traced back to author Thomas Wolfe who draws
that conclusion in You Can't Go Home Again,
a novel published posthumously in 1940.
Toni Deroche begs to differ.
Our old friend, blog reporter,
photojournalist and former
owner of the Shady Dell,
did go home again, to
meet the nice folks
who live at the Dell
now. They welcomed
Toni into the house,
showed her around
and invited her
to take pictures.
She did!
After touring the house and property, Toni raced back
to Shady's Place headquarters with the first new pictures
of the Dell interior since the house was renovated by the
Deroche family and sold in 2012. I am proud to have
Toni back as my guest to file this special report.
Shady, I'm excited to show you
these brand new pictures of the
Dell. Recently I drove by and
and saw the family that lives
there out in the side yard.
I figured this is finally my
opportunity to stop by, so I
pulled down the driveway
and they recognized me!
Such a sweet young couple
and so happy to show me
around... inside and out!
So now I’ll give you a little tour. I wish I would have
taken more pictures but I didn’t want to impose.
Below is a shot of the family room
with a view of the kitchen.
SHADY DEL KNIGHT: Pardon me for interrupting, Toni, but I can't
contain my excitement. Hey, all you original Dell rats, can you believe
you are looking at the same space where, in the 1950s, 60s and 70s,
the Dell restaurant was located... where thousands of teenagers
gathered to shoot the bull as Helen Ettline stood behind her
snack bar making burgers, fries, subs, shakes, sundaes
and my personal favorite, cherry cokes? Can you see
yourself in that room playing the pinball machine
while Helen's jukebox played doo-wop oldies?
Above is a picture of their dining room.
SHADY DEL KNIGHT: I wanna remind you rats that this room
was once the main seating area of the Dell restaurant. As you
recall, there was a row of diner style booths on each side
with an aisle running down the middle.
The husband made that huge dining room table!
At the top of Shady's post, you saw a magical photo
that actually looks more like an oil painting. It shows
Margaret Schneider's great grandchildren gazing
through the windows of the Dell's third floor
attic prior to the sale in 2012. The picture
below shows you what the attic
looks like today.
SHADY DEL KNIGHT: Toni, this might be a good time for me
to remind older followers and inform newer ones that for years
the Dell's attic held a secret, a story I first reported in 2008 on
my old blog. Dell rats of the 50s and 60s remember that John
Ettline routinely carried a nightstick as he made his rounds
of the Dell. The logical explanation would be that John
armed himself with a club in case a scuffle broke out
in the dance hall or parking lot and he needed to
subdue unruly guests. A spokesperson for the
Ettline family told me there was a another reason.
According to the spokesperson, John armed himself with a billy club
because he and Helen were secretly operating a safe house, a shelter
for battered and abused women in the attic of their Shady Dell!
Helen herself was a fugitive from an abusive marriage when she
married John. The Ettlines allowed battered women to stay up
there in the attic until they could find permanent shelter elsewhere.
Imagine, Dell rats, while the rest of us partied two floors below,
women in crisis were hunkered down in the attic, trying to stay
out of harm's way. It's mind-boggling! If you think about it, the
Ettlines provided the same services to female abuse victims that
Access-York and other women’s help organizations offer today.
Only a few members of the Ettline clan knew that the Dell doubled
as a secret shelter for women. It was feared that if too many people
knew about it, word would inevitably leak out and abusive males
would show up at the Dell, confront John and try to drag
their women home. To prepare for a worst case
scenario, John kept his trusty baton handy.
Toni, back to you.
See how beautiful the Dell exterior looks today
with foundation beds, plants and flowers?
SHADY DEL KNIGHT: I swear, Toni, this is uncanny. it looks
as if a flying saucer beamed up the Dell, gave it a makeover
and set it back down on a completely different property!
The family replaced the old columns.
No more chipped paint!
The next three pictures are views of the side yard,
the area that was once the Dell's parking lot.
Many trees were cut down to create that long
flat area. As you can see, it's as big as a
football field- beautiful!
SHADY DEL KNIGHT: Good heavens, Toni, it looks like the lawn
at Downton Abbey! Anyone for polo or croquet? These pictures are
incredible! I can hardly believe I am looking at the same section of
the property that used to be a rough, dirt, gravel and loose stone
parking lot with bumps and ruts that murdered a Dell rat's car.
SHADY DEL KNIGHT: I'm sure every original Dell rat remembers the
area shown above. You pulled into the Dell's lot from Starcross Road,
drove down past the house there on the right, and parked your car
wherever you could find a space. (On Friday and Saturday nights
you needed a shoehorn.) Many times you had to continue down
to the end of the line (left side of the screen), round the bend
and head back toward the road as you continued to search
the jammed lot for a place to leave your heap.
If you couldn't find a space in the second row, you needed to go out
to the annex parking lot next to a steep cliff and walk a considerable
distance back to the Dell house. If you still couldn't find a spot,
you wound up in the dreaded No Man's Land, the remote
auxiliary parking lot a quarter mile down the road.
Since there was no shuttle service, you needed
to make the trek back up the road to reach
the entrance to the Magic Kingdom.
Sorry, Toni-- go ahead.
Finally I walked back behind the Dell's garage
which was built by the family that purchased the
estate in 2012. As longtime followers of Shady's
blogs might recall, The Shady Dell dance hall
and the original garage were torn down in
the fall of 2012, and the new garage
was built upon the foundation.
It amazed me that the original foundation is
still there... and so is the area beneath the original
garage where horse stables were once located.
SHADY DEL KNIGHT: I owe each and every one of those horses an
apology. It must have been nerve racking for them to have to listen
to 100+ teenagers carrying on in the dance hall 7 nights a week
while they were down below trying to get some sleep.
Even the old horse gates are still there. The Dell's
horses passed through them on their way to
the corral and hillside grazing land.
Shady, the current owners
of the Dell were so happy
to see me and so gracious
the day I dropped in on
them. They told me about
a man wearing a veterans
hat, no doubt a former
Dell rat, who recently
stopped by to see the
Dell. They let him in
and he was amazed
by all the changes.
They told me a lot
of cars drive by the
property very slowly
as Dell rats of old
gaze at the place
that was once their
"home away from
home," the scene
of so many good
times in their youth.
Thank you very
much, dear friend
and honorary Dell
rat Toni Deroche,
for bringing us this
report and sharing
these great new pics
of our Alma Mater
The Shady Dell!
