A family who’s owned the Avalon ‘Monstrosity’ for 130+ years hopes to sell the home — on one condition

The house on the corner of Ninth Street and First Avenue in Avalon is known as the Monstrosity.

But it’s not a name whispered behind the backs of the owners of the house built in 1891. It’s on a sign they proudly display, following the tradition of naming Shore homes. The moniker is a nod to a family story featuring rowdy youths.

Bob Penrose Jr. said that in the 1950s, his mother and father used to hang out with their friends at the home his grandparents owned. One day, Penrose’s grandfather wasn’t feeling well and went to see a doctor staying at a nearby hotel. When he saw the doctor yawning and asked how he’d slept, the doctor replied, “That darn monstrosity down the street was making racket all night long.”

That house was, of course, his grandfather’s. Penrose’s father made a sign commemorating the complaint, “and it’s been the Monstrosity ever since,” Penrose said.

Now the family, who has owned the house since it was built, plans to sell it and the double lot it sits on. A handful of real estate agents have reached out, Penrose said, but the family hasn’t yet listed the property for sale. They’re hoping to find a buyer who would agree to preserve the home.

Up and down the Jersey Shore, people have been buying old and smaller homes and replacing them with new and bigger ones. Avalon has seen its share of teardowns. Penrose, who is president of the borough’s historical society and a builder who spent many years working on historical homes across Avalon, estimates that a couple dozen houses from the Monstrosity’s era are still standing. He knows saving every historical home is unrealistic, but the Monstrosity is personal.

“Despite the fact we want to sell it, we still want to see it saved,” said Penrose, who is the oldest of eight siblings. “We just kind of put the word out on Facebook hoping to find a sympathetic party.”

The house has gotten some interest, but no one has agreed to buy it.

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“I’ve given up on the family keeping it,” Penrose said, “but I have not given up on somebody keeping it as a home.”

The owners could add language to the deed that restricts what can be done on the property, but “it would definitely reduce the value,” said Avalon-based real estate agent Allan “Dutch” Dechert. “I don’t know how many [buyers] would be willing.”

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The broker at Ferguson Dechert Real Estate lives about eight blocks from the property and passes it often. He said that since the house sits on a double lot and is in a good location, it could probably sell for $5 million to $6 million. The owners are shopping it around for $5.5 million.

Maybe someone philanthropically minded or who loves history would agree to preserve the home, Dechert said.

But in Avalon, even 20-year-old homes are getting knocked down, he said. “And someone will rebuild and build a McMansion.”

Penrose acknowledged that “this house is not the kind of house that the modern Avalon buyer would necessarily be interested in.” The 2,000-square-foot Monstrosity isn’t as big as new houses being built, doesn’t have air-conditioning, and doesn’t have a pool.

But the owners point out that there’s plenty of space to build a pool, expand the house, and/or add another house on the second lot. And the home’s original windows, including transom ones, do a good job channeling the sea breeze and cooling the space, even without the ceiling fans the family installed.

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There was some discussion in the family about whether to keep the house, modernize it, and rent it out. But they ultimately decided to let it go.

The main house has four bedrooms and two full bathrooms. There’s another bedroom and bathroom in a ground-floor addition from the 1930s. The home has a wraparound porch and large sundeck.

Over the decades, the family replaced pilings with a foundation and updated the home’s electric and plumbing systems. A new owner would need to do some maintenance work.

Penrose has worked in construction in Avalon for decades. On older homes, he often built large additions that had modern amenities and complemented the original structure, which was preserved.

What he’d like “is for somebody to do what I did for historic homes,” he said. There’s enough space that someone could “make a nice little compound.”

The Monstrosity sits in the north end of Avalon, which was the first area to be developed after the railroad came to town in the late 1800s and spurred construction, Penrose said.

A mile and a half from the Monstrosity is another Avalon home built during that era. Sand Spur was constructed 11 years earlier and was the first to be recognized by the Avalon Register of Historic Places. Current owner Alex Anastasio bought it in 2020 from her parents and said it was a dream come true to be able to keep the home in the family, which has owned it for three decades.

Penrose built an addition and did some repair work on Sand Spur in the 1990s.

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He grew up in Montgomery County but stayed in Monstrosity with his grandparents as a teenager while he worked summer jobs. He moved to Avalon in 1973 and lived in an apartment until his grandfather persuaded him to move in to save money.

Penrose later ran his home-building business out of the garage. In 2001 when Penrose renovated his current home 15 minutes away in Clermont, his family stayed in Monstrosity.

Though Dechert is in real estate, he said that as someone who has lived in the borough for 49 years and whose wife and children were born and raised there, he would like to see the home preserved.

“It would be nice if they can work something out like that,” he said, “but who knows?”

The owners hope to find a buyer by mid-September. After that, they’ll consider listing the home.