Building Beachwood, Part Three

On December 16^th, 1914, an article in the New York Tribune headlined, “Beachwood Just Laughs at Storms” recounted a recent winter storm which “caused such havoc and property loss [in the surrounding area, yet] left no traces… along Beachwood’s mile of water frontage.”

The paper attributed this to its position away from the Barnegat Bay, and went on to describe all the safety features and recreation amenities, stating that construction officially began the day before, placing this official first date of construction in Beachwood at December 15th, 1914.

Two weeks later, on December 30^th, the Tribune ran another article under the headline “Rapid Progress in Beachwood Work”.

It described that work “is progressing despite ice and snow, by leaps and bounds” and that a letter written by a group of men who distributed tires for the Packard automobile company along the eastern United States was received stating that they had purchased a site in Beachwood on which to build “an up-to-date garage for the accommodation of the residents,” of whom they would be part, having also purchased lots for their bungalows from the Tribune promotion.

The article ran on to describe more of Nickerson’s work, including that “about seventy men were now at work laying out streets, putting up street signs and block numbers, numbering lots, cutting through and improving roadways and building tennis courts. If necessary, to have things in readiness for next summer the force will be increased.”

A week later, January 8^th, 1915, the New Jersey Courier ran with an article titled, “Start Several Buildings at Spiles Point, Beachwood”. In it was heavily detailed the first buildings constructed by the Tribune under supervision of Nickerson.

“The Beachwood tract is the busiest along shore just now. Besides laying out streets and avenue, cutting off timber on these avenues, blasting stumps and cleaning out underbrush, the New Year was marked by the starting of at least four new buildings. Three of these are at the Spiles Point, the other, a union railroad depot, at the crossing of the Central and Pennsylvania railroads.”

The Dining Hall, later borough hall, constructed approximately on what today is the Mayo Park Playground.

“On the high bluff, just above the point of the Spiles, a dining room has been built, in the shape of a one-story bungalow, 30×60 feet, and a kitchen annex in the rear. This will have a view down the river.”

The Lodge's patio, circa 1920.

The Lodge's patio area, Winter 2010. The fountain has been turned into a planter for the borough.

“In front of it, to the north, has been started a hotel or rooming house, 73×100 feet in size, built in the old Spanish style, one story high, and, with a patio, or courtyard, in the centre. This will contain thirty-seven sleeping rooms, and will be run in connection with the dining room. From its point of vantage on the brow of the bluff the eye can sweep up the river to Toms River village, or down the stream to Island Heights. The location is superb.”

Beachwood Bathhouses, Beachwood Beach, circa 1915.

“On the lower ground, at the foot of the bluff, in the filled in spot where the pond was, and where Toms River boys for generations have waded to pick water lilies and kill water snakes, the bathhouses are started. There will be three rows of them, covering a space 32×46 feet.

“The building of the bathhouses here is particularly satisfactory to Toms River people, who had been fearing that the development of Spiles Point meant that their ancient bathing privilege would be taken from them, and the point become hedged in as private property. It is understood that the beach front at the Beachwood tract is to be kept open to the public and that all lot owners will have an equal share in its use. With bathhouses there many Toms River people will avail themselves of the convenience.”

“The depot will be 20×40 feet in size, and will be used by both railroads. It is located at the crossing of the two roads and also of the main north and south avenue of Beachwood.”

“Plans are prepared for a large clubhouse, which is also to be started in the spring on the bluff overlooking the river.

“The station is expected to be built very soon. None of these buildings is to be pretentious or costly. They are being built to supply present day needs, and as the resort grows probably be displaced with more permanent structures. But they go to show that Beachwood means business and that something is coming of the new development. The work is also giving jobs to many local people who would otherwise be sitting around stoves and wondering how they could get through the winter.”

Spring Street, circa 1915.

“Scores of streets are being laid out on the tract. So far about all that is done to this line is to clear up the street of all traces of underbrush and remove the stumps with dynamite and stake off the lots. Some grading has been done, however, and more is contemplated. The Beachwood proposition, backed by a big daily paper, is making quite a furore in New York, and it is said by New Yorkers who come down this way that the lots are going fast.”

The progress in Beachwood did not go unnoted in other local papers and municipalities. On January 29^th, the Ocean County Review printed beneath its Pine Beach section that, “It is pretty quiet here this winter, but we can hear the dynamite charges exploding at Beachwood without paying admission.”

Indeed, Nickerson and his crew weren’t the only ones busy that winter. February 1915 saw the release and distribution of a 38-page pamphlet very modestly titled, “The Greatest Subscription Premium Ever Offered and the Reason Why”.

Interspersed between pages of ad copy determined to make the average reader jump at investing were a number of photographs depicting the natural waterfront, sailboats both on the Toms River and docked at Huddy Park, cleared roads, the Central Railroad of New Jersey Toms River Station, and the Atlantic City Boulevard completely devoid of any development.

Promotion booklet for Mayo's Lakewood Club resort through the Chicago Evening Post, 1912.

Fox Lake, as depicted in Mayo's 1912 promotional booklet for his earlier resort at Lakewood Club, Muskegon County, Michigan.

As we can see, it wasn’t the first of such pamphlets, borrowing heavily on Mayo’s earlier land promotion of Lakewood Club, Michigan.

William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York American, among others.

Meanwhile, Watson and the postal inspectors were themselves hard at work questioning those who wrote letters of endorsement for the Tribune promotion which had appeared in subsequent materials.

One of these letters came from E.P. Robinson, M.D., later profiled in Butler’s 1924 Beachwood Directory as being born of English parents on St. James Island in Barbados, who later followed his dream of coming to America as a teenager, working first a pharmacist in Philadelphia before continuing his career and education in New York City. By the time of the Tribune promotion, he was married and had a son in his late teens.

In the letter he wrote, which was published by the Tribune as part of its promotion campaign, the accomplished doctor praised the newspaper in detail for the advantages of the Beachwood tract and stated that not only did he plan an extensive summer residence but that his wife and son purchased their own lots, as well.

Testifying about this letter and Robinson’s later statements regarding it, Watson admitted he could not find his original notes and instead recounted the conversation from memory:

“I visited Dr. Robinson myself, in company with one of my investigators, and interviewed him, and I swear that endorsement is not on the level. The doctor said – I have a report which I made within an hour after the interview, and I will stand on that report rather than on what I say now, but I will try to recall what he said. It was to the effect that he did not know where these lots were, and he had changed his mind, and he did not think he would ever build there, and he gave this endorsement to the Tribune, but he had not expected that people would come running in there and asking him about it, and that he had since requested the Tribune to take it out of the booklet, and that he might some time use his lots for a public garage down there; and he told me where they were, and I asked him if he realized that that was about a mile off the main road and that you could not drive an automobile in there unless it was equipped with an aeroplane on top of it to lift it over the roads. In other words, it was too ridiculous for consideration.”

Oddly, on a later day of testimony following statements by the postal inspectors themselves, Watson recanted and requested that this statement and all matter of the letters be removed from the record as he could not find his records on the matter and it had been over a year from the conversation so his memory may be incorrect.

Neither postal investigator had any testimony regarding these letters.

Stranger still is the fact that the lots Dr. Robinson ultimately built upon is just one block from the waterfront and on Beachwood Boulevard, the original resort’s main road. It is unclear at this point of research whether this was the original plot of land purchased through the initial Tribune promotion, or if he purchased it at a later date from a second party, or some other event we are unaware of.

