VILLAS – The Nathaniel Foster house on Bayshore Road has a story to tell. The history of lower Cape May County may be preserved because this nearly 300-year-old house was recently saved from destruction through the efforts of Cape May County and Lower Township.
Villas was first settled in the 1600s as a whaling town that was called New England Town and Portsmouth. The house was built circa 1727 on a 100-acre plot that ran from Bayshore to Delaware Bay and from Cardinal Avenue to Drumbed Road.
According to Lower Township Preservation Commission Chair Parry Tell, the house known by many as the “Pink House” on Bayshore Road, dates to 1724, and thus predates the United States of America.
It is named after an early 18th-century county judge whose son fought in the Revolution.
Tell added “The house is on the state and National Register of Historic Places and is believed to have spawned the creation of Bayshore Road, a route that allowed Foster to get to the courthouse in Portsmouth, which is thought to be present-day Town Bank.
According to the Preservation Commission, Nathaniel Foster began in that area as a whaler, but because the shoreline began encroaching inland, and the whaling industry began to fail, he became a farmer and carpenter about the time that the house was built.
He was subsequently named a Justice of the Peace and traveled what later became Bayshore Road each day to the courthouse that is believed to have been located at or near the site of the Cape May Beach Homeowner’s Association building on Clubhouse Road.
Tell explained that the last surviving Foster, Isabella Sakewicz left the property to the Cape May County Historical Society. “The home was saved from the wrecking ball in 2016 after a resolution (in Lower Township) was passed to execute a contract of sale between the Cape May County Historical and Genealogical Society (CMCHGS), which had ran and owned the home since 2006, for the 1.2-acre property at 1649 Bayshore Road for $235,000, and the county’s Open Space Program.”
According to Township Administrator James Ridgway and Councilman Thomas Conrad, the sale of the Foster property to the county’s Open Space Program, and the lease of the property to Lower Township for preservation purposes means the house and its adjoining property will be conserved and protected for the future.
Conrad suggested that after urgently needed stabilizing repairs are made to the roof, etc. he hopes that the house will become a museum or community asset that will help tell the story of Lower Township for generations to come.
To contact Jim McCarty, email jmccarty@cmcherald.com.
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