Home Care In Mantoloking, NJ

First delivery this summer at South Mantoloking oceanfront redevelopment

By

Linda Lindner(South Mantoloking )

-

May 19, 2023

Osborn Dunes at South Mantoloking's first building. - Walters

With construction well underway on Osborn Dunes at South Mantoloking’s initial duplex residence — launched last fall on the 10th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy — Walters announced Thursday that it broke ground on five more buildings that will introduce 10 additional units.

Upon completion, the oceanside redevelopment will include 67 homes.

Formerly known as Camp Osborn, Osborn Dunes at South Mantoloking is located on a barrier island section of Brick Township, between Mantoloking and Normandy Beach; the community once consisted of single-family bungalows that were destroyed by the tidal surge and a fire following the historic storm.

“After more than a decade, we’re excited this development is hitting its stride, with visible progress,” Walters’ Austin Bocchicchio, sales manager, said. “Homeowners are very eager to rebuild and return to their community.”

For 10 years, the area remained vacant while Camp Osborn residents navigated permitting, regulations, legal struggles and redesigns. In 2020, the homeowners’ association and the town reached a settlement for a new development to be rebuilt by Barnegat-based Walters.

The community’s new homes — including 32 duplexes and three single units — each will offer 1,033 square feet of living space (double the square footage of usable living space as compared to their pre-Sandy predecessors). All but three homes are spoken for by prior Camp Osborn owners and recent purchasers.

Osborn Dunes at South Mantoloking homeowners can choose between two- and three-bedroom floorplans with street-level parking provided underneath each residence. Unit designs feature open floor plans, and standard amenities such as a GE kitchen package with granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances, stacked washers/dryers, Anderson windows and tiled bathroom floors and shower walls.

Walters anticipates delivery of the first Osborn Dunes at South Mantoloking duplex in August; one unit will serve as the community’s model home. Construction will be ongoing over the next two years, with the entire development expected to be completed in 2025.

“Walters has strong ties to the local community, which makes this project particularly gratifying,” Ed Walters Jr., founder and president, said. “Osborn Dunes at South Mantoloking is designed to meet FEMA’s flood guidelines, with each unit elevated above the floodplain, and constructed to withstand severe weather conditions and flooding.”

The town clerk's office describes Mantoloking as "There's a beach, there's some houses and access to the beach."

People may not realize they have crossed into the skinny, two-mile town that is Mantoloking, which sits nonchalantly between the ocean and Barnegat Bay and between Bay Head and the Brick Beaches. Other than the westerly turn at Herbert Street to cross the Mantoloking Bridge, the Borough has no real visual landmarks -- no business, no shopping district, no parking lots and no attractions. From the ocean, it's nearly impossible to know where Bay Head ends and Mantoloking begins.

There is much to-do about the dunes in Mantoloking, which have been substantially reinforced since Superstorm Sandy. The Borough even publishes a Dunes Do's and Don'ts on its website. The dunes have had the effect of blocking some of the homeowners views from their ground floor. As a result, there are several platforms built on the dunes, but those are strictly regulated by the Borough.

Construction of even larger and newer homes can be seen as one drives through town.

At The Little Point Bookshop

Give the Jersey Shore

for Father's Day.

Get the scoop on whale watching, minor league baseball, fishing adventures and more with the #1 NJ Travel Guide:100 Things to Do at the Jersey Shore Before You Die. The Little Point Bookshop is located at 629 1/2 Arnold Avenue, Point Pleasant Beach.

(From the vantage point of the beachfront or boardwalk, this is a breezy overview of what you see, where to park and beach access, plus a bit or history and the latest happenings. See map below.)

Stunning view of Barnegat Bay

It's well worth the effort to turn one's back on the ocean and walk two blocks west for a view of Barnegat Bay, even if it means hunting down one of the only three public access points. The walkway (pictured below) at the 1100 block of Ocean Avenue offers a 180 degree view of the bay with the nearby Mantoloking Bridge arching over the water on its way to West Mantoloking.

Captain John Arnold and Mantoloking

When he wasn't developing Pt. Pleasant Beach, that town's founding father Captain John Arnold found time to be part of the group that developed Mantoloking. Using his political and economic clout in 1883, Arnold convinced the Ocean County Freeholders to allow him to build a bridge across Barnegat Bay for $4,000. This swing draw bridge was completed to Old Bridge Street in 1884. The current bridge was completed in 2006 for $22 million.