Adding to this odd matter is the fact that the New York Tribune made a point to specifically advertise Dr. Robinson’s building plans in early March 1915 with an article titled, “To Build at Beachwood – Plans Being Prepared for New Cottage at Resort”:

“Architects’ plans for the erection of one of the first bungalows to be built at Beachwood, N.J., are being prepared for Dr. E.P. Robinson, of 116 West Thirty-ninth Street, New York. Dr. Robinson, who was one of the first to obtain lots at the new beach resort which the Tribune is establishing, will build a cottage for occupancy throughout the entire year.

“The new cottage will stand back from the beach some little distance and will be artistic in its surroundings. Construction work on the house is contemplated with the coming of warm weather. It is planned to have the cottage ready for occupancy this summer.

“In addition to Dr. Robinson, lots are held at Beachwood by his wife and son.”

We may never know the true events surrounding Dr. Robinson’s lots or his involvement with the Tribune promotional campaign, but what cannot be denied is that the doctor had a very well built, attractive bungalow constructed at the corner of Barnegat Avenue and Beachwood Boulevard, which stands to this day.

Dr. Robinson's home, Winter 2009.

Next:

Read about investigator’s secret trip to the incomplete resort, alleged scandal within the Tribune offices and the road to the Memorial Day opening, in the next edition of the Building Beachwood series.

Building Beachwood, Part Two

February 13, 1914 cover of the New Jersey Courier.

On February 13, 1914, the front page headline of the Toms River/Ocean County weekly, the New Jersey Courier, announced “Pine Bay Tract is Sold for $90,000/Said to Be a Record-Making Price”. Curiously, these new purchasers are never mentioned by name.

Part of the bluffs at Cold Spring, Winter 2010.

The article goes on to describe the land as it was before any work had been completed: “The tract has a mile and a quarter river frontage, including the

Spiles Point area, Fall 2009.

Squally Cove, today Windy Cove, Spring 2009.

bluff at Cold Spring, the point of the Spiles [both later part of Beachwood Beach], and the bluff on the west shore of Squally Cove [renamed Windy Cove], the river frontage, running from Cedar Point [at today’s South Toms River] to the head of Squally Cove, where it meets the Buhler property, now a part of the Pine Beach tract [Pine Beach not having been incorporated until 1925; the land then was mainly known to visitors for the railroad that extended across the Toms River to Island Heights]. It extends back across both railroads and west to the Dover road [later, South Toms River], while on the south it abuts the Barnegat Park tract [in Berkeley Township, later the site of yet another notorious land promotion named Pinewald, through which was built the Royal Pines Hotel that stands today as Crystal Lake Healthcare. It’s interesting to consider that Pinewald could have incorporated itself as a borough separate from Berkeley Township as Beachwood, Pine Beach and Ocean Gate had if it succeeded in its time].

The Nickerson family home, built directly across from the entrance to Beachwood Beach, Winter 2009.

The land then changed hands from Nickerson to Mayo to Stanley D. Brown, trustee of the New York Tribune. Mystery still surrounds these transactions as no money ever changed hands between the sheriff’s sale to Nickerson, Nickerson to Mayo, and Mayo to the Tribune, yet Nickerson had already

The "hinterland" that Mayo sold at original Tribune promotion prices to the newly incorporated Beachwood Borough, in December 1917, would later become the site of today's Jakes Branch County Park. Shown here is the groundbreaking on September 26, 2006. Photo by Jason Hoger.

begun surveying the land well before a deal was set, setting aside a few choice plots, including the site where he would eventually build his family home across from the entrance to Cold Spring and Spiles Point, later Beachwood Beach; Mayo wound up owning virtually all of the waterfront area property and 5,000 lots in the tract’s southernmost “hinterland”, all of which would eventually be sold in perpetuity in December 1917 to the newly incorporated Borough of Beachwood for the original per-lot price of $19.60 for public and municipal use.

But that wouldn’t be for a while. Mayo, Nickerson and the Tribune would first face the threat of charges brought by the U.S. District Attorney’s office and U.S. Postal Service at the behest and urging of the Hearst company and its reporter, even while Nickerson was busy directing workmen to cut and blast his grid of streets out of the knotty, dense pine forest.

William Randolph Hearst, whose newspaper, the New York American, attacked the New York Tribune Beachwood land promotion as a "scheme" and sent a reporter out to drum up interest within the federal government to potentially bring Mayo and Nickerson up on charges of fraud.

Over the next eight months, while Nickerson busied himself with the land survey and subsequent layout of the new streets and avenues, Mayo, in his office at the Tribune Building in New York, worked out the details of the promotion. An item in the October 23rd. 1914 New Jersey Courier stated:

“The Berkeley Township committee at its meeting last week abandoned a number of roads where they cross over the Beachwood (formerly known as Pine Bay) tract… the roads abandoned are: the old Double Trouble road; part of the old Cedar Creek highway; Buhler’s road; a branch of Buhler’s road; and the old road running into the old Double Trouble road, beginning where the county road crosses the [Pennsylvania Railroad].

“As part of the agreement for vacating these roads, Mr. Nickerson, who represents the new owners of the property, has announced that the tract will be laid out in streets, so that these roads will be unnecessary.”

November 1914 promotional "extra" edition insert for the New York Tribune subscription/Beachwood land promotion.

One week later, October 30th, the Tribune announced to the Toms River area its plans in the pages of the Courier, likely when the land officially changed hands from Nickerson and Mayo to their ownership. Its headline proclaimed, “New York Tribune to Develop the Beachwood Tract at Spiles Point”. This announcement predated any such notice posted in their own newspaper, as well as any official promotional materials.

“One of the largest real estate deals that has been made in Toms River in many years was concluded this week, when the two thousand acre tract adjoining the town and known as Pine Bay tract was acquired by representatives of the New York Tribune. This will mean much to the future prosperity of Toms River, for the Tribune intends to improve the property and make of it a large summer resort. A club house will be erected on the shore of the river, also a yacht club building, bathing pavilion, bathing wharves, etc. The tract will be known as Beachwood, and it is expected that it will be the future summer home of many well known New York people, who will have their cottages there. The project is under the direct supervision of B.C. Mayo of the New York Tribune and the local work is in charge of A.D. Nickerson.”

An early survey map of the Beachwood tract of land, by A.D. Nickerson.

Here we can pick up Butler’s 1924 Beachwood Directory, who compiled the largest section, “A Chronological History of Beachwood”, stated to be “Pictures, in Brief Paragraphs, of the Rise and Progress of the Beautiful Resort in the Pines on Barnegat Bay, and the Social, Economic and Political Life of its Summer Population of 1,500 or More People”.

According to Butler, “the first official map of the Beachwood tract, comprising 1,763 acres, 18 lots to the acre, was filed November 11th [1914].”

November is also the month that the Tribune issued a special advertisement, dressed up to appear as an extra edition of its regular publication, “containing many illustrations and the… announcement, in large letters, on its first page: “Subscribe for the New York Tribune and secure a lot at Beautiful Beachwood. Greatest subscription premium ever offered by a newspaper – nothing equal to it was ever attempted in the United States. Act at once – secure your lot in this Summer Paradise now.” On another page came [the] assurance [that] “The Tribune does not do things halfway. A fortune has been put behind this offer. Already plans are being made to start a building company.” The price of lots was placed at $19.60 apiece, each lot carrying with it a six months’ subscription to the paper.”

