As the ferry pulled into the dock, the small island on Lake Kinnelon, where St. Hubert’s Chapel was built, came into focus. The clock tower rose taller into the sky and lily pads floated in the rippling water. Waiting on land was Tom Kline, who is the reason that this island-bound church is even standing today.

If you’re wondering how this tiny, medieval-inspired chapel ended up in New Jersey, let me introduce you to Francis Kinney. He became filthy rich as the owner of one the largest cigarette companies in the world. Those familiar with the television show Gilded Age are well aware of the high society battle between “new money” and “old money.” The Nouveau Riche often coped with social rejection by building extravagant homes and monuments out of spite. Kinney was no exception.

Spurned by the blue blood communities in upstate New York, he sought revenge in the late 19th century by buying his own miniature kingdom on 5,000 acres in Pequannock Township. Locals even called him the Baron of Kinnelon, perhaps ironically. While the original manor house no longer exists, other family relics still stand nearby, including his son’s manor house, a rampart-style lookout tower on the lake’s northern edge, and the chapel.

When Kinney died in 1908, he left the chapel and surrounding land to his son, who, without heirs, in turn left it to a friend named John Talbot, who subdivided the lakefront property, creating a gated community called Smoke Rise. The chapel served as a community church until 1952. Left unattended, the first of several vandals broke into the church in 1957, destroying and ransacking the relics. All of the stained-glass windows, except for one, were destroyed. In the 1960s, Kline, realizing the chapel’s beauty, vowed to restore the chapel, initially with his own money. In 1991, he formed a nonprofit called the Kinnelon Heritage Conservation Society.

It wasn’t easy to book this tour. I first reached out in February, and again in April. After hearing nothing, I moved on with my life, convinced my email got lost in the inbox of the small but busy nonprofit that fundraises and restores the chapel. Then out of the blue, I got an email in August asking me to choose the date of my tour.

With immense gratitude, I entered the dim chapel. The first thing I noticed in the hallway is Louis C. Tiffany’s stained-glass window of a Celtic crucifix. In fact, Tiffany designed the entire interior of the chapel, including the wooden sacristy and the altar. But the other windows were designed by another glassmaker.

The other major artwork is Italian sculptor Antonio Tantardini’s six-foot-tall marble statue of an angel. This used to serve as the grave maker to Kinney’s mother, Mary Cogswell Kinney, who was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in DC. It was brought here to ensure its protection. As an indication of the Kinney family’s wealth and influence, his mother was a friend of Mary Todd Lincoln and witnessed the president’s assassination. Fortunately the statue has, for the most part, survived the vandalism. All that was lost was a carved trumpet that was held up by the statue’s right arm. Restoring that missing piece is one the Kinnelon Heritage’s last remaining projects inside the chapel.

As the tour group entered into the chapel, and the eight of us sat in the pews facing the altar. I briefly imagined Kinney’s wife praying here with her children and tried to imagine her fears and concerns and what drove her to piety. It is easy to feel close to divinity bathed in multihued light and surrounded by precious artifacts.

I have been on tours of other historic places and watched well-meaning volunteers spew facts from a script or even read directly from cue cards. Hearing Kline tell us stories about the artworks in painstaking detail and answer our questions extemporaneously made me realize that the chapel is really his passion. Whatever forces brought him here were certainly fated. It is very likely the chapel wouldn’t be here today if he hadn’t begun restoring it in the 1960s. Structures without windows, open to the elements, don’t last very long.

After sinking six figures into restoring the church, Kline said that he had to assure his donors that vandalism wouldn’t happen again. Today the island is outfitted in security cameras to ensure this unusual place of history and beauty can be enjoyed by generations to come.

As we unwillingly left the island – a new tour group had arrived and the chapel can only hold 35 guests – I thought about two things. How amazing this place must look in the fall surrounded by autumn foliage and why this place isn’t more widely known. The boat driver must have overheard me saying this to a friend because he began talking about the difficulty of opening up the chapel to more tourism. It’s a delicate balance between sharing this work of art with the public and allowing Smoke Rise, a gated community of million dollar homes, remain private. Social media can quickly turn great places into tourist traps and perhaps St. Hubert’s Chapel will remain special precisely because it rewards those determined and patient enough to see it.

Planning a Trip to St. Hubert’s Chapel

I can’t stress enough that you have to sign up in advance for the tour. The dock is located behind a gate house that checks the name of those on the tour. Email Kinnelon Heritage Conservation Society here and be ever-so patient. The organization also offers private tours for $250.

You can also rent the chapel for a private event (weddings and christenings are not uncommon) through the Smoke Rise Inn. Use of the chapel is an add-on to their catered event services.

Four men have been charged in connection with a food theft ring that targeted cargo trucks along the New Jersey Turnpike.

New Jersey State Police said Monday the suspects, all from Philadelphia, were apprehended in the middle of another break-in. Shaun Coleman, 23, Salahudin Reddy, 37, Hanif Tucker, 31, and Rashan Clark-Reddy, 26, face multiple counts of conspiracy, criminal mischief, burglary and possession of stolen goods. Law enforcement said they are connected to numerous thefts over the past three years in the area, involving items worth millions of dollars.

MORE: Demolition work begins on Frankford buildings that caught fire last week

Police said the arrests followed a two-month investigation nicknamed “Operation Beef Bandit.” Officers had been searching for the crew responsible for a string of burglaries at service areas off the New Jersey Turnpike, all nine of which involved the theft of meat, alcohol, seafood and other high-value items from parked trailers. In many cases, the vehicles were occupied.

Early Friday morning, state troopers noticed two suspicious vehicles enter the Molly Pitcher Service Area off the turnpike, authorities said. Four suspects exited and attempted to steal boxes of meat from a tractor trailer parked in the lot. Police quickly caught Tucker and, after a brief foot chase, Coleman. But Reddy and Clark-Reddy fled in a stolen vehicle, crashing into an occupied, unmarked police car and two marked police vehicles in their escape attempt. Police pursued and apprehended the pair, with three state troopers sustaining minor injuries. One officer was treated at a hospital and later released.

Sgt. Charles Marchan could not say if the suspects were connected to the recent cargo thefts in South Philadelphia. In August, thieves swiped about 350-400 pounds of tuna from a refrigerated trailer truck at Samuels Seafood Co. In September, six men in masks stole another three pallets of seafood from Seventh Street and Packer Avenue. Police also reported cargo thefts of snow crab, beef, salmon and bourbon in the city earlier in the summer and spring.

While Marchan acknowledged that the “same MO” appears in numerous cargo thefts across the region, he stressed that the investigation is still ongoing. New Jersey State Police is soliciting tips regarding these crimes at 732-522-4295, extension 3226. All four suspects have been taken to Middlesex County Jail, where they await bail detention hearings. 

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Fire officials in New Jersey said a woman has died after she was pilled from an early morning house fire in Haddonfield, NJ.

According to fire officials, firefighters pulled the woman from a home along the 400 block of Walnut Street in Haddonfield, NJ, at about 7 a.m. on Monday.

Here, officials said, a kitchen fire filled the home with smoke and fire crews pulled a woman from the home. first responders attempted life-saving efforts, however, a fire official said the woman died.

As of about 8:30 a.m. on Monday, officials provided no further information on the identity of the person who perished in this incident.

Officials said an investigation into this fire is ongoing and an update on this incident is expected sometime Monday morning.

This is a breaking news story. It will be updated as new information becomes available.