Remains of 27 Surf Avenue. Photo by Ted Aanensen

By Charles Layton

SATURDAY, March 12 — For at least a year prior to Friday’s fire, the people who lived near the decrepit old hotel at 27 Surf Avenue feared the worst. They said they were terrified that a fire would break out there.

They organized, they tried to get Neptune Township to inspect the place, and they took their concerns to the local press. But nothing they did made any difference.

On Friday, their worst nightmare became reality when a fire destroyed the hotel and seven adjacent houses and damaged five other homes.

I spoke with one of those neighbors Saturday morning — the Rev. John Fitzpatrick — while he was standing outside the burned-out rental home he owns at 30 Atlantic Avenue. I asked him why, in spite of the neighbors’ very vocal concerns, nothing was done last year to correct conditions at the old hotel.

“I understand that the town came to inspect,” he told me, “and Heinz Weck [the hotel’s owner at the time] wouldn’t let them in the door.” (Attempts to reach Weck for comment were unsuccessful.)

Important point: It is not established yet what caused Friday’s fire, or even that it started in the hotel. In fact, at the time of the fire Weck no longer owned the place, and work was underway to convert it to condos. Still, witnesses told our reporter, Steve Mandeville, that the fire appeared to have broken out in the hotel’s basement.

On September 14 of last year, reporter Michelle Gladden of the Asbury Park Press published an excellent account of the neighbors’ concerns along with the responses of the owner, Mr. Weck, and of a township official. Below, reproduced in full, is that story. As you read it, you might keep in mind the cruelly ironic fact that four of the people quoted — Ms. Morrell, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Mr. Buckman and Mr. Weck — have now lost their houses.

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Residents living in the vicinity of the shuttered Surf Avenue Hotel in this historic community say they are worried the building has become a safety hazard.

With homes, bed-and-breakfast inns and hotels spaced less than 2 feet apart along narrow roadways, the 141-year-old community is known for its Victorian architecture and Christian camp meeting community.

But building trends have shifted from hotels for summer visitors to condo-style living, and neighbors are worried about a years-long delay in plans to replace the 44-foot high Surf Avenue Hotel with an 11-unit condominium complex.

“Derelict buildings like this fall through the cracks,” neighbor Gail Morrell of Surf Avenue said. “These vagrant behemoths are not being monitored, and in a little town like this when you are this close to neighbors, it’s very scary.”

Morrell and a group of other residents of Surf and Atlantic avenues say a fearful precedent has been set by recent blazes like the March 13 Ocean Pathway fire, which quickly destroyed more than half a block of homes and the historic Manchester Inn. That hotel also had been proposed for conversion to condominium units.

“This is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall,” Morrell said. “We just want someone to declare that it is safe.”

A zoning loophole that now classifies the hotel as a single-family home leaves critics without peace of mind.

“I have to tell you, I’m scared to death,” Surf Avenue resident Norman Buckman said. “At the foot of my bed I now have a list of things to grab and a suitcase with clean laundry.”

But land use administrator Bernard Haney said the residents have nothing to fear.

“The applicant is working to finalize the process of meeting the resolution requirements,” Haney said, “and at that point they can begin working on the building, and all their fears of the fire hazard will be gone.”

Property owner Heinz Weck, who lives at the site, said the property is safe and had approval by the municipality’s Board of Architectural Review when the condo project won approval before the local Zoning Board of Adjustment in 2006.

“I am in full compliance of the law,” said Weck, a 34-year resident. “I have a smoke-detecting system in the building. I wouldn’t live in a place when I am not safe.”

But the Rev. John E. Fitzpatrick, whose home on Atlantic Avenue abuts the rear of the Surf Avenue Hotel property, said his tenants were sickened by mold growing on the exterior of the hotel and said debris has fallen from its facade.

“Bricks and plate glass from the windows would fall into my yard,” Fitzpatrick said.

Haney said the project was stalled by a Superior Court suit and subsequent appellate challenge to a proposed 16,967-square-foot 11-unit condominium slated to be built on the 7,035-square-foot property. In both cases, the municipality’s approval of the project was upheld, Haney said.

“In the normal course of action, if you have an approval in 2006, in 2008 it would have been well on its way,” Haney said. “The only reason it’s sitting the way it is, is because it was challenged in Superior Court.”

As for the property not being inspected in the past 15 years, Haney said the municipality does not have jurisdiction to do so.

“Fire inspections are done by the Division of Community Affairs on commercial properties only,” Haney said. “In 1995/96, the property owner went to the Division of Community Affairs to list the property as nonoperating hotel. When a property becomes a single-family home, there are no more inspections. It’s no different than any other single-family home, only that it’s big.”