Atlantic Highlands Historical Society
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Atlantic Highlands Houses
"A Victorian villa, on Fourth Avenue, with witch's hat tower."
Take a stroll through some of the “old town” section of Atlantic Highlands and see houses going back as far as the 1880s – the golden age of the Jersey Shore. Many of them are well restored, and some are showcases of the era and its architecture.
At the hilltop, visit the Strauss Mansion, built in 1893 and now a museum and headquarters of the Atlantic Highlands Historical Society . Linger over the view from its wide verandas. Visit rooms furnished as in the 1890s, with rich wood paneling and stained glass windows. It’s the only Queen Anne Victorian mansion open to the public in Monmouth County.
On the way up and down hill, see grand summer “cottages” with many porches, turrets, and towers. Houses are in Stick, Shingle, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Carpenter Gothic styles. Two churches are in Gothic Revival and Romanesque Revival styles.
This abbreviated guide leads you to 25 sites. For more information on these and 37 Victorian houses, as well as 15 Sears houses dating from 1910-1940, see the booklet “Historical Houses: A Self-Guided Tour” on sale at the Strauss Mansion.
OCEAN BOULEVARD
Streetscape: Going uphill from First Avenue, a row of large houses on lower Ocean Boulevard faces Sandy Hook Bay. These houses sit on a high bluff whose toe was the waterfront before the cove was filled in to build the harbor in 1940.
30 Ocean Boulevard -- Queen Anne -- Auchincloss House -- 1890s The original silhouette is largely intact, but the cladding and windows have been modernized.
38 Ocean Boulevard -- Queen Anne -- Barre Harbor Cottage -- 1898 One corner has an octagonal tower with conical roof.
Streetscape: Public footpath lined with “gas lamps” leads down to the harbor.
44 Ocean Boulevard -- Queen Anne -- Ida Peck House -- 1890s The house has multiple intersecting roof gables and a square tower with a pyramidal roof.
48 Ocean Boulevard -- Colonial Revival -- How-Kola -- 1890 Built as Pavonia Yacht Club with boats docked in bay below. Remodeled as a residence in 1905. Two-story Tuscan order columns. Circular porch with conical roof. Dentil trim on pyramid-roofed tower and around house. Garden wall of local “peanut stone” embedded with pebbles. An early occupant was Dan Frost, an “Indian trader” with business in New York City. He put a totem pole in the yard, and named the house “How-Kola” (supposedly “welcome to my house” in an Indian language), as inscribed on the stone gateposts.
54 Ocean Boulevard -- Colonial Rev.-neo-classical -- Champion House -- 1907 Here in 1893 Ezra Champion built the Portland Hotel, one of the town’s largest. It burned down in 1903 and the present house was built in 1907. Ionic columns on front and rear porches. Dentil and bracket molding under eaves. In the rear, fanlight semi-circular windows in roof and porch.
Streetscape: The next two modest houses were owned by ministers in the 1880s.
58 Ocean Boulevard -- Victorian vernacular -- Brown Cottage -- 1870s Rev. Oliver A. Brown was a summer resident 1887-1908. Original four-gable shape is intact.
60 Ocean Boulevard -- Victorian vernacular -- Curtis Cottage -- 1889 Gabled roof has carved bracketed ornament, surmounted by octagonal cupola with four windows. Until 1894, Rev. Dr. Edward C. Curtis, also ran the Methodists’ Atlantic Highlands Association that bought land, sold lots, and held religious camp meetings.
Continue uphill past 7th Avenue. After the second house on the right, climb the stone public
stairway to the next road up, Eighth Avenue. Turn right, going counter clockwise.
EIGHTH AVENUE
Streetscape: Triplet houses were built at 10-16 Eighth Avenue: identical footprints, Victorian style, curving front rooflines, 5-column front porches. But one has moved!
Streetscape: Height, size, design and coloring make the next 3 houses an impressive row.
66 Eighth Avenue – Edwardian -- Early 1900s Spacious porch, 11 columns, 15 rooms, 54 windows and a spectacular harbor view.
74 Eighth Avenue -- Queen Anne -- 1887 Ten porch columns with corner “spider webs.” Decorative sawnwork ornaments. Thyme green, pale yellow, salmon, teal, pink, and red colors repeat in a small play house atop ladder stairs in front yard. The turret is a recent addition and provides visual balance to the gable on the left side of the house.
78 Eighth Avenue -- Queen Anne -- Emily Hatfield House -- 1887 Half-circle and diamond-shaped shingle butts and clapboard. Multiple intersecting roof hips and gables. Windows in a variety of sizes, shapes and light arrangements. Porch: Tuscan order columns, corner “spider web” spindles, octagonal corner porch, three-story square tower with pyramidal roof, and carved millwork with a rising sun design in front gable. Best preserved Queen Anne house in town. Its three shades of purple paint make it the boldest “painted lady” in town. Emily Hatfield also founded the town’s first public library.
Next to the Hatfield House, climb the public stone steps to Prospect Avenue. At the top,
turn left/clockwise around the circle to 46 Prospect Avenue.
PROSPECT AVENUE – “THE CIRCLE”
"Tip Top Cottage (late 1800s) with octagonal tower, on Prospect Circle."
Streetscape: These beautiful hilltop homes have preserved many period details. Most were built as summer cottages for the well-to-do when Atlantic Highlands was becoming popular as a seaside resort. Several owners called themselves “the 49ers” because they lived on East 49th Street in Manhattan – perhaps also commemorating the Gold Rush?
