Book details long-ago summer camps, resorts BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer COURTESY OF GENE DONATIELLO AND JOHN G. LEAVEY A selection of photos from "Greetings from Brick Township" includes (top) horseback riding at Camp Metedeconk, campers and counselors at the Princeton Summer Camp in 1920. BRICK TOWNSHIP - The boys and the young men in the photo are mostly likely all gone now. They peer at us through time, a vision from an idyllic summer back in 1920. They were campers and counselors from the long-gone Princeton Summer Camp, which was born on the shores of the Metedeconk back in 1909. The photo is just one of many postcards and pictures featured in town historian Gene E. Donatiello's latest book "Greetings from Brick Township - a history of 20th century summer camps and resorts in Brick Township, New Jersey." Donatiello co-wrote the 54-page book with John G. Leavey. It's replete with photos and postcards from a simpler time, before the opening of the Garden State Parkway in 1954 changed everything. Donatiello has been collecting information for the book for years. "I'm kind of a pack rat," he said. "I collected the information. I had to do something with it. I think it's something people have to know about." In the early part of the 20th century, the land along the Metedeconk River was a virtual forest, full of freshwater fish, plenty of game and cranberry bogs. The pristine Metedeconk - Lenni Lenape for "land of the tall timbers" - was an ideal location for hunting and fishing clubs and summer camps. The Princeton Summer Camp started with one bungalow and 2 acres of land on a sand road that eventually became Princeton Avenue. By 1920, the camp had grown to 12 acres and 10 buildings. "The land was inexpensive, it was lightly populated," Donatiello said. "When you have kids at camp, they make a lot of noise." Nearby Maxon's farm provided milk for the campers from 14 cows, who were walked to the meadows on Barnegat Bay every day. But the Princeton Summer Camp pulled out in 1929, because the area was getting "too crowded," Donatiello said. COURTESY OF GENE DONATIELLO AND JOHN G. LEAVEY The Breton Woods Clubhouse back in the 1930s. The photo is featured in "Greetings from Brick Township," a new book that chronicles the birth of summer camps and resorts in Brick. The New Jersey Episcopal Choir Camp - Camp NEJECHO - was located on the south shore of the river on a sand road that eventually became Mantoloking Road. The camp came to an end in 1940, when choir officials sold the land to the Nejecho Corp., which developed a community of private homes with a beach on the river known as the NEJECHO Beach Club. The area was also home to Camp Eagle, Camp Burton, Camp Metedeconk, Camp Freedom, The Cedars and Camp Beadleston, none of which exist today. The first section of the book is devoted to the camps that once lined the river. The second half focuses on the development of summer resort communities, many of which still exist today, but are now year-round. The resort communities were very selective when it came to buyers, Donatiello said. "There is no restriction as to how much money is spent on a cottage or cabin, but there is a restriction as to who spends it," read the sales brochure for the Cherry Quay development from the 1930s. The Vanard Corp. offered "twice the fun at half the cost" for homes in the Normandy Beach section of the township. New Colonial summer homes were priced from $3,500 to $6,500. That included the land, house and a dock on Barnegat Bay. The Laurelton in the Pines Co. began building log cabin homes back in 1927, primarily to attract duck hunters to the Forge Pond area. The cedar-log cabins were rustic, to say the least. They were heated by an iron-stone fireplace. "You had cabin walls maybe 6 feet high," Donatiello said. "You could leave it that way. A lot of people just left them that way." There are only a few cabins left with their original exteriors, he said. The book also details a variety of summer resorts that include Shore Acres, Godfrey Manor Country Club, Riviera Beach, Beverly Beach, Cedarwood Park, Breton Woods, Cape Breton, Vanada Woods, Kingfisher Cove, Baywood, Breton Harbor, Mariners Cove, Cedarcroft, Windward Beach and Lake Riviera. The book, published by the Brick Township Historical Society, sells for $15. It's available at the Havens Homestead Museum on Herbertsville Road. For more information, visit the society's Web site at www.bricktwphistoricalsociety.com. "My fun is doing the research," Donatiello said. "Promoting it is not my bag. The society will sell them and make a profit on them."