Harvey Cedars, LBI — Borough of Harvey Cedars v. Karan, the March 1962 Storm, and the Harvey Cedars Hotel

A Case That Settled for $1, a Storm That Leveled Half the Town, and a Hotel Still Open Since 1841

Harvey Cedars' identity starts with a case every New Jersey real estate or eminent-domain lawyer knows, but that generic LBI real-estate sites never connect to the buyers and relocators who actually consider living here. Borough of Harvey Cedars v. Karan began when the Borough, as part of a federal, state, and local beach-restoration and storm-protection initiative, sought a perpetual easement covering 3,381 square feet -- more than a quarter -- of Harvey and Phyllis Karan's 11,868-square-foot oceanfront lot, in order to build a 22-foot-high protective dune. The Karans had turned down the Borough's original offer of $300 for the easement. When they declined to consent, the Borough exercised eminent domain, and the resulting dune blocked the panoramic ocean view from the upper decks of their home. A jury sided with the Karans, awarding $375,000 in just compensation. The Borough appealed, and on July 8, 2013, the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed, holding that non-speculative, reasonably calculable benefits a public project confers on a property -- such as storm protection from a new dune -- must be factored into just-compensation awards in partial-takings cases, even if neighbors enjoy the same general benefit. The case was sent back for retrial, but instead it settled in September 2013 for exactly $1 -- a genuinely ironic ending to a dispute that began over a $300 offer and passed through a $375,000 jury verdict along the way. This page states that outcome as fully resolved law, not an ongoing dispute, and takes no position on the underlying property-rights-versus-storm-protection policy debate.

That case did not happen in a vacuum -- Harvey Cedars has a real, catastrophic storm history of its own, separate from the Hurricane Sandy figures already used to describe neighboring Ship Bottom and Surf City. In 1944, a hurricane struck with little advance warning, destroying 20% of the borough's homes and causing significant beach erosion; a real oceanfront pavilion built by Jason Fenimore was destroyed in that storm. Far worse came in March 1962, when a nor'easter regionally remembered as the Ash Wednesday Storm -- often called the "Storm of the Century" -- became the most destructive storm in the borough's history, destroying roughly 350 homes, about half of Harvey Cedars' ratables, and earning the borough the specific, sourced distinction of being the most heavily-damaged town on the entire New Jersey coast. Read together with the Karan case six decades later, it is a coherent, real story: a town that lost half its homes to a single 1962 storm, and that decades afterward fought -- and ultimately settled for $1 -- over exactly how much a protective dune is worth to the property it partially takes.

Harvey Cedars is also home to a real, still-operating historic hotel with a longer continuous story than either neighboring LBI town's landmark. An original one-story house was built by Sylvanus Cox sometime between soon after the War of 1812 and 1837. Captain Samuel Perrine bought and expanded it in 1841 into the "Connahassett House at Harvest Cedars," a boarding house for fishermen and duck hunters with a public dance hall that drew sailing parties for evening entertainment, and grounds self-sufficient enough to supply fruit, garden produce, animals, and local seafood. John Warner Kinsey ran it as a sportsman's boarding house known locally as "Kinsey's" from 1865 through June 1880; Captain Isaac and Mary Jennings took over by 1881, with Mary upgrading the kitchen to island hotel standards of the era. William Thompson managed the property from 1886 to at least 1907, adding a third floor, a gambrel roof, dormers, a central tower, and large porches. It ceased operating as a hotel around 1910 and was sold by the Harvey Cedars Beach Company by 1912, then ran as Camp Whelen, a YWCA Christian summer camp, from 1923 to 1935. In 1941, Presbyterian minister Jack Murray purchased the property and converted it into the Harvey Cedars Bible Presbyterian Conference, later renamed the Harvey Cedars Bible Conference under Al Oldham's management from 1951 to 1995 and continued by his son Jon. The building operates today as the Victorian Hotel, the main property of the Harvey Cedars Bible Conference -- no current room rates or booking details are stated here since none were confirmed. Captain Isaac Jennings, the hotel's owner, also became the borough's first mayor when Harvey Cedars incorporated. Elsewhere in town, a US Life-Saving Station -- one of the country's earliest -- operated here in the late 1800s, and Wood's Island served as a summer retreat associated with "The Philadelphia Club" and the Harvey Cedars Outing Club.

The name itself has its own real, documented origin, distinct from both Ship Bottom's shipwreck story and Surf City's multiple-renaming story. The earliest known reference to the area appears in a 1751 deed calling the place "Harvest Quarters," referring to a hammock and clump of cedars; per the Borough's own history page, "harvest cedars" evolved phonetically into "Harvey Cedars," while Wikipedia offers a consistent variation -- that the name likely derives from the "harvest" housing used by farmers together with the cedars that grew in the area. Before Long Beach Island was developed, its northern reaches, from Barnegat Inlet to the Great Swamp (now Surf City), were covered with Atlantic white cedar, and early inhabitants harvested salt hay and seaweed for a living. The community's post office was originally called "High Point" before the US Postal Service renamed it in the 1930s to avoid confusion with a different High Point in Sussex County, New Jersey. On incorporation itself, sources genuinely differ: Wikipedia states Harvey Cedars was incorporated as a borough on December 15, 1894, from portions of Union Township (now Barnegat Township), following a referendum held November 20, 1894, while the Borough's own history page states incorporation occurred on December 11, 1894, when residents seceded from Union Township. Both dates are presented honestly here rather than asserting one as correct. Captain Isaac Jennings, owner of the hotel described above, became the borough's first mayor.

