Located in the heart of Bay Head, the Historic Bay Head House was built in the late 1800’s to accommodate early visitors of Bay Head for sailing, hunting, fishing, and of course, the sea! The Bay Head House was established just as the Borough of Bayhead became a town.
Bay Head’s two-word name resulted from a typographical error. It was meant to be Bayhead, named for the Bayhead Land Co., organized by three Princeton bankers. But when the railroad station sign was hung in the early 1880s, it read Bay Head and the name remained. The rail station was built in 1881 directly across from The Bay Head House separated by Railroad Way (now Club Drive).
In the years that The Bay Head House was being constructed, so was the Bay Head Yacht Club, which opened its doors in 1889. It was and is still located at the end of the street. At the end of the 19th Century, Bay Head had a boardwalk that stretched along the ocean. A trolley ran alongside Twilight Lake and horse-drawn carriages were seen throughout town. Hotels such as The Bluffs, The Bellvue and The Grenville Arms were erected to accommodate the growing number of vacationers from New York and Philadelphia arriving by train.
The family run Bay Head House was at the center of it all. Through the 1900’s, The Bay Head House was sold to a family who changed the name to The Lakeview Inn. They added to the structure and chopped up the layout to account for multiple apartments and room rentals. In 2010, the home was restored back to its original structure, a single dwelling and reverted to its original name of The Bay Head House.
Like it has for more than a century, The Bay Head House continues to provide a great place for meeting with family and friends whether it is a family reunion, wedding, anniversary or summer vacation and to experience life at the shore and the “head of the bay.”.