46 Prospect Avenue -- Colonial Revival style -- Forest Cottage -- 1892 Built by Ezra and Clara Champion, the house has a porte-cochere, stained glass bay windows, full third floor for servants, and wrap-around porches. Roof has multiple intersecting gables and steep roofs continue over the porch, covering the house like a blanket. As of 1894, Ezra Champion was proprietor of the huge Portland Hotel at Fifth Avenue and Ocean Boulevard, which burned down in 1903.
12 Prospect Avenue -- Carpenter Queen Anne -- Tip Top Cottage -- Late 1800s Two flights of stairs, 2-story wraparound porch, extensive Carpenter Gothic millwork in geometric forms. Slightly flared eaves and various intersecting roof gables. 4-story octagonal tower with conical roof and eight windows. Drooping branches of ancient trees fill the front yard.
22 Prospect Avenue -- Shingle/Queen Anne -- Buena Vista -- 1890-1900 Three stories of porches with Tuscan order posts. Entablatures on porch roofs. Multiple intersecting roof gables and hips. Iron cresting on balconies and roof.
27 Prospect Avenue -- Queen Anne -- The Towers/Strauss Mansion --1893 Now called Strauss Mansion after its first owner, it’s the Museum of Atlantic Highlands Historical Society and the only Queen Anne Victorian mansion open to the public in Monmouth County. The house was built by Adolph Strauss, a New York merchant, as a summer home for his wife Jeanette, seven sons and daughters, and brother Nathan. In the winter they lived on East 49th Street in Manhattan. The house was sold in 1905 after Adolph died.
Turn down Mount Avenue and study the streetscape along this steeply descending road.
Then go to the second house on the left, Woodmanse, on corner of Seventh Avenue.
MOUNT AND HIGHLAND AVENUES
71 East Mount -- Queen Anne, Colonial elements – Woodmanse -- Late 1890s Original clapboard, shingles, porch ceilings, and gable wall ornamentation. Circular porch with conical roof (not original). Shingle border has square butts in staggered overlap pattern.
Continue on Seventh Avenue, to neighboring house at corner of East Highland Avenue.
48 Seventh Avenue -- Queen Anne style -- Murray House -- ca 1890 Built by Michael Murray of New York. House largely as it would have been during the days of horse and carriage. At the two front corners are 3-story octagonal towers.
Turn right, down Highland Avenue.
36 and 38 East Highland Avenue -- 1896 These neighbors have about the same age and similar width, footprint, off-center front door, porch columns, corner roof slopes above the porch eaves, with long roof slopes covering third and second stories, but #38’s roof is gabled while #36 is a gambrel, and the dormers differ. The major difference is that 38 has a tower, 3 stories, is round in front, and rectangular at back, with a 3rd-floor balcony cut out.
Continue downhill to end of block.
Churches: Atlantic Highlands was first developed by the Methodist Atlantic Highlands Association in 1879. Other churches were established in the 1890s. Two of the most architecturally interesting ones are at opposite corners of Third and Highland Avenues.
Central Baptist Church -- Romanesque Revival -- 1894 (NE corner 3rd & Highland) One of the largest wood shingle structures in Monmouth County. Distinctive features: A widely visible town landmark is its square tower, 4 stories high (72 feet) with lighted cupola on top. Tower corners are rounded, creating a turreted effect. Stained glass: Each street wall has a large rosette window with eight main “petals,” undergirded by six more windows with round arch heads. On three walls, about half the surface consists of stained glass windows. The Third Avenue side has 19 in different shapes, and the less visible uphill side has 13. Architecture: The building is symmetrical, including roof and windows. The 4-story square tower at the corner is flanked by 2-story structures with gabled roofs and a rosette window with round arch head in each wall, in turn flanked by pyramid-roofed sections. An additional gabled section is on the Third Avenue side to the north. Roof shapes are highlighted with white fasciae and eaves.
First Presbyterian Church -- Gothic Revival style -- 1892 (SW corner 3rd & Highland) In contrast, this church has a simple design – square tower with very steep pyramidal roof, steeply pitched, and gabled main roof, pointed head stained glass windows. Front portico and columns were added later. The original reed bell weighing 1,100 pounds still summons worshipers. The connected manse building facing Highland Avenue was built in 1897.
Turn right on Third Avenue to the next street, Mount Avenue.
29 Mount Avenue at Third – Victorian -- Methodist House -- 1882 On the Southwest corner, this Victorian house with double porches was the first building of the Methodist Church. When the congregation grew too large, the church moved to a new building converted this one into a home. Porch eaves and columns are joined by millwork “gingerbread” whose pattern differs on the two floors.
Turn left down Mount Avenue to the next corner.
Mount and Second Avenues -- Old Red Homestead -- 1834 The oldest section of this house (on the northeast corner) was built in 1834, but a block away – opposite the Atlantic Cinema on First Avenue. There, as from 1867, it was the farmhouse of Thomas Henry Leonard, who in 1887 founded Atlantic Highlands and was its first Mayor. His son Thomas gave it to his daughter Clara when she married in 1893. Around 1900 it was moved to its present site (part was later moved to Second Avenue). The main house remained in the Leonard family until 1954. Then it housed the American Legion Post 141 until 1987 when a private owner restored it as a single-family home.
"An 1893 Queen Anne style house with round tower and conical roof, on Washington Avenue."