Mantoloking's Name

Like Manasquan which derives its name from the Native Lenape People, Mantoloking roughly translates into “frog ground,” with a secondary meaning of “sand place.”

Tips for Visiting Mantoloking

What's New: Nothing new to report.

Access and Parking: Most people enter Mantoloking along busy Route 35 (aka Ocean Avenue) from Bay Head to the north of the Brick Beaches to the south or across Route 528, the Mantoloking Bridge from West Mantoloking. There are parking lots either private or public. While street parking is free, there are few spaces and some limit the amount of time cars can park.

Amenities: None

Beaches: There isn't a boardwalk or a promenade. There are 13 beach access points along Ocean Avenue. Badges are required daily from June 19 through September 6. Full season badges are $95. Daily badges are $12 and are available at Lyman Street and Downer Avenue kiosks. Badges are not required for people under the age of 12.

This spring, summer and fall, follow Jersey Shore author and expert R.C. Staab as he walks the entire 139 miles of the Jersey Shore from Sandy Hook to Island Beach State Park, from Old Barney to Beach Haven, from Brigantine to Cape May.

Next stop: Brick Beaches at Jersey Shore Walk Mile post 31. See profiles of Bay Head, Pt. Pleasant Beach, Manasquan and other Jersey Shore Walk beach towns at www.jerseyshorewalk.com

MANTOLOKING -- It stood like a skeleton along the oceanfront in Mantoloking, a stark reminder of Hurricane Sandy's devastation.

But now the beachfront getaway known to locals as the Hepburn House, which was perched at that site for nearly 90 years, is just a memory after it was demolished Thursday with no fanfare.

The destruction put to rest speculation about what would become of the last severely damaged home on the oceanfront in an affluent community still recovering from the state's worst natural disaster.

"The house is down," Mayor George Nebel declared early Thursday afternoon. "With all those new houses just south of the Solimine house so much larger, it became an eyesore. I'm glad they finally decided to take it down."

Owners Emil and Yvonne Solimine hadn't done anything with the house since Sandy while they were involved in a legal battle with their insurance providers.

Nebel said he doesn't know what happened to finally spur some action; nor does he know what the Solimines plan to do with the lot - actually three contiguous lots - once the land is cleared of the demolition debris.

Built in the 1920s, the single-level home - complete with a bomb shelter - became an occasional retreat in the 1980s for actress Katharine Hepburn, who was a close friend of the previous owner, American Express heiress Laura Harding, for more than 60 years.

Harding, who grew up in Rumson, also owned a farm in Holmdel until her death in 1994.

One neighbor who grew up next door to the Hepburn House, said he recalls Harding having five Weimaraners.

Sitting three lots south of Lyman Street at Route 35 north, the Hepburn House sold in 1995 for $1.1 million, according to property records. It was assessed at $4.2 million before Sandy, and at $2.5 million after the storm, according to property records.

The Atlantic Ocean sliced through Mantoloking at Lyman Street during Sandy, sweeping away a few homes, including the Solimines' immediate neighbors to the north. The Hepburn House, which had previously sat flat on the sand, was left suspended on pilings more than 10 feet in the air as Sandy's high winds and storm surge wiped out the home's foundation. Mantoloking residents weren't allowed back in their homes until four months after Sandy.

Nebel said that before rebuilding, some oceanfront residents have been waiting to see whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will replenish the beach as scheduled in September.

Council President Laurence White, who helped shepherd the demolition project, said that because the house stood among empty lots at almost the northern edge of town on Route 35, it was one of the first sites motorists would notice driving south along the barrier island.

"They'd see for five years this wreckage and people began to get antsy about it," he said. "It was unfortunate. It wasn't anybody's fault."

BRICK – The county-owned Mantoloking Bridge was only a few years old in 2012 when a new inlet formed and slammed its eastern end, as a result of Superstorm Sandy. Initially, it was reported that the bridge had sustained heavy damage, but engineers said that aside from some repairs needed at the base of the bridge, it was still structurally sound.

The bridge was the third Mantoloking Bridge built near the same location. Before that, the only way to get from Brick to Mantoloking was by boat, at a time when there wasn’t even a road between Mantoloking and Bay Head, which was then still part of Brick.

