Just Listed at the Shore: Bayside Midcentury Rancher in Stone Harbor

Neat as a pin and impeccably maintained, this 1960 rancher at 387 83rd St., Stone Harbor, NJ 08204, turns its best side towards the bay it sits on. It’s move-in ready — but if you plan to replace it with something grander, several good hotels are a short distance away. | Cape May County Association of Realtors MLS images via Compass

Once again, they had me at the knotty pine.

This building material, the wood that made the American Dream in the 1950s, abounds in the Poconos, as you should have discovered from the Poconos vacation houses featured in this section since last winter.

But it’s not all that common at the Jersey Shore, at least not anymore. The main reason it isn’t, however, is because so many of the houses where you’d find it have been torn down and replaced by newer, larger ones.

I suspect that will also be the fate of this Stone Harbor midcentury ranch house for sale. But maybe someone with a desire to preserve the past will prove me wrong.

It would be easy for them to do so, for this house looks as good as it did when it was built in 1960 — it’s been meticulously maintained.

Front porch

Of course, its front porch faces this house’s biggest draw: the bay it sits on. Of course, this house comes with its own boat dock with two boat slips.

Living-dining room

Living room

Step through the front door and you enter an open living-dining room. It has a wall of windows to let the sunshine and bay views in and a gas stove for warmth on chilly nights.

Breakfast room

Turn left just inside the front door in order to enter the breakfast room. It too is ringed by windows that look out on the bay.

Kitchen

The kitchen, which got updated sometime in the 1980s judging from the cabinetry and appliances, lies on the landward side of the breakfast room.

Primary bedroom

This house’s three bedrooms lie off a corridor leading from the living-dining room to the back of the house. The primary bedroom is located at the rear. next to the one-car garage incorporated into this house.

Primary bathroom

Its en-suite bedroom has the true Sixties look. Its tilework is in great shape, though, as is the tile in the hall bath that serves the rest of the house.

View of house and dock from the bay

As this house sits just south of the Stone Harbor-Avalon border, it’s close to not only the Stone Harbor Playground but also several resort hotels at Avalon’s south end, including the ICONA Beach Resort and the attached Avalon Brew Pub. Having stayed there, I can recommend it as the place to put up the visiting guests you can’t accommodate at your own place.

But maybe you’d rather house those guests yourself. The listing agent helpfully points out that this house sits on a 5,200-square-foot lot that can hold a 2,600-square-foot house. That’s almost double the size of this one. And you would still have room for a bayside swimming pool.

Aerial view of house from street side

A $2.9 million teardown strikes me as a little steep, but hey, this is Seven Mile Island, where newer houses like this one on the next cove to the south sell for twice that amount or more. Given that potential, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the buyer of this Stone Harbor midcentury ranch house for sale did tear it down and build something newer, bigger and grander on this site. Even the most nostalgic of buyers might find that temptation too hard to resist.

THE FINE PRINT

BEDS: 3

BATHS: 2

SQUARE FEET: 1,424

SALE PRICE: $2,895,000

387 83rd St., Stone Harbor, N.J. 08247 [Hugh Merkle | Hugh Merkle Team | Compass]