It was the beach that drew Jeanne and Pat McGuiness and their four children to Spring Lake summer after summer. But when the couple decided to move permanently to the Shore town famous for its tree-lined streets and gracious old homes, the one thing they didn’t want was a beach house. “Since this was going […]

There’s nothing more inviting for an artist than a blank canvas, and that’s what Elizabeth Ruffalo of Pheasant Lane Designs in Allendale got when Barbara Warmkessel reached out to her for help decorating a newly built, five-bedroom home in Brielle. The Warmkessels were moving from Jackson in order to be closer to the beach, and […]

Superstorm Sandy in 2012 didn’t care about tradition when it devastated a Lavallette beach house that had been in the Hunkele family for years. But this family not only bounced back from the loss of one of the street’s original bungalows, they expanded their homesite into an adjacent lot and hired a designer for a […]

Rich Cording Sr., who co-owns his family’s CLC Landscape Design in Ringwood, was preparing a backyard project for a Franklin Lakes property when he learned that the homeowner was one of the area’s top physicians. “After we met and he saw me struggle to walk up his driveway,” says Cording, “he told me I might […]

When Robyn and Alex Kelly and their five kids, then ages 5, 9, 12, 14 and 20, moved into their custom-built, 8,200-square- foot, New England shingle-style dream home in Westfield in 2012, they thought they had all the bells and whistles. With seven bedrooms, seven-and-a-half bathrooms, a three-car garage and 2.5 acres of landscaped property […]