July 8, 2011
By JILL P. CAPUZZO
With ample opportunities to ski, golf, swim, hike and bike, life in this rural township in the New Jersey
Highlands can feel like a year-round resort, residents say.
“I call it ‘being on vacation’ living here,” said Allison Callow, a real estate agent who has lived in Vernon
Township for 16 years. She and her family traded in a three-bedroom colonial on one-tenth of an acre in
Bergen County for a four-bedroom bilevel on more than an acre abutting a state park, which they
bought for $158,000.
Activities in Vernon center on nine lake communities and the Mountain Creek ski resort, the state’s
largest. Ownership of Mountain Creek has recently changed hands, and the new proprietors are
spending an estimated $20 million on projects that include a 50,000-square-foot day lodge at the base
of the 167-acre ski facility off Route 94.
“I see the investment being made by the resort industry as palatable proof that we’re moving ahead,”
said Vic Marotta, the town’s first elected mayor, who took office on July 1. “We have a golden
opportunity here. How we nurture it and see it through will determine what Vernon looks like in the
future.” Mr. Marotta had also served as mayor when it was an appointed position.
Another change that may shape Vernon’s future are new sewer lines, which will largely serve Vernon’s
commercial and recreational centers and could attract new businesses and retailers.
The real estate slump has had the effect of bringing in a new wave of second-home buyers and investors
to the 1,500 condominiums at Mountain Creek. “We discounted very heavily, and we sold them,” said
Andrew Mulvihill, the president of real estate investment at Mountain Creek, noting that his group sold
80 units this past winter.
Among the beneficiaries were Milo Chan and Winnie Donahue, who closed last month on a furnished
three-bedroom town house in the Black Creek Sanctuary area, paying $170,000 for a unit that sold for
$524,950 in 2004, according to Carol Williams, an agent at Prudential Gross & Jansen Highlands Realty.
The couple and their two children, who live in Manhattan, plan to use the town house for weekend
getaways in the summer and during ski season. While they weren’t actively looking to buy a second
home, Ms. Donahue said the price, and the fact that it was furnished, made the deal irresistible.
“We wanted something turnkey, but this was ridiculous,” said Ms. Donahue, an advertising consultant.
“It was a great buy at a great time that just fell into our laps.”
Ms. Williams and her husband, Craig, also chose Vernon for its value when they moved here from
Wayne 33 years ago, even though it meant a longer commute for her husband, a security systems
consultant who drives into New York City every day. At the time, the couple bought a three-bedroom
Cape on Barry Lake for $40,000; 12 years later they moved to a four-bedroom colonial on two acres,
which they built for $182,000.
A longer commute is the sacrifice for more space and good prices, and a beautiful place to raise a family,
Ms. Williams said.
With 68 square miles and 25,450 residents, Vernon is the largest town in Sussex County. Many of
Vernon’s single-family homes surround the town’s nine lakes, the biggest being Highland Lake, an area
that was mostly dirt roads when it was established in the 1940s and is now paved, with everything from
unheated summer cabins to large custom-built lakeside homes. Residents here and in other lakefront
neighborhoods like Barry Lakes, Pleasant Valley Lake and Lake Wallkill, the oldest lake community, pay
lake association fees.
The new owners of Mountain Creek are the Mulvihills, who had owned the property in the 1970s and
’80s when it was divided into two ski resorts, Vernon Valley and Great Gorge. (This was also the era of
the Great Gorge Playboy Club, a 650-room hotel and nightclub that was once a major draw to the area.)
A Canadian developer, Intrawest, bought the bankrupt ski resorts in 1998 and combined them into the
newly named Mountain Creek. Last May, in financial trouble itself, Intrawest sold Mountain Creek back
to Eugene Mulvihill and his investment partners. The Mulvihill group also owns neighboring Crystal
Springs Golf Resort and Spa in Hardyston, and hopes to combine the two operations in the future.
Other planned renovations at Mountain Creek include expanding the snow-tubing operation to 30 lanes,
and adding a zip line cable ride from the top of the mountain to the lodge.
