242 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



July, 19 13 



Home of Dr. S. A. Brown at the Water Witch Club, New Jersey 



A Club Colony of Homes and Gardens 



By Margaret Noel 

 Photographs by T. C. Turner 



WENTY miles from New York as the crow 

 flies, among the tree-clad Highlands of 

 Navesink near the Twin Lights, lies the 

 cottage settlement of "Water-Witch." The 

 traveler bound for one of the seaside 

 places farther south flying past on the ex- 

 press is unconscious of the existence of the little colony in 

 the hills above him, and it is only when one leaves the train 

 at the Water Witch station and approaches the spot where 

 these houses are located that the really extraordinary setting 

 of the place is revealed to him. "Can this be the Jersey 



coast?'' is the 

 question often 

 asked by those to 

 whom hitherto the 

 word coast has im- 

 plied a treeless 

 stretch of sand 

 and sun, instead 

 of what is found 

 here, a winding 

 roads from which 

 I one becomes sen- 

 sible to the sur- 



First floor plan, Brown house 



rounding woodlands and glimpses of houses among trees 

 through the green branches a glimmer of distant water 

 is seen. Then as the stranger climbs higher the view 

 widens, water, a bit of land, more water, until arriving at 

 the summit a superb panorama reveals itself to him. Where 

 now he stands above the tree tops, the great ocean lies 

 before him leagues and leagues to the horizon, breaking 

 in the foreground into a line of white surf on the shore of 

 Sandy Hook. Sandy Hook itself is now seen spread out flat 

 and map-like, curving in and out of the Shrewsbury River 

 and preventing the ocean from encroaching on the river's 

 rights. Looking 

 to the northeast, 

 the low shore of 

 Long Island run- 

 ning seawards 

 shows white 

 against the sky, 

 and tall gray phan- 

 tom-like structures 

 line its sands. Due 

 north towards 

 New York is the 

 water way known 



Second floor plan, Brown house 



