There’s a moment — and if you’ve been coming to Long Beach Island long enough, you know the one — when your tires hit the causeway and something in your chest loosens. The mainland falls away behind you. The bay opens up on both sides. And by the time you see Old Barney standing watch at the northern tip, you’re already breathing differently.
I’ve been chasing that feeling my entire life.
The Long Version (the Only Version Worth Telling)
I came to LBI for the first time as a kid — a summer visitor with sand in my shoes and nowhere I’d rather be. For 18 years, this island was the backdrop to every good memory I had. Then, somewhere in the blur of growing up, LBI stopped being a place I visited and became a place that claimed me.
For the last 25 years, I’ve been out on these waters — navigating Barnegat Bay, learning the lagoons, memorizing the way the light changes over the marshes at the end of a July afternoon. I know which docks catch the best sunset. I know which neighborhoods feel different in October than they do in August. I know the island the way you can only know a place you’ve loved slowly, over a very long time.
And I have the dog to prove it.
How Our Dog Ended Up Named After a Restaurant
Growing up, Tucker’s Tavern was our family’s Fourth of July tradition. Every year, the same thing — dinner at our favorite restaurant, then a walk to the bay to watch the fireworks over the water. It was the kind of tradition you don’t think about protecting because it never occurs to you that it could disappear.
Then Sandy came.
When Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012, it threatened to shutter Tuckers forever. My family felt that loss the way you feel the loss of something that was never just a restaurant — it was a landmark, a gathering place, a piece of the island’s identity. So in 2013, when my parents brought home a new dog, they named him Tucker. In its honor. Because that’s how my family loves things — we name our dogs after them.
And as it turns out, LBI — and Tuckers specifically — had a few more chapters planned for me.
In 2017, I reconnected with my island summer crush at the Shell. In 2018, the beach at California Avenue was the backdrop for our engagement. And in 2019, we got married at my husband’s favorite restaurant on the island.
Tuckers Tavern, obviously.
I didn’t just fall in love with a place. I built my life here.
How South of Old Barney Came to Be
I’m a Realtor by trade. I’ve spent nearly a decade helping people find their piece of this island — guided by the belief that LBI isn’t just a place, it’s a feeling. I still do that work, and I love it. But somewhere along the way, I realized that what I loved most about this work wasn’t the transactions. It was the stories.
The history tucked into the cedar-shake cottages. The heritage living quietly in the names of the streets and the families who built them. The architecture that tells you everything about who we were and who we’re becoming. The homes that hold a hundred summers of memory inside their walls.
South of Old Barney is where I get to explore all of that — the history, the heritage, and the homes of Long Beach Island, New Jersey. It’s a love letter to this island written one story at a time, by someone who has spent a lifetime paying attention.
Old Barney himself — the Barnegat Lighthouse, standing sentinel at the northern tip of LBI since 1859 — has watched over this island through storms and summers, through change and continuity. Everything south of him is the island I know and love. He felt like the right place to start.
Where You’ll Find Me
When I’m not writing here or helping clients find their forever-summer home, you’ll find me out on the bay — I’ve been boating around LBI for 25 years and counting. I believe flip-flops are always the right choice. I think the best conversations happen on docks. And I’m firmly convinced that this island deserves to be known not just for its beaches, but for the remarkable story it has been telling since long before any of us arrived.
I’m so glad you’re here to read it with me.
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