By Sherry conohan
Staff Writer
CHRIS KELLY Members of the Tradewinds Beach Club are again enjoying their summer at the Shore, but plans to build houses on the property mean their future summers of fun will have to take place elsewhere.
SEA BRIGHT — They all have the same question: Where will we go?
Faced with the prospect of losing their beloved beach club to a development of 20 single-family homes, members of the Tradewinds have begun to explore other possibilities for the future but with little or no success.
"This is our life in the summer," said Dana Houlihan of the Belford section of Middletown as she unloaded her children and gear from her car.
"We’re sick over it," she said of the anticipated closing. "I’ve been here since my oldest was a newborn, and he’s 10 now."
Houlihan said her family has a cabana, and from what she has heard, there’s no chance of getting a cabana at another beach club. She said she hasn’t fully explored all the possibilities, but the Sands won’t even take applications.
"It’s just going to leave so many families at a loss," she said.
Cindy Wilson of Middletown said she’s been a member of the Tradewinds for 17 years and her three boys look forward to going there every summer.
"It’s more than just a beach club; it’s a community," she said. "The same families have been coming for years. It’s very sad."
Wilson said the beach club she checked out has a waiting list that’s five years long with 400 names on it. She, too, has a cabana and doubts she can replace it.
Dolores Schibell of Long Branch, a member of the Tradewinds for 20 years, sat with her friend Jean Zachmann, a member for 14 years, in the poolside cabana with complete kitchen that they share with four other people.
Zachmann, a former resident of Freehold who now lives in Bonita Springs, Fla., said she was "devastated" at the news of the development that’s proposed. She said she spends her summers in New Jersey to be at the club. She said she went to the nearby Water’s Edge Beach Club to inquire about membership there and found it had 400 people on the waiting list.
"We can’t believe they would take a beach club away when there’s such demand," Schibell said.
Zachmann said the cabana is equipped with a shower, a television, a telephone and a stove.
"We have dinner down here almost every night," she said.
"We even come when it rains," Schibell added.
Diane Bielefeldt and John Jarvis, from Ocean Township, said they had been members of the Tradewinds Beach Club since 1977.
As they relaxed in front of their cabana, also with a complete kitchen and overlooking the pool, Bielefeldt said she guessed they’ll have to look into other clubs if the Tradewinds closes, but she worried that they are not as nice and that they don’t stay open as late as the Tradewinds, which is open until 10 p.m. on weekday evenings and until midnight Friday and Saturday.
Some of them charge more money, too, she noted.
"It’s very depressing," she said.
Jarvis, who grows his own basil in pots at the cabana, said they’d get along. "We’ll just go to the racetrack every day," he said. Turning more serious, he added, "We’ll probably go to a public beach and eat at home."
Pat Ray, a Middletown resident, said she’s been coming to the Tradewinds since she was a little girl and went to it with neighbors. Now she brings her grandchild.
"I’m not happy about it," she said of the potential closing. "It’s sad — and it probably will go on down the line" of beach clubs on the oceanfront.
Asked what she planned to do, she replied, "I don’t know. We have a boat and we have a pool at home. We’ll be very disappointed if it closes."
Paul Hemberger and Laura Hoarle, also Middletown residents, said nobody’s happy about the prospect of the beach club closing.
"Everybody seems to be scrambling around trying to find a new beach club," Hemberger said. "I looked at one that has a 10-year waiting list."
"It’s kind of sad," he said, while noting the change the proposed housing development would bring in his job as a mailman in the area. "I’ll be going from one stop to 20 stops," he observed.