Les Paul lived in Mahwah from 1952 until his death in 2009 and many of the things he left behind are now in the Mahwah Museum on Franklin Turnpike. The museum's permanent Les Paul exhibit holds recording machines from his home studio, early inventions and a rack of guitars he owned. Most of those guitars are not behind glass for good: for $50, a musician can book an hour playing them.

What is in the exhibit

The exhibit follows Paul's two big contributions, the solid-body electric guitar and multitrack recording, and the museum points out that he is the only person elected to both the Inventors Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Items from his home studio, where many of his and Mary Ford's hit records were made, are on display, along with material on the weekly radio show the couple broadcast from their Mahwah house. Before he had a reel-to-reel tape deck in 1949, Paul recorded on a disc-cutting lathe he built himself, using as many as 500 acetate discs to layer songs such as Lover, Nola and Goofus. The exhibit shows several vintage recorders, including the Ampex 300 that Bing Crosby gave him, an Ampex AG-440B and 400A, and a Berlant Concertone 1401.

Among the inventions are the Les Paulverizer, the Rail and a prototype of the Log, the solid-body experiment he built in the 1930s.

The guitars you can play

The museum's Play a Les Paul Guitar sessions put most of the displayed instruments in a visitor's hands. The current list, which the museum says can change, includes:

  • A 1969 Gibson Custom
  • A Gibson Studio fitted with pickups by Tom Doyle, who was Paul's luthier, guitar technician and soundman at Fat Tuesdays and the Iridium for more than 40 years
  • An Epiphone Lucille replica signed by B.B. King
  • A 1953 Epiphone Zephyr
  • A Heritage H-516
  • The Epiphone 50th Anniversary guitar presented to Paul in 2002
  • A Gibson Recording, a second Gibson Studio, a Gibson Special and a Gibson L-48 acoustic archtop
  • A Les Paul model not made by Gibson, which the museum describes as the only non-Gibson Les Paul he approved
  • A Harmony nylon-string acoustic owned by Jerry Reed

Sessions are by appointment only and last 60 minutes for a $50 fee. They take place at times when the museum is closed to the public. To arrange one, contact the museum by email at lespaul@mahwahmuseum.org or by phone at 201-512-0099 and include a name and the best way to reach you; payment goes through the museum's online store.

The friend down the road

Mahwah's connection to Paul is personal as well as historical. The museum's fall program included a November 15 talk by Mayor Jim Wysocki on his 29-year friendship with Paul, which began when Wysocki, then a police officer, plowed Paul's driveway. Over the years Wysocki helped manage the gifts and Gibson guitars that piled up at the house, and he brought memorabilia from that time to the museum for the program.

More at the museum

The same building holds The Gilded Age in the Ramapo Valley, an exhibit on how New York bankers, industrialists and inventors built estates, farms and factories in Mahwah between 1870 and 1900 after the railroad arrived, plus the Donald Cooper Model Railroad and a display of Lionel and garden-scale trains. The museum's next program is Starting Your Family Tree, an introduction to genealogy with historian Cathy Moran Hajo, on Tuesday, November 17, from 7:30 to 9 p.m., with registration through the museum's site.

If you go

Where: Mahwah Museum, 201 Franklin Turnpike, Mahwah, Bergen County. Parking is between the museum and the police station; follow the path to the front entrance on Franklin Turnpike. The museum is wheelchair accessible.
When: Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m., September 26, 2026, through June 2027. Guitar sessions are by appointment at other times.
Admission: $10 for adults and $5 for seniors. Free for children and students 20 and under, Families First cardholders and museum members. Cards and cash accepted. The Les Paul exhibit is included with admission.

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