Avon By the Sea

Avon By the Sea — The Quieter Shore

Avon By the Sea sits between the bustle of Belmar to the south and Bradley Beach to the north and has always cultivated a quieter character than its neighbors. The 1920 aerial shows a modest grid of summer cottages behind a natural dune line, with the wide Shark River estuary visible to the south. The beach appears generous — wider than it would be decades later. The 1933 view, taken after a powerful August hurricane, shows the oceanfront with visible storm damage to the dune line. These two aerials bracket the community at a moment of maximum natural beach, before the decades of erosion that would follow.