By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Bill and Anne O’Donnell have used their quaint seashore cottage on 89th Street as a vacation retreat since 1993.
On Monday night, Sea Isle City’s zoning board approved plans for the O’Donnells to demolish the 102-year-old house to make room for a new single-family home that would have three stories.
However, Bill O’Donnell said he and his wife love the cottage so much that they would consider giving it to someone else so that it could be moved to another location and saved instead of seeing it torn down before they build their new home.
“If there was a way to move or salvage it and do something with it, I would be more than willing to consider giving it away,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
The old house at 132 89th Street is distinctive not only because of its tiny size, but also because of its eye-catching antique red color and the mature cedar trees that provide plenty of shade for the front porch.
The charming place is an anachronism amid the much bigger, modern houses dominating 89th Street.
In recent years, Sea Isle has been evolving into a more upscale resort town featuring multimillion-dollar vacation homes lining the beachfront, bays and other parts of town. As a result, smaller old homes such as the traditional seashore cottage owned by the O’Donnells have been demolished to create space for new construction.
This summer is expected to be the last one that the O’Donnells will spend in their old house, now that the zoning board has cleared the way for construction of a new home.
Bill O’Donnell said he and his wife are contemplating retirement and plan to move from Cinnaminson, N.J., to Sea Isle full time once their new home is completed.
“We’re going to move down there full time. That’s our intent,” he said.
O’Donnell, 60, is a plumbing engineer who has worked with his company for 41 years. His wife is 58.
Their shore home was built in 1920 and originally served as an old fishing bungalow, O’Donnell explained. It has had only three owners during its 102-year history in the southern tip of the island in the Townsends Inlet section.
O’Donnell believes it was the first house ever built in Townsends Inlet between the inlet and the old railroad line that served Sea Isle many years ago.
As much as he and his wife enjoy the house, it would simply require too much work to renovate it into a year-round residence as they prepare to retire and live in Sea Isle full time, O’Donnell said. He noted that the house has no air-conditioning, heating or insulation on the outside walls.
“It needs too much work. By the time you do everything, it would lose its character,” he said.
O’Donnell and his wife fondly call the house “our cottage.” They also love the cedar trees that surround it.
But before the house is demolished – or possibly moved to another location – and the cedar trees are cut down, the O’Donnells will have a chance to savor their cottage and shaded front porch for one more summer.