New York Tribune's "Road Map" from New York City to Beachwood, as printed in the December 1, 1914 edition of the paper and reproduced in Butler's 1924 directory, but absent from the 2005 reprint. Note the "C.R.R." and "P.R.R." rail lines criscrossing the state, standing for the Central Railroad of New Jersey and Pennsylvania Railroad, which crossed at what is today roughly Route 9 (Garden State Parkway access road) and Beachwood Boulevard

On December 1st, the Mayo-Tribune promotions rolled out further, this time in a Tribune article titled “Roads to Beachwood” and depicting a large illustration of the auto routes between Manhattan and Beachwood, as well as the Central and Pennsylvania railroad lines.

The Dining Hall, later borough hall, constructed approximately on what today is the Mayo Park Playground.

Ten days later, the New Jersey Courier and New York Tribune ran articles on the burgeoning resort. The Courier’s, headlined “Marine Names for Beachwood Avenues”, recounted a Tribune article that “Nautical terms prevail in the selecting of street nomenclature adopted for Beachwood… the street signs will also bear out the meaning of the town’s name by a series denoting a variety of trees… Plans for the construction of the buildings which are to be erected on the waterfront, such as the yacht club, dining hall, club building, etc., are already under way. It is expected that the railroad station… will be completed in January.”

The rail depot, shown here c.1920, built by the New York Tribune under direction of A.D. Nickerson. Standing in roughly this spot today would place you at the intersection of Beachwood Boulevard and Route 9 (Garden State Parkway access road), facing southeast down Route 9. The station sits on what is now the small, landscaped park with a gazebo known as Robert Guilmore Park.

The Tribune’s article, titled “Fine Railroad Station for Beachwood”, verified the Courier account. “Residents of Beachwood… are to have a railroad station of their own. Plans for the building have been made and its site chosen. It will be ready for occupancy in January. The building will have the excellent accommodations of a typical suburban union railroad station… the structure itself is to be of attractive design and calculated to meet all the requirements of Beachwood residents.”

It is around this time that Victor A. Watson, a New York City native living on the Lower East Side who had made his living for the previous 17 years as a newspaper reporter with Hearst’s New York American, claimed to receive “complaints from a number of persons who wrote letters… to the effect that the New York Tribune… was backing a notorious real-estate swindle. In the course of office business the matter was turned over to me to investigate.”

The New York Tribune building, undated, shown as the center of the three late-19th century skyscrapers.

Looking into the matter, Watson noted that the Tribune was claiming to be making absolutely no profit off the land deal, opting instead to run the promotion purely as an act of friendship in an effort to boost its circulation. Skeptical, Watson looked at the numbers and found this to not be the case. After consulting with his peers, he took the information to the office of United States District Attorney H. Snowden Marshall. The case was soon assigned to two United States Postal Inspectors, [Hugh] McQuillan and [Oliver] Schaeffer.

Together with the inspectors, Watson produced what he claimed to be direct evidence of mail fraud. This consisted of mailed materials produced by the newspaper that stated they were making no money off the land deal but wished instead for good friendship by increasing their readership. Watson insisted that the Tribune was committing mail fraud because a survey of the money paid for the land tract versus what they were charging showed a high degree of profitability set to flow into Tribune coffers should the promotion be successful.

In laying out these calculations, Watson said the land was drawn out to encompass thirty to thirty-five thousand 20×100 lots to be sold at $19.60 each. Adhering to the original plat map of 1,763 acres and 18 lots to an acre, that number was exactly 31,734 lots. $19.60 multiplied by 31,734 becomes $621,986.40. He estimated that between the purchase of the property at $90,000 and adding another approximately $35,000 to developing it for the lot owners, they would have invested only $125,000 total, meaning they stood to reap an estimated profit of $496,986.40. At the time, Inspector McQuillan estimated it lower, at $300,000.

About four of these plus four six month subscriptions to the New York Tribune would get you a 80'x100' buildable lot in Beachwood in 1914.

Suspicions were raised further when Watson stated salesmen working the promotion for the Tribune would take “them down to the beach, and [then turn around] and sell [them] something back in the woods that is almost like Africa.” Watson later reflected that Beachwood was so remote that it would be still be an undeveloped and undesirable patch of land one hundred years in the future. He was so sure of this that he told the judiciary committee he would make a bet on it if he could.

The "African woods" of Beachwood, shown here in 2009 at what is now Jakes Branch County Park.

As a result, Watson and the postal inspectors began a series of covert visits to the Beachwood tract while it was under development in early 1915. Secretly, Watson also conscripted a number of men to work within the Tribune offices as spies, quietly writing up daily reports for the New York American reporter. Meanwhile, Bertram Mayo and Addison Nickerson moved forward with their work, unaware how dangerously close they were to being arrested and brought up on charges of mail fraud.

Next:

Read about the first resort buildings, reaction from a nearby community, and the further investigation of Watson and the postal inspectors, focusing in particular on one Dr. E.P. Robinson, whose home stands today at the southwest corner of Beachwood Boulevard and Barnegat Boulevard, in the next edition of the Building Beachwood series.

Building Beachwood, Part One

Undated, from Carolyn Mae Campbell's personal family photograph collection. It is unknown at this time whether any of the men present here is Addison Doane Nickerson, though an educated guess would place him as the man in the suit with the pipe if he were. If this is true, this photograph represents the only known existing image of A.D. Nickerson, land purchaser, civil engineer and bungalow builder of Beachwood.

Today we begin the first in a running series on how Beachwood was built. Specifically, we’ll be looking at the period beginning at the start of the New York Tribune’s land promotion attempt in 1912 up through the original club buildings’ completion in time for opening day, 1915.

This period was chosen to accommodate the incredibly large amount of information found between the archives at the New York Public Library, microfilm records in the Ocean County Library, and court papers related to the promotion that produced a mountain of information through testimony.

Referenced within this series will be articles from the New York Tribune, the New Jersey Courier, and the Ocean County Review as well as William Mill Butler’s Beachwood Directory and Who’s Who 1924, reprinted in 2005 by Carolyn Campbell and the Ocean County Historical Society, 1916 court testimony made during hearings before the judiciary committee to investigate U.S. District Attorney H. Snowden Marshall and other varied sources.

The information used to build this series represents our the most current known information; as we continue to research more may become known that could alter or enhance our knowledge and a future edition of this account will be present in the Beachwood Centennial book, due later this decade.

It is our goal that after the series is complete you have a very clear picture of how the tract of land that became Beachwood was acquired, designed, and built upon by the New York Tribune in anticipation of the thousands of residents that would come to plant their bungalows along its streets.

Enjoy!

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Any discussion of Beachwood would be incomplete without first looking at the two men who made it possible: Bertram Chapman Mayo and Addison Doane Nickerson.

Old North Church.