Captain John Arnold is responsible for building the first Mantoloking Bridge in 1884. He is also the person responsible for making Point Pleasant Beach a tourist town by encouraging the railroad to extend its line as far as Seaside Park. (Arnold Ave. was named after him).

The south side of Mantoloking was developed first. With the 1881 arrival of the railroad, the 1884 construction of the first bridge, and the 1908 completion of what is now Route 35, the northern end of Mantoloking was developed.

In 1882, Captain Arnold became the superintendent of the Seashore Land Co., which was organized to sell lots for vacation homes in Mantoloking. Around this same time, the Ocean County Freeholders contracted with him to build a bridge “from Metedeconk Neck to Mantoloking.”

“It was a handsome structure, 1159 feet long, 16 feet wide with a 40-foot swing draw to allow the passage of boats,” said an article at the time. “The road from the west end of the bridge…is little more than two tracks through the sand.”

The early wooden bridge was privately financed at the cost of $4,000 and was 120 yards south of the present bridge. The first bridge tender, Thomas Sculthorpe, was paid $1 a day.

The first bridge operated for over 50 years until 1938, when it was replaced by the second bridge, which was built under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the depression era.

The first bridge remained in place until construction on the new bridge was finished.

Steel sections for the draw were shipped by train to the second Mantoloking Bridge. Built for $242,500, the bridge operated for 60 years until it started to show its age.

Studies showed that the bridge’s gear mechanism was damaged, and since it wasn’t built to handle modern day loads – including fire trucks and school buses – structural engineers placed a 4-ton weight limit on it. There were even reports that pieces of the bridge were falling into the water.

In February 2002, the Coast Guard issued a public notice outlining the proposed replacement of the 1938 bridge.

The newest bridge would have a movable double leaf trunnion bascule bridge, and the 66-year-old bridge would be demolished, except for a 160-foot section that would extend from the Brick side and serve as a fishing pier.

The bridge, constructed of concrete and steel with pilings sunk 75 feet below the water, was designed by Ted Pinca of HNTB Inc. and built by J.H. Reid of South Plainfield. There were early delays due to difficulties getting steel because of Chinese demand, but it was completed in 2005.

As compared to its predecessor, the bridge had doubled the vertical clearance over the boating channel from 14 feet to 30 feet, and increased the channel width from 30 feet to 80 feet.

Due to the added clearance, bridge openings went from 6,000 to 2,000 a year. Some 75 percent of all boats are able to pass under the bridge without the need for an opening, which results in fewer traffic delays for motorists.

The surface of the bridge has a 12-foot-wide traffic lane in each direction, plus 8-foot shoulders and a sidewalk on the south side. It replaced the bridge with 11-foot-wide lanes and 2-foot shoulders.

The project cost $23.7 million, and it was the Ocean County Board of Freeholders’ largest capital expenditure ever awarded. The entire cost was funded by the federal government.

A non-lifting bridge that would have allowed all boats to pass underneath with no interruption to cars would have required an additional 35 feet in height, and the eastern exit ramp would have extended into the sand dunes.

Information for this story was provided by The Ocean County Historical Society, 26 Hadley Avenue, Toms River. A special thanks to Janis Gibson, volunteer at the OCHS Research Center, who uncovered archival articles from The Ocean County Observer, The Asbury Park Press, articles by Mary Allsopp, and two books: “Mantoloking Through the Lens,” by Anne L. Benedict, and “An Exercise in Nostalgia Mantoloking 1880-1920,” by Frederic R. Colie.

Ten years ago, on the evening of October 29, 2012, Superstorm Sandy slammed into the New Jersey shore devastating coastal communities.

Sandy was responsible for at least 72 direct deaths in the U.S. (and many more indirect deaths), with 48 occuring in New York and 12 in New Jersey, and caused more than $71 billion ($81.9 billion when adjusted for inflation) in damage in the country. The facts and figures of the record-breaking storm are astounding, but the visuals truly drive home the way Sandy changed lives throughout the Tri-state area and into New England. Here’s a look back on the photos that tell the story of the historic storm.

