The Doll Houses of Ocean City

My cousin sent a few articles to me about the Doll HOuses of Wovern Place in Ocean City and I am about to returnn them to her so I thought I would post about them. I think I may have done a post about them before, but I can't remember. My cousin Patty, by the way, lives in the Villas, near Cape May, another interesting seashore location! Once when we were visiting a seashore historical society, we came across an old advertisement for the houses where she now lives. It was a charming holiday advertisement with the holly corner decorations and the houses were so ridiculously inexpensive that we had to gasp! Patty's mother bought the house in the Villas decades ago and when she died, she left the house to her only child, Patty. When Patty's husband died, Patty used some of her inheritance to renovate the Villas house, modernized the electrical and plumbing, the roof and so on, then she packed up and moved from her family home in Norristown, Pa. where she and her husband had raised three sons, to the Villas to start a new life.

Patty and I were both very closely connected to our Grandmother Mabel who had, herself, moved to the seashore after her husband, my grandfather, died. Grandmom moved into a house owned by her sister and took care of their mother, my great=grandmother after a catastrophic stroke left her paralyzed. She took care of her for 15 years! During all the years of my childhood, my father, mother, and the brother closest to my age, went to Ocean City visit with my Grandmother almost every weekend. We played on the beach and walked on the 'boards' which is what locals always called the boarwalk. My grandmother worked in summer on the boardwalk at an amusement arcade, in a ticket booth. In winter, she worked in Stainton's Department Store. She worked all the way into her 80's, until she had a heart attack. My grandmother lived with her brother, my Uncle Yock, most of their adult lives after her mother passed away. So, we spent a lot of time in Ocen City and had a lot of favorite and intimately familiar places. My all time favorite was the big Warehouse two doors down from my grandmother's place - Scott' Storage. They had a lot of maritime salvage including ship's prow heads sculpture, a cigar store Indian, and a great deal of enormous Victorian furniture, most likely the orphaned furnishings of previoos seashore residents who were replaced by modern people who wanted lighter, summery furniture rather than the heavy dark wood furniture of the past.

Though I explored vigorously growing up, wherever I was, in the city of my birth, Philadelphia, or in Ocean City, I never came upon the Doll Houses of Wovern Place, even though they were aparently not far from the last house my grandmother had before she died, which was at 11th and Bay Avenue. According to the article sent by my cousin, the deeds on the houses go back to 1871. The houses are located in an area around 13th and 15th Streets and Bay Avenue. My grandmother's house was just a house up from the fishing pier over the Bay, another favorite spot of mine. Just thinking about it now, I can smell the briny bay. My cousin's directions are to take Bay going north from 34th Street, turn left on 15th to Wovern Place then turn right on Wovern She said the houses are only on opne side.

If, like me, you enjoy the seashore off season and in winter, you may like to make the Doll Houses a 'go to- goal or your next drive to the shore. Now that I have a new car, I just might give it a 'go' myself!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com