Bertram Chapman Mayo was born in the last month of the Civil War, March 23^rd, 1865, near Boston’s Old North Church, itself famous for displaying the lanterns that alerted Paul Revere of the path the British took to the fateful first battle of the American Revolution, Lexington and Concord, less than a hundred years earlier. The oldest of Noah Mayo, a fish trader on the Boston wharves, and his wife Evaline, Bertram’s home life included the upper middle class culture comfort of employing a regular, live-in servant to help his mother keep house and tend Bertram and two sisters, Daisy and Blanche, who came later. It was here, in his youth, that a series of cherished experiences in the form of regular family holidays to seaside resorts via the trolley system later became the basis for his future pursuit of success.

Seaside trolley, date/location unknown.

Addison Doane Nickerson was born two years after his future business partner, on December 12, 1867, in Harwich, Massachusetts, located at the far end of Cape Cod. The son of Thomas Nickerson and his wife, Eglentine, Addison, like Mayo, had a home life centered around the shore. His father, having grown up as the latest in a long line of sailors, earned the title master mariner when Addison was less than a year old. It would be the profession he followed all through Addison’s upbringing and those of his three other children – Thomas, Ambrose and Eglantine – of which Addison was the oldest.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, contemporary photo.

It isn’t clearly stated where Mayo and Nickerson first met, but we can assume with almost certainty that it was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was here that Mayo, according to Butler’s 1924 biography of him, “gave up a contemplated course” in order to pursue a career in the wholesale clothing business, while Nickerson went on to graduate in 1888 with a thesis titled, “A Study of the Question of a Tunnel in East Boston.”

A competitive streak that appeared to run strong in Mayo, causing him to leave M.I.T., apparently also made him restless.

Aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco quake.

Quickly bored of the clothing world, he next gravitated west to become general manager for a San Francisco-area newspaper that first published and instituted an immediate emergency aid center following the devastating earthquake of 1906. At that paper, the Oakland Enquirer, he established a newspaper premium of a candy giveaway that would quickly snowball into his ultimate career path of land giveaways and community building starting in the redwoods of Northern California called Cazadero Woods, and further progressing to a canyon section of Los Angeles called Beverly Glen that would later be absorbed by that city’s rapid growth later in the century and become part of Beverly Hills.

Casadero Woods, California.

Franklin Canyon at Beverly Glen, California.

During these promotions he brought his young son, Geoffrey, on board to help run the whole operation. Moving northeast toward Chicago, he honed and improved his idea for a resort in Michigan called Lakewood Club, which would for the first time incorporate a small reminder of home: a lake for sailing, fishing and swimming.

Lakewood Club, Michigan. Its clubhouse and train station closely mirrored Beachwood's.

Nickerson, meanwhile, had settled into the life of a civil engineer, and by 1910 was living in the Hudson River town of Ulster, New York, with his wife, Mary Lillian, and their two sons, Holland and Robert. Two or three years later, a meeting in California between Nickerson and Mayo would change all that.

Famous covered bridge at Ulster, New York.

Almost before he was finished in Michigan, Mayo was already moving on, this time searching for a spot along the Atlantic coast that better reminded him of his family holidays at his childhood seaside resorts.

Undeveloped Beachwood shore area, likely Windy Cove.

Lucky for us, he found it on the southern bank of the Toms River at the edge of a pristine pine forest crisscrossed by the Pennsylvania and Jersey Central railroads and cut through by a state highway between New York and Atlantic City. Contacting Nickerson and reminding him of their California meeting, it was decided that Nickerson would head up the planning and construction of the new resort, to be called Beachwood (and sometimes referred to as Beachwood Club or Beachwood-in-the-Pines), while Mayo and his son would run things out of his new position and office within the New York Tribune building in New York.

The New York Tribune building, undated. Torn down in the 1950s to allow widening of Brooklyn Bridge entrance.

1883 edition of the Tribune.

Besides facing similar challenges in this new project as the previous three, an added pressure came in the form of an investigation spearheaded by a reporter of a competing New York daily newspaper, William Randolph Hearst’s New York American. Even while Mayo and Nickerson were busy setting up what would become the most successful paper-backed community in Mayo’s career, the competition was equally busy building a federal case against the two that could halt construction of the new resort and imprison its two managers, destroying their lives and careers.

William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York American, among others.

But first, let’s take a look back at the history of the land that would later become Beachwood.

In Pine Beach Yesterdays, a publication issued by the borough of Pine Beach to celebrate its 50^th anniversary of incorporation as a borough in 1975, author Stanley Heatley recounts activity along the Beachwood tract in the mid-nineteenth century:

“A mule-powered railway was built to haul charcoal from the hinterlands to a loading pier on the south shore of the Toms River where coasting vessels took on cargo for Philadelphia and New York. The industry died at the end of the century and the rotted piles or spiles, all that remained of the once busy pier, gave rise to the name of “The Spiles”, present-day Beachwood.

Charcoaling, as shown in Pine Beach Yesterdays, pub. 1975 by Stanley Heatley and the Borough of Pine Beach.

“In colonial times, charcoal was the fuel used to fire many bog-iron blast furnaces. Its use continued for many years until the production of iron in our area succumbed to the competition of Pennsylvania. That charcoaling was a long ago in Pine Beach was brought to light in 1954 when ground was cleared for the Pine Beach School playground. Some mothers may still remember their children coming home from school, before the playground was completed, with clothing and shoes black from old charcoal pits.”

Sometime after that, we can find evidence of the Beachwood waterfront area being popular among local residents primarily from Toms River, who used the undeveloped shore for cool recreation on hot summer days. This led to a tragic account on one such afternoon, June 20^th, 1911, when eleven-year old Toms River resident Ella Cranmer drowned while bathing with friends at Spiles Point.

June 22, 1911 cover of the New Jersey Courier, an Ocean County weekly established in 1850 as the Ocean Signal, Ocean County's first newspaper (Ocean County was formed in 1850 from the southern portion of what was then Monmouth County).

Following the cessation of shipping activity (due in large part to the closing of the Cranberry Inlet, where Ortley Beach stands today) and the turn of the century, according to Marshall hearing testimony, the land that would become Beachwood was involved in a real estate scandal where it had been sold by a company called the Pittsburgh Company to a number of Pennsylvania residents in pieces, and was to be called Hobart City, named after New Jersey native Garret Hobart, who died in late 1899 while in office as Vice President of the United States under President William McKinley.

Garret Hobart, undated.

It has also been stated from different sources that part of the land was set aside for a cemetery, but that the land was then too remote for such a use.

At some later date, the Pennsylvanian owners contracted a man named Reece Carpenter, and the Pine Bay Hotel, Land and Improvement Company was formed to replace the Pittsburgh Company, with Carpenter as company owner and the Pennsylvania residents as shareholders.

At this point everything gets even more incredibly convoluted, with Carpenter turning over to his wife a claim of $79,896 against the Pine Bay Company and a relative of his wife’s bringing suit against the Pine Bay Company for $79,000, then changed hands to an Ernest F. Griffith for $4,750 until a previous owner, Henry L. Hall, of Pittsburgh, holding an old mortgage for $8,000 turned up and everything was forced into a foreclosure and sheriff’s sale for the amount of $4,750 plus the $80,000 claims against it.

