Victorious by the Sea Victorian moves across the street
Agreement with waterfront redeveloper iStar saves couple's 133-year-old home
A decade’s long quest to save their 1883 Victorian home on Seventh Avenue was realized Wednesday morning, when Richard and Johna Karpinski moved the three-story house across the street to Webb.
“We’ve owned the house for 27 years,” Johna Karpinski said. “We bought it as an investment property with the idea that we would want to restore it because it’s such a grand old home and it’s so close to beach.”
Courtesy of Tim Horn, Badboxersphotography.com.
While the Hazlet natives worked over the years to transform the five unit rental property into a single family home, the threat of eminent domain hung over their heads. A shift in the waterfront redevelopment agreement [WRA] allowed then waterfront redeveloper Asbury Partners the ownership all properties within the redevelopment zone. Under the new agreement, the home was slated for demolition, Karpinksi said.
“When Asbury Partners took over the waterfront redevelopment, we tried to get them work with us but that wasn’t going anywhere,” she said. “Then when iStar came on board we had meaningful conversations with them and were able to work out an arrangement.”
iStar’s Senior Vice President of Land and Development Brian Cheripka said the agreement was a win for both parties and allowed things to move forward by working together.
“We bought the home from them in 2013 because it is in the redevelopment area,” Cheripka said. “After buying the house, we allowed them to live there until their new home was ready.”
But close to a year after the initial deal, the couple returned to iStar with a request to save the historic home.
“They came back and said they wanted to keep the actual house and move it across the street to a lot they had purchased,” Cheripka said. “We said okay.”
The couple was able to continue living on the iStar owned land for two additional years.
Named Victorious by the Sea, the house is listed on the Monmouth County Historic Sites inventory, Karpinski said.
“We wanted to save the house because we just thought it was beautiful, grand old home,” she said. “We just thought it would be such a shame, on many levels if it ended up in a landfill. It’s not a green built home and you could never get the character and charm of something built 130 plus years ago.”
Karpinski, a member of the Asbury Park Historical Society, said the home may be the oldest structure of its kind along the waterfront.
So on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m., cranes arrived to transport the house across the street.
“Brian and iStar were absolutely fantastic to work with,” she said. “This would not have happened without iStar and the City Council’s cooperation and understanding.”
Karpinski said they vacated the home two months ago in order to allow for the capping of utilities. It will take a bit longer to return as construction begins to build the structure’s foundation.
Along with the foundation build will come the rebuilding of a porch and back of house addition [shown in architect rendering above right], removed to allow across the street transport. For the time being, they are residing around the corner, she said.
“Saving the house is one of things we agreed on completely,” Karpinski said of her close to 30 year marriage to husband Richard. “It’s the perfect mix – I’ve always wanted to live in the city and he’s always wanted to live along the beach so we both got exactly what we wanted.”
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