On geography and everyday life: Harvey Cedars is a coastal borough on Long Beach Island in southern Ocean County, fronting both the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay, bordering Barnegat Township, Long Beach Township, and Stafford Township. Its total area is just 1.19 square miles -- 0.56 square miles of land and 0.63 square miles of water, meaning more than half the borough's footprint (52.61%) is water, a distinctly different profile from neighboring Ship Bottom's and Surf City's mostly-land footprints. The climate is humid subtropical, with winter snowfall averaging 12 to 18 inches (February the snowiest month) and an average annual ocean-water temperature of 54 degrees Fahrenheit, ranging from 35 degrees in February to 73 degrees in August. The 2020 census counted just 391 year-round residents, up 54 (16.0%) from 337 in 2010 and 359 in 2000 -- one of the smallest year-round populations of any market on this site -- while the summer population reaches approximately 12,000, since the large majority of the borough's housing units are seasonal and used mainly by owners who live elsewhere. Dated 2010 census figures show a population density of 604.6 per square mile, 99.11% White residents, and a median age of 61.6, with 41.8% of residents aged 65 or older; 2010 income figures put median household income at $106,875 and median family income at $112,656, with a 4.2% poverty rate -- all hedged here as dated snapshots, not current figures. Housing here skews toward high value, with many bay- or oceanfront houses priced at $2 million or more as a general characterization rather than a current median, and 2019 total borough property assessment exceeding $1.28 billion; no exact current (2025/2026) median home sale price or property-tax rate specific to Harvey Cedars was independently confirmed, so none is stated as fact here. Harvey Cedars has operated under the Walsh Act form of municipal government -- a commission form -- since 1923, one of only 30 New Jersey municipalities structured this way, with three commissioners elected at-large on a non-partisan basis to concurrent four-year terms; as of the dated source material behind this page (terms expiring December 31, 2027), the roster was Mayor Johnathan M. Imperiale (Commissioner of Public Affairs and Public Safety), Joseph F. Gieger (Commissioner of Public Works, Parks and Public Property), and Paul George Rice (Commissioner of Revenue and Finance) -- hedged as dated, not necessarily current as of 2026. Younger students attend the Long Beach Island Consolidated School District (also serving Barnegat Light, Long Beach Township, Ship Bottom, and Surf City) at Ethel Jacobsen School (PreK-2, in Surf City) and Long Beach Island Grade School (3-6, in Ship Bottom), with 215 total students and a 7.0-to-1 student-teacher ratio as of the 2020-21 snapshot; older students attend Southern Regional School District in Manahawkin (902 students in grades 7-8, 1,975 in grades 9-12). A real, documented funding disparity exists there: because of a property-value-based formula, Harvey Cedars and Long Beach Township pay over $200,000 per pupil, while Stafford Township pays roughly $3,600 per student despite sending 90% of the district's enrollment -- stated here factually, without editorializing on fairness. County Route 607 (Long Beach Boulevard) is the main road; Ocean County Ride's OC9 LBI North route and the free LBI Shuttle (every 5 to 20 minutes, 10am to 10pm along Long Beach Boulevard) provide local transit.

A handful of real, documented notable residents round out the picture: Francis Biddle (1886-1968), US Attorney General from 1941 to 1945, owned a summer home here; composer Wendy Mae Chambers (born 1953); watercolor painter and teacher Paul L. Gill (1894-1938); Sue May Gill (1887-1989), artist and member of the Philadelphia Ten; Surrealist artist Leon Kelly (1901-1982); and Nathan Gregory Silvermaster (1898-1964), a War Production Board economist who, per source material, also headed a Communist spy ring during World War II -- presented here factually and evenhandedly as a documented historical matter, not an ongoing dispute. This is a New Jersey market, not a Delaware one: New Jersey levies a real state sales tax and has its own property-tax system, distinct from any no-sales-tax framing used elsewhere on this site. This is the third Long Beach Island market built on this site, immediately following Ship Bottom and Surf City, and this page deliberately does not re-cover Ship Bottom's shipwreck-name and Ron Jon Surf Shop story, or Surf City's Connors mayoral-dynasty and naming-precedence story -- those belong to those towns alone, and Harvey Cedars' own Hurricane Sandy damage percentage is not stated here since none was confirmed in this research pass. This page is independent research, not legal, tax, insurance, or financial advice; confirm anything time-sensitive with the appropriate licensed professional or local government office before making a decision.