In mid-1912, at the center of these land disputes, Reece Carpenter’s son, O.T. Carpenter, said that his father got a letter from B.C. Mayo asking if he would sell the land directly to Mayo and at what cost. The elder Carpenter never responded nor took any action to sell the land to Mayo, and eventually Mayo sent a man named M. Edgar Smith to approach him about it. Through negotiations between Carpenter and the Mayo/Smith team, an amount of $75,000 was agreed upon for the sale, but not before the contract was altered with a number of exceptions and changed several times. Three days after the contract was finalized, Reece Carpenter died, his wife left the house the day after the funeral with various letters and papers related to the land, and Mayo and the Tribune couldn’t get a bank to issue a policy as the original ownership by the Pennsylvanian shareholders hadn’t been part of the agreement, and everything was up in the air until Henry Hall surfaced with the old mortgage and a sheriff’s sale was held.

February 13, 1914 cover of the New Jersey Courier.

Finally, in February 1914, Addison Nickerson gained ownership to the property for the amount of $90,000.

The race to carve Beachwood out of the primitive scrub pine forest in time for a 1915 gala Decoration Day weekend opening was on.

Next:

Read about the early features of the Beachwood tract, A.D. Nickerson’s efforts to cut a resort community from the rough terrain, and the beginning of the Hearst-influenced investigations into Mayo, Nickerson and the Tribune by the federal government in the next edition of the Building Beachwood series.

Beachwood Yacht Club To Go Solar

Beachwood Yacht Clubhouse on Compass Avenue, 2009.

Today’s entry is a contemporary event we feel captures a part of the times we live in and should be recorded into our borough history.

The Beachwood Yacht Club has been harnessing the power of the wind for almost century on the southern shores of the Toms River. Close to a hundred years of sailors have come through their doors since it was first opened in 1915, each one knowing the sheer delight of catching the wind in their sails. Starting the 2010 season and continuing through their second century, BYC will also begin harnessing the power of the sun.

The BYC will be the first yacht club on the river to go solar. “It makes perfect sense for us, as we have been educating young people on the benefits of sailing,” said Brigitte Hoey, Commodore and past student of BYC. “Sailing builds confidence through competition, reinforces a sense of independence, and also teaches environmental responsibility all while having a lot of fun. Now we can reinforce this very important environmental message with the next generation by having kids and their families spend an  entire day of fun just using the wind and the sun.”

The Beachwood Yacht Club anticipates the construction to be in full swing just after Thanksgiving, with its completion prior to Christmas.  Updates, photos and information on its progress and solar power conversion will be found here on the Beachwood Historical Alliance’s newssite as a way to record for future generations our current era and the growing worldwide clean energy movement as it grows to reach the Borough of Beachwood.

Beachwood Downtown Revitalization and Community Involvement

For some time now, the Beachwood Historical Alliance has actively pursued a sweeping downtown revitalization in conjunction with the upcoming Ocean County Rail Trail project and borough centennial. To this end, we have applied – with cooperation and support from borough officials, residents and many business and property owners – to become an affiliate of the Main Street New Jersey program.

Taken directly from their website, the MSNJ program “provides selected communities with technical assistance and training of proven value in revitalizing historic downtowns. The program helps municipalities improve the economy, appearance and image of their central business districts through the organization of local citizens and resources.”

This program holds four tiers of community membership, of which affiliate is third. If chosen, becoming an affiliate would provide us with training, communication support, and inter/intra state-level advocacy to utilize directly and immediately within downtown Beachwood while preparing us to apply for the highest tier designation at their next application period in 2011. This advanced tier would more completely aid in the downtown project through stronger and more inclusive training and support within the promotion, economic restructuring and design aspects of downtown Beachwood.

To better inform why an historical organization or anyone at all should care about our downtown, we encourage you to take a moment and read information from Solutions for America, a “civic problem solving” site. All of the elements of downtown revitalization described therein are dead on to our downtown and its needs and possibilities. Of particular note is their statement that “research shows that a healthy and vibrant downtown boosts the economic health and quality of life in a community. Specifically, it creates jobs, incubates small businesses, reduces sprawl, protects property values, and increases the community’s options for goods and services. A healthy downtown is a symbol of community pride and history.”

The best way to preserve our borough heritage is by breathing in it renewed and perpetual life through projects such as a comprehensive downtown revitalization program.  Placing pleasing photographs from the past on a website and encouraging the independent preservation of borough buildings, while enjoyable, is largely passive and only one facet of what we think is possible both through the Beachwood Historical Alliance and the borough at large.

Beachwood itself began as a sort of good-faith gamble that succeeded only due to the initial community pride it fostered. This bond, inherited by subsequent generations, propels us forward through these tough economic times, political battles, social issues and environmental dilemmas yet will dwindle if left unattended. Right now, our downtown properties are suffering from this destructive form of progress and social dwindle, and it can be seen as plain as (for some) their deteriorated exteriors as it can the regular winking in and out of businesses that bloom and fade within months of opening.

Our downtown and general borough businesses need our support, today. Please solicit them often and whenever possible. Right now we are being offered an almost total clean slate to recreate a vibrant downtown through the availability of the Carpetland corner site for purchase as well as the former Disbrow’s Market/Clancy’s Video building and former Clancy’s Video/Clutter storefront for rental (among numerous others up and down the Atlantic City Boulevard/Route 9 corridor). Where many see blight, we see opportunity.

Some ideas:

Photo by Bob Bielk of the Asbury Park Press.

Photo by Bob Bielk of the Asbury Park Press.

Photo by Bob Bielk of the Asbury Park Press.

A well thought out destination business in the Carpetland (former Circle Shop and currently for sale), something like a Surf Taco, would do wonders for the downtown social activity and foot traffic. Not only is it virtually the downtown cornerstone, it also has its own parking lot, can support upstairs professional offices (and is primed for a renovation to meet all needs and become doubly self-sustaining for  a new owner), is within a five minute drive of Toms River South to accommodate those carloads of students on lunch, is within short walking distance of our public waterfront (meaning any rail trail patrons walking down to use the beach, docks, parks or community center would have to walk right by) and can fantastically utilize the original structural design elements.

CLICK HERE to read an August 30th, 2009 Asbury Park Press article on Surf Taco

CLICK HERE to view the property listing for Carpetland

CLICK HERE to view Surf Taco’s website

The former Clancy’s Pharmacy/Clutter Shop store -

What about a quality sit down Asian restaurant?

A combination active recreation store for skateboarding, biking, surf/body boarding, kayaking, fishing plus their associated clothing lines, etc?

Art Gallery/Antique/Used Book store that holds regular events and utilizes eBay and the general internet for better sustainability?

The former Disbrow’s Market/Clancy’s Video -

What about a music instruction business utilizing the wide windows to attract passerby by allowing them to see the more accomplished (or not yet accomplished) musicians hone their skills?

Or how about reinstalling a market/cafe that also delivers and allows one-click online ordering?

As you can see, tons of potential, open ideas, and a bright future if stewarded by the right individual(s)/group(s) and especially aided by being 1) a solid destination business and 2) a multifaceted operation that uses alternating (and alternate) means for revenue: walk-ins, traditional advertising, word of mouth, social networking, internet site and auction, etc.

~

I encourage anyone with an interest in forming or restoring the bonds of a community to consider joining  and volunteering within our organization or any other borough organization, from the recreation commission to our volunteer fire and first aid companies; the Friends of the Beachwood Library to the soccer club and little league. Or, better still, if you can think of a need you can help fill, consider starting your own proactive organization, whether it be a chamber of commerce, civic society, or merely a group of neighbors that simply walk around picking up or clearing out litter from time to time.

