Visitors, who stop in at the Millburn-Short Hills Historical Society Museum to ask about The Mall at Short Hills, are usually less interested in the history of the mall than they are in finding out how to get there.

The historical society has a collection of early ads and photos of the stores when they were at what was then an open-air suburban mall. Harder to find is what was there before B. Altman and Company built their store that was the first building of what ultimately became the Mall at Short Hills.

This historical society photo of the Wallace mansion is a rare look at what was on the site before B. Altman appeared.

The Wallace home was built in the early 1900s on the family-owned land that is now occupied by the mall, the Office Center at Short Hills, Canoe Brook Country Club and the poets section of Short Hills.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the building served as an upscale restaurant called The Brook. The building was destroyed by fire in 1947 and B. Altman was constructed in 1956, almost on the site of that Wallace mansion.