NY Mets Mini Museum Graces Lake Hopatcong Home

There are New York Met fans. There are even diehard Met fans. And then there’s Liz Mottolese, of Lake Hopatcong, who, along with her husband Johnny and daughters Ashley, Nicole and Taylor Mueller, redecorated a whole room in their home and turned it into a mini Mets museum. Mottolese opened the room with a traditional ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday.

Filled with bats, balls, ticket stubs, signed photographs and highlighted by Mottolese’s actual seats from Shea Stadium, the room pays tribute to the team that Mottolese and her extended family have been fans of since 1969.

The idea for the room actually came from Mottolese’s daughter Nicole Mueller.

“We had all this Met stuff just sitting in the basement, so I figured we should do something with it. We all love the team, so it just made sense.”

Once the idea took hold, it also took off. Mottolese said it took about five weeks to complete.

“This had been a dirty old work room,” she said of the tribute. “We had to rip down old shelves, take out the old lighting and put in recessed lighting, pick out the blue and orange paint and then figure out how to display everything.”

The room includes several highlights, including a bat given by Tom Seaver to Ashley Mueller when she was just four years old, during spring training and a ball signed by Jerry Koosman.

Several friends and family members came to the ribbon cutting ceremony, including Ronda Ralph, Mottolese’s closest friend, whom she met at—wait for it—Shea Stadium, when the women’s two families had seats near each other.