The mayor is hoping the new sewers will attract more stores and restaurants to downtown Vernon, but
for now residents are limited to one A & P supermarket and some strip malls and stores. Serious
shoppers must travel to Willowbrook Mall in Wayne or Rockaway Townsquare in Dover.
The soft real estate market has hit this northwest corner of the state particularly hard. Prices vary from
$25,000 for a 500-square-foot summer cabin built in 1950 to $949,000 for a 4,000-square-foot custom
home on eight acres that faces Cliffwood Lake and abuts preserved land. A four-bedroom custom log
home built in 1954 on 0.74 acre with a dock on East Highland Lake, is on the market for $449,900. Since
the 2004 passage of the state Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, little new residential
construction has occurred in Vernon, about 80 percent of which the mayor said is in the Highlands area
or other preserved lands. When he served as mayor in the mid-1980s, Mr. Marotta said there were 300
to 400 new homes being built here each year; last year, there were just three.
In late June, there were 434 homes for sale here, 114 of which were condominiums or hotel condo
units. The median price for a single-family home is $229,900, according to the Garden State Multiple
Listing Service. For this price, one can get a three-bedroom split level house, built in 1981 on a threequarter-acre corner lot.
The median condo list price is $129,900, ranging from a one-bedroom hotel condo in the Minerals resort
at $49,500 to a three-bedroom end-unit town house at Great Gorge Village, for $259,000.
The gap between the listing prices and selling prices has grown as well, with the median selling price in
May at $125,000 versus a median list price of $189,900. (In June 2010, the gap was just $1,000, with a
median list price of $210,000 and a median sales price of $209,000. )
Mark and Julie Bush were able to take advantage of those dropping prices by waiting it out to buy their
new-construction four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house on 3.2 acres. Mark Bush, 30, grew up in
Vernon, but was most recently living in a condo here with his wife and two children. For a year and a
half, he said he had been keeping his eye on a new house with great views of the mountains.
“Contracts had fallen through and I saw the price keep dropping every couple of months,” said Mr. Bush,
a certified public accountant. In January, the Bushes moved into their new house, paying $355,000 for a
house originally listed at $499,900.
Commercial recreational activities include two ski areas, a water park, golf courses, and a mountain bike
park that hosts major downhill competitions. Beyond that there are many places to hike, bike, bird
watch and fish in Wawayanda State Park and the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge. A stretch of the
Appalachian Trail runs through the township. Swimming in a local lake requires either having a lake
membership or knowing someone who does.
Vernon children attend three primary schools: Walnut Ridge, for prekindergarten through first grade,
and Cedar Mountain and Rolling Hills for second to fourth grade, serving about 1,500 students in total.
Middle school is divided into fifth and sixth grades at Lounsberry Hollow, and seventh and eighth grades
at Glen Meadow. The lone high school, Vernon Township, had 1,535 students last year, with average
SAT scores of 508 in math, 507 in verbal and 494 in writing, compared with state averages of 520, 496
and 499 respectively. The high school offers 19 Advanced Placement classes. Its literary journal, The
Back Porch Review, won gold medal awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association four years in
a row.
New York City is 55 miles away, a drive that takes an hour to an hour and a half. There are park-and-ride
lots in nearby Stockholm, N.J., and Warwick, N.Y., for buses to the Port Authority. The bus from Warwick
takes about an hour and 50 minutes and costs $6.50 one way and $346 for a monthly pass. Some
commuters drive about 40 minutes to Wayne, N.J., where they can catch a bus or a train into the city.
The train to Penn Station takes 60 to 70 minutes and costs $9.25 one way or $273 a month.
Once part of neighboring Hardyston, Vernon was established in 1793 and incorporated in 1798. It was
originally a farming community, but mining became a major industry after iron ore was discovered in the
mountains in the 19th century, bringing jobs and rail service. In the 1960s, skiing became the largest
industry and has remained so since.