When my husband told me that he really thought I should write something for our “Down the Shore” issue I said I didn’t think it would be possible. “You spent half of your life there,” he insisted. Although true, I just didn’t know how I could possibly put a lifetime of memories, the best and worst of my life, into a 700 word essay. “I will try,” I said.
My grandparents bought our house on St. Johns Avenue in the Villas section of Lower Township (Miami Beach to be exact) for around $6,000 in 1957. It was their dream, their escape from the noisy, busy days under “the el” in Harrowgate. Old brochures marketed the Villas as a “Miracle City by the Bay” and to us, it was. It was maybe 700 square feet at most, but it served its purpose a million times over as a family summer retreat, a friend flop house and a teenager party house (sorry mom).
I was born on July 17, 1979 and by August I was on the beach every day for the rest of the summer and all the summers of my childhood that followed. Every year, on the last day of school, we’d head down to our shore house and would not come back home to Philly until the morning of the first day of school in September. I could fill every page of this paper with memories of my time spent in “The Home of the Best Sunsets,” but I’ll do my best to sum it up briefly.
My dad with my brother and I at Diamond Beach in Wildwood Crest.
Here goes: Walking in the mud at low tide. Horseshoe crabs. Riding bikes to buy penny candy at the 5 & 10, and later to buy Marlboro Lights there. Crabbing at Dias Creek. Leszynski’s Pier and water ice shop. Waiting for the Crest bridge to go up. Waiting for the Crest bridge to go down. Playing Freedom. The McCarthy Boys. Strawberry shortcake and Carvel ice cream cake birthday cakes on the patio that my dad built. Going everywhere barefoot. Johnnysmoker trees. The Sightseer and Paddle Boat. Clotheslines. Kona Sports. The arcade on the Cape May Promenade. The Sweet Briar Motel pool. Mrs. Mackay’s bungalows. The treehouse my dad built. Taking boats to the sandbar. Watching the Dutch Kitchen burn down. St. Johns Avenue flooding and floating on boogie boards in the middle of the street. Spending every Labor Day on the Wildwood Boardwalk with the Kaspers. Ferry rides. Body boarding on Diamond Beach. WCBP Stand #26. Rino’s pizza. The Sunken ship. Looking for Cape May Diamonds with Nan. Bikes with steering wheels. First concert in Atlantic City—Paula Abdul. Riding our quads at the canal. Breaking down with that quad at the old crabbing bridge in North Wildwood. Reges Hotel pool squatting. The Beach Grill. Rainbow Ice Cream Parlor. A keg in the shed fridge. Mosquitoes. The old wooden bridge leading into North Wildwood. Pop McGuigan washing the ball off when we threw it out of the pool…sometimes on purpose. Seeing Live at the Wildwood Convention Center. Captain Dan’s. Working at Raging Waters. Meeting my best friend. Chambermaiding at The Holiday. Waitressing at the Batter. The Whaler’s Cove. Taking boats to the Ferry beach. The Shamrock. Meeting the love of my life. Bringing my babies down the shore for the first time. Poppy sausage.
Me and Dad on our patio that he built celebrating one of my summer birthdays.
In 2006 that little blue house was leveled to make room to build mom and dad’s retirement dream house. It would be there that my own babies would get to know and love the shore. Whether it was in the old Millman-style cottage, or the modern house that replaced it, that spot in the Villas was without question everyone’s favorite place, especially my dad. Spending time with his family there was all he ever wanted. “Don’t get any better than this,” he’d always say.
My Dad (Poppy) and my son Ben running through the sprinkler in the yard.
With the good, usually comes the bad…sometimes very bad. My dad took his last breath on December 8, 2021, in that house. He was the mayor of St. Johns Avenue and he was just… gone. Gone way too soon. There were so many more memories to be made. My life as I knew it stopped then and there. NOTHING was ever the same, especially when it came to being “down the shore.”
In many ways, my life was changed forever by cancer that night. My dad was the glue to our family, and with him gone there was nothing to hold it together anymore. In a sense, I lost my entire family as I knew it the night my dad died.
These days, my own family and I are still enjoying the shore, just differently. Honestly, I enjoy the shore more now in the off season. Our kids love all the traditional warm weather things…the beach, the boardwalk, the pool, boating, fishing and crabbing. But there’s something magical, maybe because it’s so different from most of my shore memories, in seeing ice in the bay and snow on the beach, in feeling a bitter cold wind on the promenade and seeing Congress Hall decorated for Christmas, in the deserted streets and blinking stop lights…
Things change. Seasons change. Life changes. People change. Family dynamics change.
Sometimes, even down the shore changes.
My Family at the “Home of the Best Sunsets.” Me, my daughter Hannah, my son Ben, my husband Joe and our youngest, Joey.
5 responses to “WHERE THE HELL IS THE VILLAS, NJ?”
Such a well stated memoir of the perfect villas. Flawed, yet perfect, filled with fabulous memories. My special years in my 600 sq ft home on east Miami from 2011-2022 captured such peace and joy like I’d never known. Hearing the church bells, learning about flooded streets and how
Quickly they recede. The snows, the walks and wine at sunsets, the breakfasts at castaway cafe, outside showers until February, the craziness and some fantastic neighbors. I feel the same about life changing when my daddy passed. The villas took us back in time 40 years with joys of simplicity. I’m in cape may now but truly miss it there. Life was peaceful!
Thanks for sharing such wonderful recollections of your decades of memories!
So many shared memories even though mine are decades older. I hope the Villas “vibe” never changes so each generation can have these experiences. My Millman is now hosting the 6th generation of family…just the best. Thanks for your article.
Love this article. We never had our own house down the shore, but my parents friends did. We always called it “The Villas “. We loved going down for a week, or even a weekend in the summer. What great memories. I can relate to a lot of these places, but the mud in the bay and the horseshoe crabs, they really hit home.
My Dad bought our home on Walnut ave , also a Millman house.I was 8 years old and was not crazy about leaving my friends in Southwest Philly for a whole summer,but I met a bunch of new one in the Villas. We were one block from the bay . We always went to Bowman’s lake which he built Great times, great new friends. My brother has the house now.
I spent a few childhood summers in the villas myself , with my grandparents.
Coverdale Ave was my summer address back then. I can remember going to the 5&10 store and buy little tiny doll furniture and dolls, playing in the back yard for hours under the shade from the trees. My older brother worked at the end of the street on the bay, at the marina. Back then we would go into the bay to swim, walk the beaches looking for shells . I have so many memories of the villas.Years after I became an adult with my own children, my mother returned to live in her senior years to Oregon ave behind the 7-11 across Bayshore Ave.
When we would visit I would love to ride past ( our) on Cloverdale and remember those wonderful , carefree, no drama and just peaceful times. I hope that someday my own grandchildren will have had a place in their own childhood where they felt peace, safe loved and contentment as I did.