Fenwick Island, NY Times Style

Friday's New York Times ran a small article about Fenwick Island (Delaware) and, being the ever-educator I try to be, I decided to 'borrow' it and cut and paste it onto my blog for my friends to read. It's not that great, but decidedly exciting that Fenwick Island is finally getting mad props instead of playing second and third fiddle to Bethany Beach and Rehoboth... great beaches, no doubt, but overplayed. Totally overplayed.

(You can click here to read the article directly from the NYTimes, or just read what I cut and pasted below. Probably illegally, but ahh well.)

Pleasures of the Shore, With Little of the Froth

by Dave Caldwell, The New York Times

A WHITE stone lighthouse, 87 feet tall and 147 years old, stands silently at the southern tip of Fenwick Island, no more than 10 feet north of the border with Maryland. The lighthouse is the entry to what locals call "slower lower" Delaware.

Unlike its noisier neighbor, Ocean City, Md., and the growing Delaware coast resort towns like Rehoboth Beach, Fenwick Island has continued to lure second-home buyers with not much more than the promise of peace and quiet on summer weekends.

Perched on a spit of sand between Little Assawoman Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, Fenwick Island is not that big or that populous. It does not offer a lot of modern creature comforts, either, but full-time and part-time residents see that as a good thing.

"We still don't have a Starbucks here," said Jerean Adkins, a real estate agent who grew up on Fenwick Island. But there is a modest off-beach boardwalk near the Fisher's caramel-corn stand and the Viking miniature golf course (with a steam-breathing dragon).

The beach itself is clean, wide and uncluttered. Besides lounging in the sun, residents can sail, kayak, bicycle, ride water scooters, skim-board, windsurf and go crabbing and surf fishing. Those who have a need for a big boardwalk can find it about 10 miles south in Ocean City.

"We used to vacation in Maine almost every summer, but Maine is too far away," said Debbie Ferry, a resident of West Chester, Pa., who just bought a four-bedroom house on a pond west of town with her husband, David. "We still wanted that same feeling."

Fenwick Island residents seem to enjoy brewing their own coffee, taking a morning cup out to a back porch that overlooks the bay or the ocean, then quietly pondering the unruffled beauty of the scene and, perhaps, the meaning of the world.

"Fenwick Island has retained its charm — its old-time charm," said Richard Chavatel, a builder from Timonium, Md., who with his wife, Marty, owns a six-bedroom second home on the mainland just west of Fenwick Island proper.

The Scene

Fenwick Island and Bethany Beach, Del. — on the same barrier island as Ocean City — are known as the quiet resorts. Fenwick Island State Park is between Fenwick Island and Bethany Beach.

The incorporated portion of Fenwick Island is small, and when residents refer to Fenwick Island, they're often speaking of the unincorporated area of the island to the south and the mainland to the immediate west.

The Coastal Highway, or Route 1, is Fenwick Island's main drag. It runs north-south and splits the community in two. Lining the highway are most of Fenwick Island's restaurants, beach shops and souvenir stores.

There are plenty of restaurants on Fenwick Island, including the Fenwick Crab House, Dirty Harry's II (where pork and sauerkraut is the Saturday night special) and Mancini's Brick Oven Pizzeria. Ocean City offers plenty of alternatives.

Bunting Avenue, a block east of the Coastal Highway, is an approach to the rambling beachfront homes — many of which sell for more than $1 million. Apartment buildings squat on the other side of the avenue.

Route 54 intersects the Coastal Highway near the Fenwick Island Lighthouse and runs west, linking motorists to Route 113, which circumvents the more crowded Delaware beach towns to the north. Most of the recent development is off Route 54.

Pros

Residents say the beach is rarely crowded, perhaps because the beachfront is lined with homes, not shops. Parking is limited. Residents of the Town of Fenwick Island receive one parking pass and can buy additional passes.Daily parking for nonresidents is $5 on weekdays and $10 on weekends. A visitor's parking permit for mid-May to mid-September is $300 per car. Beachside parking in the state park and unincorporated areas requires another permit.

"On any holiday weekend — Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day — I don't ever see a car from my house," said Donna Hughes, a full-time resident of Wilmington, Del., who figures she spends 40 weekends a year at the three-bedroom house she owns with her fiancé, Steve Dineen, in the Keen-Wik Sound development. "You don't even know it's a holiday."

Ms. Adkins, the real estate agent, who learned to ride a bike on the dirt roads (now paved) of Fenwick Island, said that the state has never hesitated to improve the infrastructure to accommodate growth. But "Delaware's a small state," she laughed. "There's only so much we can stand."

Cons

Those who have bought second homes say they would like to see Route 54 widened to handle traffic at the intersection of Route 1 on summer weekends.

They say they would also like more cultural activities, a new supermarket or two and a few new restaurants. But the lack of amenities is part of the trade-off of having a home on Fenwick Island.

Within view of the southern tip of Fenwick Island, the Coastal Highway in Ocean City is lined with motels, service stations and chain restaurants. Fenwick Island residents say they want new businesses, but they also do not want to risk losing the community's laid-back atmosphere.

Referring to other Delaware beach towns, Ms. Hughes said, "You just can't find a spot on the beach in many of those places."

The Real Estate Market

Don Conaway of Seashore Realty on the island said that until last winter, when interest rates began to rise, the Fenwick Island real estate market was the best in the 30 years he has been in the business. But, he said, second homes have just been priced too high recently.

"There's always a correction that goes on," Mr. Conaway said. "Sellers have got to make a correction. If something's priced right, it'll sell."

Real estate is still expensive because much of the land in the area has been developed. Ten years ago, Mr. Conaway said, an undeveloped oceanfront lot would have sold for $250,000. Now, the asking price for the same lot would be $2.5 million, he said. The current asking price for a 50-by-100-foot lot on the Coastal Highway is $1 million, he said.

Ms. Adkins estimated that an inland four-bedroom house that would have sold for $200,000 a decade ago would now sell for $450,000 to $500,000. In January, she helped to sell an undeveloped lot on the bay for $550,000; about 10 years ago it went for $150,000.

Growth has spread to the west. Bayside is a two-year-old golf community developed by the Carl M. Freeman Companies four miles from the Town of Fenwick Island. It has a Jack Nicklaus course partly surrounded by detached houses, town houses and condominiums.

Thirty-four floor plans are available on the 867-acre tract. A two-bedroom condominium sells in the upper-$300,000's, and single-family houses sell for $525,000 for the least expensive four-bedroom to $1 million for the most-expensive five-bedroom. Shuttles are available to the beach.