Celebrating the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Ocean Grove
Victorian Holiday House Tour and Festival December 10 and 11th 2011
by Jennifer Boyd
A brief history of its origins and original purpose written by Jennifer Boyd, a founder of the event and co-author of the Home Renovators Guide for Historic Ocean Grove.
Twenty five years ago, I co-chaired the first Victorian Christmas House Tour and Festival in Ocean Grove sponsored by the Ocean Grove Homeowners Association (OGHA) and the Ocean Grove Chamber of Commerce. I was then VP of the OGHA and my co-chair was Chamber president, Earl Sagui, owner of the Fairmont Hotel on Ocean Pathway. At that time, fire codes were being enforced that hadn’t been made law. The hotels in Ocean Grove were ordered by the Neptune Township fire chief to replace all their doors with fire-rated ones. Many hotel owners went to the expense and removed the historic doors before they found out it wasn’t legally required and that there were other, more preservation-minded, options.
Earl and I conceived the Tour and Festival to be much more than a one-weekend social event. It was our all-out effort to fast-track the historic preservation through our respective community organizations. We got great press too, including a nearly full page spread in the Sunday weekend editions of both the Asbury Park Press and Newark Star Ledger. “Preservationists Keep the Faith in Ocean Grove” was one headline.
So many talented Ocean Grovers pitched in to make this first House Tour and Festival a success. Neil and Kevin Chambers, creative artists and owners of the Gingerbread Man (a Main Avenue gift shop), oversaw the interior decorations and museum windows on Main Avenue. Howard Smith of the Howard Smith Hardware Store filled his window with antique tools and such for one display. For publicity, Debbie Osepchuk created a 3-D paper Victorian house that got the attention of NBC for a morning broadcast on national TV. Homeowners and hoteliers opened their doors for the cause.
Being a first-time event, we didn’t know how many would attend, but on that cold second-weekend of December 13, 1986, people poured into town, lined up on the streets in front of homes and hotels waiting for a look inside, rode the trolley around town, and enjoyed the concerts in Thornley Chapel and living nativity under the Auditorium pavilion. One Thousand people came. We raised $10,000 in one day.
All proceeds went to historic preservation community education. Our organizations sponsored a seminar at the Francis Asbury Manor for Neptune officials, followed by a walking tour given by Kevin Tremble of the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions. The mayor, some councilmen, members of the board of adjustment and zoning board were the invited guests.
Connie Grief, an architect and state-level advisor on preservation issues, presented a slide show of Ocean Grove explaining the original master plan circa 1865, the unique flared set back and its critical importance to Ocean Grove’s designation as a national historic site. It was a cordial day that signaled a willingness by the township leaders to work with preservationists.
At that time, Neptune’s Board of Architectural Review (the BAR since renamed the Historic Preservation Commission or HPC) had no professional guidelines when ruling on new buildings, alterations, or demolitions in the historic district. In the spring of 1988, through the leadership of Mayor Robert Rizas, the Township adopted a revised historic preservation ordinance that resolved the inadequacies of the original ordinance and established authority to make necessary professional appointments. House Tour funds matched a state grant from the Office of New Jersey Heritage to hire a professional consultant. The consultant’s job was to prepare technical design guidelines for the HPC, hold workshops, and to advise them on large projects.
The first Christmas House Tour and Festival also funded the publication of The Home Renovators Guide for Historic Ocean Grove, co-authored by myself and Gail Hunton, the supervising historic preservation specialist with the Monmouth County Park System in Lincroft, New Jersey. The book won several county and state awards, including the N.J. American Planning Association Award for Outstanding Journalism in 1990.
A reviewer for the NJ Historical Commission Newsletter wrote of the book:
Every New Jersey municipality with a history worth preserving needs not only a local preservation ordinance but a book like this, which is not embarrassed to put historic preservation at the center of our search for community, where it belongs.
Over the next few years, the Renovator’s Guide sold five thousand copies and many of our efforts saw tangible results. The improvements to the HPC ordinance were guided by the highest state and national standards as set by the National Park Service. In 1989, Neptune’s new master plan included rezoning the historic district to single family, while grandfathering hotels as part of the hotel overlay district, setting a 35’ height restriction on buildings, and strongly protecting the flared set back.
In the Home Renovators Guide, I wrote:
In an historic district, preservation is necessarily a communal process since every choice we make affects the whole. Our decisions, no matter how inconsequential they seem, will either augment or diminish the historic riches of the community.
Congratulations and thank you to all those who carry the torch.