
A mid-century modern in Englewood, 470 Highview Road was built for Fred Ferber, an innovator of the low-cost ballpoint pen who became a prominent North Jersey conservationist in the second half of the 20th century.

"The grounds are magnificent," she said. "From every window in the home, you are greeted by nature."

When Ferber owned 470 Highview in the 1950s, it was a hotbed of activity. Though proudly non-partisan, the Austrian-born inventor nonetheless had a great interest in political and civic affairs. He held United World Federalists and Americans for Democratic Action chapter meetings at 470 Highview and even hosted an event for U.S. Congressman Charles R. Howell at the home in the summer of 1954, according to newspaper reports.

During his time in town, Ferber also headed the Bergen Mental Health Association and the Englewood Community Development Committee.

"We have decided to devote our time and funds to the things which will provide a fuller and more meaningful life rather than just extending the life span," he told The Record in 1963 about his wife and himself. "We may someday control the heartbeat so we can live to be 110, but what's the use if we sit around and do nothing, like vegetables?"

Ferber arrived in the United States in 1931 at the age of 25. A former electromechanical apprentice, he worked locally as an engineer and ran an experimental manufacturing company through World War II, The Record reported after his 1980 death. Toward the end of the 1940s, Ferber was asked what he could do to improve the leaky and expensive ballpoint pen, his wife Hedwig Ferber told the newspaper that year.

A mid-century modern in Englewood, 470 Highview Road was built for Fred Ferber, an innovator of the low-cost ballpoint pen who became a prominent North Jersey conservationist in the second half of the 20th century.
A mid-century modern in Englewood, 470 Highview Road was built for Fred Ferber, an innovator of the low-cost ballpoint pen who became a prominent North Jersey conservationist in the second half of the 20th century.

"He perfected it," she said. "He developed a new rubber sack to keep the ink from leaking and used special plastic tubing from Europe to line the inside of the pen. Then, he experimented with inks that wouldn't leak in an airplane."

Ferber struck it rich. For more than a decade, he lorded over Englewood-based Ferber Corporation as it specialized in low-cost ballpoint pens and aided their integration into everyday life. Then, in 1960, he dove even more headlong into his civic and environmental pursuits. At the time, politicians statewide had bandied around the idea of constructing a jetport in areas such as the Great Swamp, the Pinelands and atop Bearfort Mountain, where nuclear blasts were considered to overhaul a solid granite base.

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Ferber attempted to not only block that effort but also protect vast swaths of the northeast from hunters and housing. He ended up negotiating the rights to roughly 6,800 acres then owned by the New Jersey Zinc Company of Sterling Hill Mine fame, according to newspaper reports. His idea was to create a nature center focused on educating young people complete with campsites, biking and hiking trails. He left Englewood and sold his company.

A mid-century modern in Englewood, 470 Highview Road was built for Fred Ferber, an innovator of the low-cost ballpoint pen who became a prominent North Jersey conservationist in the second half of the 20th century.
A mid-century modern in Englewood, 470 Highview Road was built for Fred Ferber, an innovator of the low-cost ballpoint pen who became a prominent North Jersey conservationist in the second half of the 20th century.

His plan almost worked. However, in 1963, Ferber relinquished an option on over half of the land to the state. The rest remained under the control of Ferber's new company, Sussex Woodlands Inc. Through the company, Ferber funded the tax bills and studies seeking options for sustainable revenue. Then, the pen money started to dry up.

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The Ferbers ultimately sold all but 212 acres to the state in a transaction that greatly expanded Wawayanda State Park. From their remaining property on Bearfort Mountain, the couple lived amongst nature and ran an animal shelter that helped rehabilitate wolves and other native species until they both became severely ill in 1980.

Ferber died from cancer that October while developing a process for turning garbage into synthetic soil, called "Proto-Soil." Hedwig Ferber died shortly after. Three years later, their heavily mortgaged property was declared a state wildlife sanctuary by former Gov. Thomas H. Kean.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: North Jersey home built by Ferber founder on the market for $2.2M

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