Beachwood Borough will survive to see many other days. The question of how it makes it through the rough spots and challenges lies entirely with you – the resident, the student, the business owner, the passerby.

Erik Weber
Beachwood Historical Alliance

The Beachwood Historical Alliance holds monthly meetings on the last Thursday of each month at 7:00pm in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church on Cable Avenue in the borough. All are welcome to attend. The next meeting is on September 24th.

Disbrow’s Market, 1938 – Enhanced View

Due to a high number of inquiries and requests, we’ve taken the previously posted image of Disbrow’s Market interior from 1938, enhanced its visual quality and blown up details of it for better view.

In addition, you’ll find a story on the market as told by longtime resident Geoff Brown.

Disbrow's Market, 1938. George Disbrow (l) and Fred Combi.

George Disbrow (l) and Fred Combi stand behind the counter at Disbrow's Market, sometime after 1:30pm in August 1938.

The market scale sits behind loaves of white and rye bread while packs of Disbrow's labeled coffee sit on the meat counter nearby.

The deli case contains your everyday deli meats and cheeses, along with prepared orders as lamb stew.

A Heinz display offers products "For the Majesty - Your Baby".

An ad for Miracle Whip leans against the wall above the store.

An assortment of canned goods sits on the deli counter beneath the wall clock.

The billing at the Toms River Community Theatre includes "Professor Beware", "Sky Giant" and "Gangs of New York", all released in the late spring and summer of 1938. The Community Theater building can be found across Toms River Town Hall on Washington Street; today it houses an assortment of businesses. (Special thanks to Ocean County Library's Elizabeth Cronin for pointing out the month - August - in tiny detail on this billing)

Disbrow's Market, as seen nine years later in February 1947. Today it sits vacant waiting for a new life.

From Geoff Brown:

“I was born in 1944, so it was well before my time. However, I do remember the meat case at the back of the store and the other walls with shelves almost to the high ceiling. It was a marvel to see the Gibsons pluck cans and boxes with a long pole “grabber” and catch whatever it was as they filled customer’s orders. My mother wrote out her “weekly order” for me to bring up to Disbrow’s every Thursday. The youngest Gibson brother would deliver it some time before noon in a black Chevy panel sedan (station wagon without side rear windows). “Disbrow’s Market Beachwood N.J.” was painted on each side. It was before noon because they knew we went to the beach every day at 1 o’clock.

“I was also sent to Disbrow’s for items such as bread between orders. Milk, eggs, juice, etc. was delivered by Bert Davis from Home Town Dairy. We didn’t have a washing maching at the Beachwood house, so once a week the laundry was picked up by Beachwood Laundry & Cleaners (corner Brigantine & Atlantic City Blvd.) and brought back clean and folded. They left it on the back porch with the bill.

“One more thing. Before there was mail delivery, we’d wait for the train whistle in the morning (time ?) and know it was time to walk to the Post Office / Train Depot to pick up our mail.”

Berkeley Twp. Council Moves Forward on Trail to Beachwood

Central Railroad of New Jersey right of way, seen here from Berkeley/Beachwood border facing south.

As reported this week by Micromedia Publications’ Berkeley Times, the Berkeley Township Council unanimously approved measures toward transferring land to the county that would be used for the further construction of the Ocean County Rail Trail to the southeast Beachwood border.

See the 2007 Rail Trail Concept Plans Here

As reported in previous articles here, this countywide connection will soon translate to thousands of annual patrons that can potentially aid in revitalizing downtown Beachwood, in addition to increased pedestrian patronage of the Beachwood waterfront including Beachwood Beach, Mayo Park and the boat slips, community center and Beachwood Yacht Club. The Beachwood Historical Alliance is currently working on applications and plans that would see state programs and other improvement directives to aid the downtown property owners, business owners, residents and general area. The Alliance is also developing ideas for joining with borough and county officials in rebuilding the borough train station as a rail trail visitor center and heritage site. Volunteers and aid are needed for these and all other Beachwood Historical Alliance projects. Those interested in helping and/or formally joining the BHA can e-mail us at beachwoodhistoricalalliance@gmail.com .

Beachwood Station, seen here circa 1920. The tracks in the distance head south towards Berkeley Township.

Rail Trail May Extend Through Berkeley

Daniel Nee
Staff Writer
Berkeley Times

Berkeley may soon be added to the list of Ocean County communities that contains a park based on the path of local history. County officials were in town during last week’s Berkeley Township Council meeting to pitch an idea to the governing body that would continue the Barne­gat Branch Trail County Park through Berkeley. The park, which already runs from West Bay Avenue in Barnegat north to Wells Mills Road in Waretown, is slated to be extended north to Beachwood.

Eventually, said Andy Strauss, an engineering consultant hired by the county to work on the trail, the park may be further extended to run from Long Beach Island to Brick.

Andrew Strauss, shown here near the New Jersey Pulverizing Company which sits beside the former railroad right of way, addresses his class of University of Pennsylvania students in February.

The county purchased the rem­nants of what was once known as the Toms River and Waretown Railroad in two parts in 2003 and 2006, and has been planning a walking path through the natural, pine tree sur­roundings of the railway ever since. According to Strauss, who addressed the coun­cil, current areas of the park include a resurfaced walking area, interpretive signs to explain the plant and wildlife of the area and parking lots at “trail heads,” which are built in certain locations to allow access to the trail. In order to begin work on the phase of the park which runs through Berke­ley, the council would have to authorize the transfer to some land to the county so work could begin on the trail heads and adjacent infrastructure to support a park. County officials would improve crosswalks on local streets that pedes­trians would have to cross to continue on the trail, and construct security bol­lards and other measures that would prohibit motor vehicles from accessing the walking path. Emergency vehicles, however, would be able to access the trail by way of the trail heads.

“We construct what we like to call ‘safe havens,’” said Strauss. “They are islands in the middle of the road that allow a trail user to cross one directional lane and wait in the middle for the traffic in the opposing direction to clear.”

One of the safe havens would be in­stalled at Serpentine Drive, Berkeley, one of the busiest roads in town that the path would cross.

Future rail trail, Berkeley Township, with Beachwood water tower in the distance.

Some members of the council said they were mainly worried over potentially new responsibilities being assigned to the Berkeley Police Department as a result of the trail, specifically the mis­sion to curb the use of ATVs in the area. ATV use, said Mayor Jason Varano, has been a problem in the township’s wooded areas, and combined with a walking trail, could pose a possible safety risk. Town­ship police would have to devote man hours and resources to patrolling the trail area, though Strauss said Ocean County Sheriff’s officers and other agencies may also pitch in. “Once the trail is built, and the signage goes up, neighbors begin to recognize it’s an asset, and the bikers and ATVers begin the move somewhere else,” said Strauss.

Generally, he said, an enforcement blitz once the trail opens will get the word out that ATVs are no longer allowed in the area. Varano said he is in support of the project. “I think this is going to be a beautiful improvement to the township,” Varano said. “I think it will benefit the hom­eowners and residents and get people out there to exercise and enjoy the out­doors.”

According to Township Attorney Pat­rick Sheehan, the final property transfers from the township to the county would have to be undertaken by ordinance. The council voted unanimously after the presentation to authorize Sheehan to begin the paperwork to get the transfer ordinances underway.

