Measuring about 10 feet tall, the iconic White Horse silhouette sign is again perched high above the White Horse Pike in Lawnside NJ!
And the area residents are excited to see the landmark horse watching over the community.
For those who are unfamiliar, for over 50 years (starting in the 1960’s) a large White Horse silhouette sign stood on a freestanding tower in the parking lot of the Lawnside shopping center. In 2014 that sign was removed, likely due to concerns over its age and risk of structural failure.

Image: Notto Selvaggi. Used with permission
At the time the sign was removed many had hoped it would return… but ten years had passed and hopes faded.
But yesterday area Facebook town groups were abuzz as locals were happily surprised to see that the iconic White Horse sign had returned high above the well traveled White Horse Pike… sitting atop the very tall roadside shopping center sign.

What’s the story? Who paid for it?!
Industry contacts first told me who financed the sign, and now the company behind this awesome gesture has confirmed… Lomax Carpet and Tile Mart!
Lomax Carpet and Tile Mart opened a large flooring warehouse showroom in the Lawnside shopping center just this past November, taking over a large portion of the former Kmart building.
The full story is that the Lomax team acquired the entire Kmart building, and when it came time to upgrade the shopping center signage to include their own business… Lomax owner Michael Longwill and the team chose on his own to recreate the locally beloved White Horse sign!

This morning I inquired with Lomax about the sign and heard back from Lawnside store manager Jason Hartley who shares…
Lomax Carpet & Tile Mart has fully financed the sign for our store and all the businesses in The Historic Lawnside Village. Designed by Forman Signs, it will look even more spectacular once all the electric is set up and our digital display is up and running. We’re excited to be in this area, where this building that has been vacant for many years. Hoping it grabs the attention from White Horse Pike drivers and invites friends and family to join us to make an amazing shopping experience for their flooring needs.
Jason Hartley – Lomax Carpet & Tile Mart Lawside Manager
Honestly it’s an awesome gesture by the Lomax flooring company as while they definitely wanted to put their business on the main roadside sign tower… they did not have to take on the extra expense to recreate the White Horse sign!.

Last fall Lomax owner Michael gave me a tour of his new Lawnside store which offers a huge selection of flooring including hardwood floors, vinyl floors, area rugs, epoxy flooring (perfect for garages) and even natural stone countertops.
Michael gave me an awesome compliment by saying when he was deciding to purchase the building, he had read my prior article on the space (which in 2022 was planned to be a indoor storage facility)… and Michael said he really enjoyed reading about the history of the property, which goes back to when the White Horse Drive-In movie theater was the first commercial development in the extended shopping center properties.
And it seems a connected with him so much that when it came time to upgrade the sign for his Lomax Carpet & Tile store, he chose to put out the extra expense to bring back the beloved White Horse sign!
White Horse Sign – Lawnside
Absolutely it’s an exciting thing for the community to see the iconic sign back along the White Horse Pike.
To be clear though it appears to be a completely brand new fabrication, designed to fit within the roadside shopping center signage.
That being said it is a perfect homage to the original sign, and also calls out “Historic Lawnside Village”

As I called out in my article back in May of 2022, this property previously was home to Kmart/Sears and prior to that was home to a Rickel Home Center.
While I do not know the exact dates of when the building was operated as Rickels, I do know that at least through the 70s and early 80s they were located there.
But the history of the White Horse sign goes back even before that… when a portion of the property was home to the White Horse Drive-In movie theater!

(Image used with permission. Copyright photographer John Flack)
Opened in the 1960s on the property where Home Depot is located today, in order to market the drive-in theater to the broader community (and cars driving by on area roadways), the drive-in ownership in the 1960s installed a tall tower and placed high above it a large silhouette White Horse sign.
This was one of two similar marketing ideas as over on the Black Horse Pike in Camden another drive-in movie theater had a matching horse signage tower… but in matching the “Black Horse Pike” name of the roadway, that horse silhouette was black.

Looking at imagery at HistoricAerials.com it appears that the Lawnside drive-in did not last long. While the drive-in is clearly visible in the 1965 aerial photo, it was not there in 1963 and by 1970 the property had already being developed with commercial retail buildings… meaning the Lawnside drive-in likely only lasted around 5 years!
But the White Horse tower sign remained for 50 years, and with the installation of a new sign… let’s hope its another 50!

Links and Location
LOMAX Carpet & Tile Flooring – Lawnside Now Open!
200 North White Horse Pike
Lawnside, NJ 08045
42Freeway Grand Opening Article