T?he New Jersey Damage

Superstorm Sandy made landfall seven miles north of Atlantic City, New Jersey, bringing catastrophic storm surge and 80 mph winds. The highest New Jersey storm surge measured 8.57 feet in Sandy Hook, and up and down the coast, homes and businesses were flooded and grounded.

Perhaps one of the most devastated Jersey towns was Mantoloking, known for its oceanside mansions. Sandy’s surge effectively cut off homes from the rest of the state, and for months it wasn’t uncommon to see some of the large homes swept from their foundations into places where they didn’t stand before, or leaning precariously, as if about to completely crumble.

Mantoloking wasn’t unique in this, as Sandy left some 346,000 homes damaged or destroyed in New Jersey, according to the New York Times. One of the most iconic images from the state is of a yellow home in Union Beach, New Jersey, nearly torn clear in half by the storm, still standing as if a ghost of itself.

New Jersey’s boardwalks alone took on tens of millions of dollars in damage, with entire sections swept away along with beach towns’ homes and roads. Let’s not forget the jarring photos of the Star Jet Roller Coaster, which stood rusting in the Atlantic off of Seaside Heights, New Jersey, for six months after Sandy’s winds and surge calmed.

S?andy's Impact on New York

The scenes from New York were equally as terrifying and devastating. Sandy brought a record 12.65 feet of storm surge to Kings Point in western Long Island Sound, and in Battery Park, water levels rose to nearly 14 feet.

A shocking 51 square miles of New York City flooded, according to a report by NYC.gov. That’s 17% of the city’s total land mass. The surge exceeded the 100-year-floodplain boundaries in place at the time by 53%, and in some parts of the city, flooded areas were several times the size of the floodplains on FEMA maps.

The hardest hit New York neighborhoods were in South Queens, Southern Brooklyn and the East and South Shores of Staten Island. Homes and critical infrastructure were were destroyed, and apartments and subway stations were dangerously flooded.

In Queen’s Breezy Point neighborhood, the storm surge triggered a six-alarm fire, but the floodwaters made it impossible for firefighters to respond. More than 130 homes were burned down.

S?andy Moves To New England

Compared to New Jersey and New York, New England was spared from the worst of Superstorm Sandy. But residents from Connecticut to Maine woke up to damage the morning of Oct. 30, with coastal Rhode Island and Massachusetts getting the biggest wallop in the region.

High winds knocked down trees in Boston and storm surge and coastal flooding affected some parts of New England, such as Scituate, Massachusetts. Schools and most government offices reopened in the region within days after the storm.

S?andy's Snow

W?ith all the jarring damage photos that came out of the Northeast, one of Sandy's weirder effects is often forgotten or left out of the conversation. While hitting New Jersey and New York, Sandy dumped feet of snow in the Appalachian Mountains.

M?ore than 50 locations in the region reported at least 1 foot of snow, with a snow total of 3 feet measured near Richwood, West Virginia, and on North Carolina's Wolf Laurel Mountain.

T?he Fuel Shortage

S?andy plunged the Northeast into a gas shortage that lasted weeks, and was only alleviated by state-imposed gasoline rations, the first since the 1970s.

"The industry suffered crippling blows at almost every link," Reuters reported six months after Sandy. "Foreign oil tankers were halted by water debris, refineries were flooded and shut, pipelines and storage depots were idled by power cuts and tanker trucks were commandeered by emergency agencies."

(?MORE: Superstorm Sandy Made For One Of The Most Eeriest Halloweens In Recent Memory)

T?his left two-thirds of the Northeast's gas stations gasless, and the other third struggling to provide their main product. Consumers in some areas were left driving upwards of 20 miles to find gasoline, toting along gas canisters to stock up on the hard-to-find good for their generators. Lines extended through towns for miles past stations, and customers waited for hours just to fill their tanks.

The odd-even rationing which in New Jersey was imposed on Nov. 3 and lasted more than a week, and in New York began on Nov. 8 and spanned for more than two weeks, eventually helped, but it took months to repair the supply chain.

Superstorm Sandy was the deadliest and costliest storm in the Northeast in recent memory. The storm left much of the East Coast in chaos for weeks, and even months. Ten years later, some things still haven't completely returned to normal, and never will. The ocean took some pieces the Northeast will never get back. Be sure to click through each slideshow above to see highlights from one of the most defining events in the region in the last decade.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.