View looking southwest from the Berkeley/Beachwood border rail trail area to land once used for a gravel mining operation. It is slowly returning to its natural state.

See more photos of the Beachwood/Berkeley border rail trail area here.

Learn more about the Ocean County Rail Trail here.

More photos from Mr. Strauss’ February class trip to the Berkeley Rail Trail area here.

Case Study: Monmouth County Historic Sites Receive Preservation Funds

Today we’re going to look into a current account of how a number of cultural/historic sites in Monmouth County are due to receive state grants. It is possible that someday the Beachwood Circle Shop building may be brought onto local and state historic registries – a result of its diverse past as a cultural hub of central Ocean County in the mid-twentieth century – and receive various state and organizational grants that will combine with local volunteers and active historic and preservation groups for its rehabilitation and reemergence as a cultural center for Beachwood and the area once again.

This may combine with other locally listed historic structures as part of a sweeping downtown revival that, in conjunction with the county rail trail connection, will produce a flow of foot traffic and shop, park and waterfront patrons that could give Beachwood’s businesses and property owners a much-needed financial shot in the arm.

Read on and imagine a future Beachwood that could include an historic downtown with wider sidewalks, benches, streetlights, native trees and a bike path leading straight off the county rail trail from a rebuilt borough train depot/rail trail visitor center to the waterfront docks, beach and Mayo Park. It’s a future we can all wake up to, a future that - combined with our upcoming centennial and potential celebration plans – will lend added recognition and interest in the borough, increase beach badge sales and patronage, open up the desirability of our town center (and overall properties within the borough), and generally improve the quality of life for the entire town.

Beachwood Train Depot, July 21, 1950, by Edward Weber.

Local Sites Slated for Preservation Funds

Woman’s Club, Parker Homestead, Church of Presidents on state grant list

Erin O. Stattel
Staff Writer
The News Transcript
Greater Media Newspapers

Two local sites and a third in Long Branch appear on the state historic trust’s preservation grant list and local legislators have pledged their support of the bill.

The Parker-Sickles Homestead in Little Silver and the Anthony B. Reckless Estate, now the Woman’s Club of Red Bank, both appear on the New Jersey Historic Trust’s 2008 list of preservation grants.

Women's Club of Red Bank

Sen. Jennifer Beck (R-12th District), who sits on the Senate Wagering, Tourism and Historic Preservation Committee, said the legislation passed out of committee May 7 and was expected to come before the full Senate for a vote May 21.

“Historic preservation is of true importance to the cultural future of our state,” said Beck. “We have such a rich history in this area, and I am always proud when I can work to help maintain it. I fully expect the Senate to support this funding as the committee worked to spread the funding in an equitable way throughout the state.”

The Woman’s Club of Red Bank, also known as the Anthony B. Reckless Estate, was built in 1874, according to Mary Gilligan, one of the chairs for the club’s preservation committee.

“Anthony B. Reckless was one of the businessmen in Red Bank who brought gas stations in and different businesses to town,” Gilligan said of the former president of the N.J. State Senate. “He built the club after the Civil War, and one of the issues was that they had to wait until the war was over in order to get the materials to build the house.”

The house, which now sits at 164 Broad St. in Red Bank, originally sat toward what is now Reckless Place, Gilligan said.

“With the money from the trust grants, we will be able to restore the driveway side of the building,” she said. “There is a lot of repair work that needs to be done. The building also needs to be painted; all of the colors are original but we are on a 20-year plan to paint the building.”

Beachwood Circle Shop/Carpet Land building, Memorial Day 2009.

The Woman’s Club of Red Bank has about 60 active members. Gilligan said the club has been an active organization since 1917 and purchased the building in 1921. The club actually began as the Round Table Coterie, a literary society, in 1896, she added

“The club served dinners to local servicemen during both World War I and II,” Gilligan said. “And on the second-floor bathroom there is even a little note that says the club served 450 dinners to area servicemen one Christmas Eve during World War II. Bandages were rolled here and a women and children’s clinic was also housed here. Every once in a while I hear someone say, ‘Oh yeah, I got my vaccines there.’ “

The top floor of the building also served as a long- and short-term home for single women and now serves as a true community resource, Gilligan said.

“It is a meeting place for a lot of local organizations,” she said. “The Jazz and Blues Foundation holds meetings and fundraisers here, and we get a lot of interesting requests, and I think that is why we were awarded this grant this time because we are now able to truly demonstrate what a community resource the building truly is.”

According to the club’s history, the building is in the American Bracketed Villa style, and the estate is symmetrical and more formal than the equally popular Italianate Villa style.

The Anthony B. Reckless Estate is expected to receive about $30,000 through the N.J. Historic Trust preservation grant program.

According to the borough of Little Silver, the Parker Homestead, located near Sickles Market and the municipal recreation complex on Harrison Avenue, is the former home of the Parker family and the oldest home in town.

“We have had dating done on some of the main wood beams and it dates back to 1721,” explained Borough Administrator Michael Biehl. “Julia Parker, who we inherited the property from, claimed it dated back to 1665, but we haven’t been able to prove that yet.”

Photos of WWII Servicemen, originally hung in the Circle Shop windows, where they were regular patrons.

The borough of Little Silver is expected to receive approximately $44,000 for the Parker Homestead through the N.J. Historic Trust preservation grant program.

“We acquired the property around the winter of 1994, and structural work has been done to the building such as the installation of a new roof, new utilities and indoor plumbing,” Biehl said. “It was preserved for historical and educational purposes, and with the money we are to receive from the state, we hope to preserve the remaining outbuildings.”

Biehl said that there are about three barns on the property, which the borough hopes to preserve from further deterioration. A use for the barns has not been confirmed yet, he said.

“The property is on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places but it is not on the National Register of Historic Places,” Biehl said. “So the money we are receiving is earmarked to help get the property onto the national register.”

Church of the Seven Presidents, Long Branch.

According to Biehl, Parker was a direct descendent of the family that settled the Borough of Little Silver.

“The story always was that the family acquired the land from the [Native Americans] and the house has been in the Parker family since it was built,” Biehl said.

Moving down the shoreline, the Church of the Presidents in Long Branch is also listed as receiving preservation funds from the state.

According to its website, the Church of the Presidents, known as a place of worship for seven U.S. presidents during the late 1800s into the turn of the century, was built and designed by New York architects Potter and Robertson in 1879. The church also appears on the State of New Jersey and National Registers of Historic Places.

Presidents to worship at the church, also known as St. James Chapel, include Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Woodrow Wilson.

The current restoration of the building has been undertaken by the Long Branch Historical Museum Association.

“In the late 1990s the building had become so unstable that we had everything removed so the building could be stabilized,” said Joan Schnorbus, a member of the Long Branch Historical Museum Association board of trustees. “Everything was removed, the pews, light fixtures, even the windows. One of the windows we believe is Tiffany glass.”

Schnorbus said that the church was founded as an alternative location for Long Branch’s elite to attend services in the 1880s.

A comprehensive downtown plan, coupled with the rail trail connection, would likely place storefronts currently vacant, such as the former Disbrow Market building, in high demand.

“It was built in 1879 with funding from local families who were closer to Ocean Avenue than the center of town,” Schnorbus said. “It quickly became the focal point of town and many presidents frequented the church, and even as President James Garfield lay dying a short distance away, he could hear the church bells tolling for his recovery.”

