Ocean Grove: Can we keep it? Paul Goldfinger photograph along the edges of Wesley Lake/Lake Avenue. © Undated Click to enlarge.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor@Blogfinger.net. This is a repost from 2017 updated in 2021.
Probably the biggest complaint about the Historic Preservation Commission relates to its inconsistencies. For example, a Grover couple owns a large Victorian home that they have tried to maintain with great attention to its historic attributes. It is actually a Victorian showplace. Up in back of their house there is a staircase ascending to an access at the second floor. They wanted to put a fairly small deck up there. It would be barely visible from the street and would improve the couple’s life-style. But the HPC refused the request on the grounds that such a structure was not historic.
Yet around the Grove there are all sorts of porches and decks that have been added. Just take a walk and you can see them. If you were a prospective home buyer here, you might look around and think that such decks are historic.
We had one on the second floor, in the rear, of our Centennial Home on Heck Avenue. If I tried to build that from scratch, it might (or might not) be approved. The HPC is unpredictable. Another person we know was given permission to put up a deck just like the rejected couple’s.
Double standards by the HPC (as with their parental group, the Township Committee) are toxic to good will and lifestyles in this town.
But if some of you are shocked, shocked that we might have double standards at the HPC, consider this:
And, speaking of astonishing double standards, consider the photo below:
HPC approved this “historic design” on Ocean Avenue in a fairly conspicuous location. Blogfinger photograph. ©
The funny thing about this building is that locals and visitors find it to be amusing. So, thanks to the HPC, we have a giant conversation piece that is famous not for its Victorian architecture, but as a sort of joke; and the HPC has become the straight man for this humorous offering which does nothing for our town’s reputation and designation as an example of historic preservation. And rumor has it that the HPC allowed a historic roof top pool, something Rev. Stokes himself would have been shocked over.
One sport in town is to provide it with ironic nicknames. For example, one person in the Grove calls it “An Ode to Cement.” We call it the “Greek Temple.” Somebody else refers to it as “The Bank.” What do you call it?
2021 update: As many of you know, the North End Redevelopment Plan has been tied up in meetings with the HPC. The Township has failed to keep the citizens of Ocean Grove informed as to what’s going on, and the HPC is on mute.
As you know, the HPC only concerns itself with exterior design issues.
We have already seen preliminary drawings of the project, so for many of us, that project should not have been permitted in the first place, and I have no information as to what the HPC is fussing over, but we will probably be left with the same concerns: blocked views, blocked breezes, crowding, neighborhood congestion, environmental issues, and a significant change in the town’s character, appearance and mood.
It will be Asbury Park South. And the timing, now that the town is changing in a variety of ways, is unfortunate. This project will slither in silently under the door, while the rest of the town is concerning itself with COVID, many new citizens, many rentals including Airbnb and its problems, a striking sellers real estate market with great demands by buyers, a shortage of affordable rental housing, and rising prices for rentals and buys that have shut many out of the market. The town needs stores that provide services to those who live in town, and such down-home businesses will not be found at the new North End.
DOOLEY WILSON from Casablanca “As time goes by.”
My name for “that building” is “OH, YUKK.”
The HPC can bully homeowners about the color of their house, a structure they don’t like, or posts they insist you keep. But the Italianate structure with the pool was fine with them. There needs to be serious reform, including limiting their authority over only the most key historic properties and restrictions on their ability to issue fines and stop work orders. The Township’s Code Enforcement function can take care enforcing most of the Guidelines. And there needs to be an independent expert in historic preservation added for significant decisions. How to do this? Certify a few experts that the homeowner can choose among at their option during the approval process.
John
When I first saw it, I recall a white and yellow flag which I mistakenly believed represented The Vatican, waving alongside the American flag in the sunlight. As a result, I presumed it was the shore residence for the emissary of the Vatican or a cardinal. Given Ocean Grove’s reputation as God’s square mile at the Jersey Shore the mistaken belief seemed valid? Needless to state, I still refer to it as The Vatican Mission. I am not at all offended by the structure. It may be misplaced, but it is quite elegant in its design.
A friend and I call it the Mausoleum also. We see ghost people; I mean a few kids who show up in their big-tired cars a few days a year to party. Their connection to history goes no farther than the image on their last beer or shirt on a giggling girl.
Mausoleum. It’s a tribute to what the HPC stands for.
Greektorian. A new design in ultimate bad taste.
This is a “monument to favoritism.” The HPC was bullied into this decision. Anyone on that Commission who voted “yes” should have resigned a long time ago, because that decision sends a message to all citizens who respect and expect fairness and equality under the law.
We call it “the Bank.” And the rational by Gannon that it was Italian Latinate similar to the authentic Italian Latinate on Ocean Pathway was appalling. But of course, they “own” Ocean Grove.
JW: I recall D. Osepchuk admitting subsequently that the HPC made a mistake approving that building. The design approval was based on a tortured and wrongheaded assessment of the HPC guidelines; an approval that the average homeowner could never get—-another example of land use favoritism in the Grove. Such double standards continue to this day and involve the HPC, the Township Committee, and the Zoning Department at the Mother Ship.
So annoying…..right about the time they built this we had to replace three steps to our porch which were rotting……we replaced them exactly as they had been and were threatened by Neptune code people because we didn’t have a permit…this went on for two years while that monstrosity was built.
I recall that the subject of the “house on Ocean Avenue” and its architecture was brought up during a presentation by the HPC at an Ocean Grove homeowners’ meeting. (Not sure what year.).
If my memory is correct, the building’s architecture and roof top pool were in compliance with the ordinance guidelines that were in effect at that time. After the house was built, there was public outcry, and the guidelines were changed
This item has nothing to do with the architecture.
I know what is going on here, there are a few and I said a few Town’s folk that are upset that they haven’t been invited up to the roof for a pool party?