Stockton to Send Crew to Deteriorating Ponderlodge

VILLAS – With fallen trees blocking paths and more shattered windows in the main building, Ponderlodge is looking abandoned these days.
Crows roost in a dead tree near the former mansion building with its swimming pool full of crumbling concrete, scolding any one walking nearby like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds.” The formerly secure second story of the main lodge is once again open to vandals and the weather.
A lease between Ponderlodge’s owners, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Richard M. Stockton College has been in the works for one year. The college wants to turn the buildings and some of the acreage into an environmental education center.
Lower Township Manager Kathy McPherson told the Herald Mayor Michael Beck received a message from Sen. Jeff Van Drew that he would intercede on behalf of the township and make sure the property was secure and safe. She said the mayor was assured by Stockton College they would send a crew to Ponderlodge next week.
McPherson said she believed the change in government in Trenton had slowed down completion of the lease.
DEP spokesman Larry Hajna told Herald the state agency had spoken with Stockton College in the past two weeks about moving forward with the lease.
“It was a very productive meeting,” he said. “Stockton has agreed to do some temporary repairs to the building such as securing the windows.”
Hajna said the college was working on a conceptual plan to present to DEP. He called the lease “a work in progress.”
Wildlife seems to be flourishing in the chest high grass on the golf course’s former fairways. Frogs and turtles are occupying a number of ponds while bluebirds and butterflies are alight above blooming wildflowers. A number of young saplings planted last fall to reforest former greens of the golf course appear to have died from the severe winter.