But the church’s survival as a religious institution would not reflect its strong inception.

“The congregation began falling off as the fortunes of Long Branch waned, and finally, it was closed in the 1950s,” Schnorbus said. “And then the building became slated for demolition, but a gentleman by the name of Edgar Dinkelspiel and an attorney, Bernard Sandler, discovered a clause in the original deed to save the church. It stipulated that if the building were no longer used as a church, ownership reverted back to the original benefactors, which were the Pullman, Childs and Drexel families.

“Dinkelspiel and Sandler found the heirs and obtained ownership of the church in 1953 as the nonprofit Long Branch Historical Museum Association.”

According to the N.J. Historic Trust’s website, the trust recommended the church receive $467,296 in preservation grants.

For more information and a full listing of grant recipients, visit www.njht.org.

Case Study: Long Branch Seeks Better Future through Historic Preservation

As Beachwood Borough researches the development of a historic preservation ordinance and commission, we are going to begin tracking how one municipality to our north, the city of Long Branch, begins the process of introducing a long-sought after preservation ordinance of their own. It is our hope that by reading about their drive to sustained devlopment through preservation, our residents and borough officials will be aided by example.

L.B. Council Introduces Preservation Ordinance

Public hearing set for May 26 council meeting

Kenny Walter
Staff Writer
Atlanticville
Greater Media Newspapers

LONG BRANCH — The City Council has finally introduced a historical preservation ordinance after almost two years of delays.

The council unanimously voted 5-0 to introduce the ordinance at the May 12 meeting and scheduled a public hearing and final vote for the next meeting on May 26.

Long Branch Councilman Brian Unger has been pushing for approval of the ordinance since August 2007 and said he is confident that the council will endorse the ordinance.

“I believe it will be approved,” Unger said.

The ordinance aims to protect historical structures in the city by creating a Historic Preservation Advisory Commission that would review the potential effect of development and permit applications on designated historical sites.

The commission would review the potential effect of development and permit applications on designated historical sites and work with and advise the Planning and Zoning boards and individual property owners.

The ordinance will regulate only designated sites that require a permit and application for development.

The ordinance has the endorsement of the local historical society.

Beth Woolley, a trustee for the Long Branch Historical Society, said, “The only way to really protect private historical buildings is to have a local historical preservation ordinance.

“Most may not know this, but Long Branch is an extremely historic town,” Woolley added. “Long Branch has the potential to look like other towns that have embraced their historical buildings.”

The ordinance was expected to be on the agenda for the April 28 meeting but was ultimately pushed back until May 12 when the council agreed they needed more time to work on it

At the April 28 workshop, the council decided to push back the ordinance to clarify some of the language in it. According to Unger, there are no changes in the version of the ordinance introduced last week.

Dr. Frank Esposito, Kean University distinguished professor, suggested at the April 28 workshop that some of the ordinance should be rewritten.

“It is a step in the right direction, but it needs some revision,” Esposito said, “including downsizing and elimination of reference to a historic district. At this point, it may attempt to do too much.”

Esposito added that much of the ordinance is useful and that he supports the creation of a commission.

“The creation of the commission would keep a watchful eye on this issue,” Esposito said. The ordinance was expected to be introduced back on Feb. 24, but Unger requested that certain sections be rewritten to strengthen the role of the Historic Preservation Advisory Commission.

“Someone … put in language taking away from the Historic Preservation Advisory Commission the ability to adopt and utilize their own best-practice professional guidelines for designation of historic properties,” Unger said at the time.

The commission would compile an inventory of historical sites and structures in the city that could qualify for historical preservation. The commission will consist of seven members and two alternate members, with alternates appointed by the mayor.

Of the seven members, three must be either knowledgeable in building design and construction or architectural history or have a demonstrated interest in local history.

The remaining four members will be residentswho do not hold any other municipal office, position or employment but may be members of the Planning or Zoning boards.

The ordinance defines the goals of the advisory committee.

“Maintaining, preserving, and rehabilitating these visual links to the past is an important function of government, not only to provide a sense of stability and continuity for future generations, but to provide impetus for the revitalization of the city’s economic base and for the resulting increase in property values,” the ordinance reads.

The ordinance lists specific goals, which include safeguarding the heritage of Long Branch, encouraging the continued use of historical landmarks, and maintaining and developing a “harmonious setting” for the historical and architecturally significant buildings.

Other goals listed are: to stabilize and improve property values, to promote appreciation of historical landmarks, to encourage the beautification of and reinvestment in historical sites, and to discourage demolition of historical resources.

The responsibilities of the commission include preparing and maintaining preservation guidelines, reviewing applications that affect the historical properties, recommendations on designs, and preparing an inventory of historical sites and landmarks.

It also states that new construction on or near a historical site should not necessarily duplicate the exact style of the site but should not detract from the historical site.

According to Woolley, one of the obstacles to preserving historical structures in Long Branch is that until now, the city has had total autonomy of control over historical landmarks.

“Historical preservation only encourages owners to keep their land,” Woolley said. “You can’t do anything to protect the buildings without a local preservation ordinance. Even if it’s listed by the state as a historic structure, it can be knocked down if it is privately owned,” she added.

Agenda for Thursday Night Berkeley/Beachwood Border Development Hearing

OFFICE OF SMART GROWTH
BERKELEY TOWNSHIP PUBLIC HEARING
Chaired by Benjamin L. Spinelli, Executive Director, Office of Smart Growth

Berkeley Township Municipal Building
Pinewald-Keswick Road
Bayville, NJ 08721
Thursday, May 21, 2009
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

---

6:00          Welcome and Introductions
The Honorable Jason Varano, Mayor of Berkeley Township

6:05          Introduction of State Officials
Benjamin L. Spinelli, Executive Director, Office of Smart Growth

6:10           Overview of Plan Endorsement Process
Lorissa Whitaker, Principal Planner, Office of Smart Growth

6:20           State Agency Remarks
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP)
New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT)
New Jersey Department of Agriculture (NJDA)

6:30           Berkeley Township Plan Endorsement Petition Presentation
Dave Roberts, AICP/PP, RLA, Planning Consultant, CMX

6:45            Public Comment

8:00           Adjourn

Public Comment Guidelines
Comments may be provided orally or in written form at the meeting or in written form afterwards.

Oral Comments:

• If you would like to provide comments orally at the meeting, please see staff. You will be assigned a number indicating when it will be your turn to speak.
• Please speak clearly into the microphone so that your comments may be recorded.
• Please limit your comments to three minutes.

Written Comments:

• The public may comment orally, and in written form, at the hearing or may submit written comments to the Office of Smart Growth via email to osgmail@dca.state.nj.us, or to Benjamin L. Spinelli, Executive Director, NJDCA Office of Smart Growth, P.O. Box 204, Trenton, NJ 08625-0204, up to 30 days after the public hearing. Public comments may also be directed via email to the Executive Director at bspinelli@dca.state.nj.us up to the time the Commission takes action on the petition for Plan Endorsement.

If you would like to register with the Office of Smart Growth to receive notifications of State Planning Commission meetings or hearings regarding plan endorsement petitions, provide your contact information, including your name, organization, address and email address to osgmail@dca.state.nj.us. For more information about the Office of Smart Growth and the Plan Endorsement process, log-on to: www.njsmartgrowth.com.