By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Architecturally speaking, the Folk Victorian-style house at 25 39th Street is rather plain and unremarkable.
The fading yellow paint has an unusual hue vaguely reminiscent of the mustard that you squeeze out of a Gulden’s bottle. The trim is painted in a deep brown color that looks like dark chocolate.
Despite its aesthetic challenges, the two-story house is historically significant. It is believed by some people to be one of only two homes remaining in Sea Isle City dating to 1882, the same year the town was formally founded by visionary real estate developer Charles K. Landis.
The home had been owned for decades by the grandparents and parents of John Paladino, a colorful Sea Isle resident who went by the nickname “Patch Eye” and dubbed the house “Patch’s Pub.” John Paladino, 73, owned the house for 31 years before dying in March of ALS.
The house now has new owners. It was sold this month for $1.3 million to the owners of Sea Isle’s Ocean Drive bar and sister property O’Donnell’s Pour House restaurant and pub.
“It was just a good investment,” said Ralph Pasceri, who owns the Ocean Drive and O’Donnell’s Pour House with his brother, Pat, and their business partner, Michael Roberts.
For now, the new owners have no long-range plans for the old home, Ralph Pasceri said. They are repainting it and installing new carpets to transform it into housing for their kitchen staff at O’Donnell’s Pour House, which is located on the neighboring block of Landis Avenue.
“I have no idea what we’re doing with it for the long term,” Pasceri said, noting that he is completely unaware of the old home’s history.
Folk Victorians like the one on 39th Street are described as less elaborate than traditional Victorian-style homes. They were built around the 1880s through 1910. They often featured gables and porches, but were simpler in floor design than the typically ornate Victorians that grace the streets of Cape May.
Whether the old home on 39th Street truly dates to 1882 remains in question. A compendium of historic homes that is stored at the Sea Isle City Historical Museum indicates the house was probably built between 1900 and 1910.
“I can’t see it being the oldest house in Sea Isle. I doubt it, to be honest with you,” museum trustee and local historian Mike McHale said of the home.
However, Barbara Crowley, the owner of a Sea Isle home at 4520 Park Road that dates to 1882, said there is information that strongly suggests the house at 39th Street also dates to 1882.
“Only two homes that I know of were built in 1882 – my house and the other one (on 39th Street),” Crowley said of what are believed to be Sea Isle’s oldest surviving homes.
The house on 39th Street once had a historical plaque on it that indicated it was built in 1882, Crowley said. The plaque has since been removed while the house is being repainted.
Crowley also said she was told by the home’s late owner, John Paladino, that it dated to 1882.
“John said it was built in 1882,” she said in an interview Friday.
Online property records and several real estate websites that previously had listed the home for sale also give the construction date as 1882.
City Councilman J.B. Feeley, one of Paladino’s closest friends, acted as executor for the sale of the home. Feeley said he doesn’t know the exact age of the house.
Paladino’s grandparents lived in the house first, then his parents, before John inherited the home from his late mother, Sue Paladino. The house was so old that the grandparents had used a kerosene heater to keep it warm, Feeley said.
John Paladino was well-known in town for hosting weekly gatherings at his house that included Feeley and his other close friends, Mike Boyle, Tommy Gleeson, Joe King and Pat Haffert. The get-togethers started promptly at 5:30 p.m.
“You couldn’t come before 5:30. If you came before then, he would ask you, ‘What do you want?’ He was a different kind of guy,” Feeley recalled of Paladino’s unorthodox personality.
Feeley and Paladino’s friendship was cemented when they grew up together as Sea Isle teenagers. Paladino served in Feeley’s wedding party and also was godfather to Feeley’s son.
As an adult, Paladino branched out into the entertainment industry as a member of the rhythm and blues singing group the Sons of Robin Stone. Feeley said the group made two records and enjoyed some success with appearances in New York City, Philadelphia and at Atlantic City’s Steel Pier. Some of the group’s old performances and records can still be seen and heard on YouTube.
It was as a boy that Paladino acquired his nickname, “Patch Eye.” He was hit in the eye with a rock and wore a patch for a couple of weeks to protect the injury, Feeley recalled. People started calling him Patch Eye and the nickname stuck for life.
To honor his mother’s memory, Paladino began calling the old house “Patch’s Pub.” It was known by that nickname for the 15 years that Paladino and his friends continued to get together every week, Feeley said.
Now, there will be other occupants living in Patch’s Pub. Ironically, they will be employees from another pub – the Irish-themed O’Donnell’s Pour House.
