Avon-By-The-Sea History

This oceanfront building began in 1883 as the Berwick Lodge, a small hotel built before the area’s larger resort scene had fully taken shape.

In its earliest years, it welcomed summer guests looking for sea air and a place to stay near the shore. Over time, the property changed hands, survived storms, a lightning strike, and even a fire, before eventually becoming a private summer home for one family.

That changed in the 1940s, when it reopened as a restaurant and rooming house. It was then that the name The Columns took hold, inspired by the long porch lined with dozens of columns that wrapped around the building.

Later, the property evolved again, becoming a well-known place for dinners, gatherings, music, and summer nightlife. One family restored it, another carried it forward, and generation after generation helped keep it alive.

Today, The Columns remains one of the shoreline’s most recognizable landmarks, with a history shaped by hospitality, reinvention, and the changing rhythm of life by the sea.

The Columns
601 Ocean Ave N
Avon-By-The-Sea, NJ 07717