buzzworthy
Pompton Plains
Wayne
FROM RED BARN TO WHITE HOUSE LIVING
Time flies when you’re beautifying homes. This September marked 40 years since
Karen Arakelian opened Red Barn Furniture, the original name of home furnishings
and design emporium WHITE HOUSE LIVING. “There’s a lot of history here,” says
Arakelian, who says that the location served as the first self-sufficient dairy farm in
the U.S. from 1903 until the middle of the century. Sheffield Furniture occupied the
space after that; then it became a warehouse-office complex. In September 1978,
Arakelian and her husband rented one of the three buildings on the property, and it
became Red Barn Furniture. A fire in January 1988 destroyed those 12,000 square
feet, so the business moved into one of the other buildings. In 2013, Arakelian had it
painted white, and it became White House Living. • 867 Black Oak Ridge Road,
(973) 575-1331, whliving.com
Wayne
NATIONAL YOUTH ARTS
RECOGNIZES ASPIRE
PERFORMING ARTS COMPANY
National Youth Arts, a group that promotes the work of
young artists, particularly in the theater world, recently
recognized the Aspire Performing Arts Company (PAC)
with nine awards and an additional 28 nominations. Aspire
PAC received awards and nominations for five of its 2017-18
productions: Grease, Madagascar – A Musical Adventure JR.,
Heathers the Musical (High School Edition), and two pilot
productions: Newsies JR. and Frozen JR. More than 600
productions were eligible for awards this year. (Pictured
here, from left to right) ALLISON PATERNO, who won an
Outstanding Lead Performance in a Musical (Junior Division)
award as Katherine Plumber in Newsies JR.; LISA BETH
VETTOSO (Aspire PAC artistic director); and ANTHONY
PATERNO, who received an award for playing Kenickie in
Grease, which was named Outstanding Ensemble. The photo
was taken in mid-August at the Eastern Regional Ceremony,
held at the Riverdale, NY YM-YWHA in the Bronx.
12
FALL 2018 WAYNE MAGAZINE
If you have a man in your life who
claims that he’d like to cook but he
doesn’t know how, here’s the perfect
gift for him: Man, You Can Cook!, a
cookbook written by Pompton Plains
resident JULIA MULLANEY. (To be fair,
the recipes work equally well for
women.) Mullaney was inspired to
write the book when her brother m