Highlighting disappearing Spanish-colonial homes in Atlantic Beach

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Atlantic Beach residents made their way to the Long Beach Historical Society to hear about the history of the homes in their area.

The presentation was led by Atlantic Beach resident, Kevin Kelley, on Oct. 9. He is a retired journalist who leads tours in Manhattan for the NY Outdoors Club.

Kelley’s program focused on the Mediterranean-style architecture in 15 homes.

Jeanne Brown, president of the Long Beach Historical Society, expressed her gratitude for Kelley approaching them to do this presentation.

“We have been wanting to include Atlantic Beach and East Atlantic Beach for quite some time, this is our first excursion west,” Brown said.

Kelley opened up the presentation with background information about himself, and his relationship with Atlantic Beach.

“When I first came here, I was 10-years old, even then I noticed there were these really lovely houses, Spanish-colonial style houses in AB,” Kelley said. “They were very decorative, very bright, very beachy, they seemed to fit in perfectly with the environment there.”

After living in Vermont for 30 years, Kelley returned in 2016 to live in his mother’s home that was built in 1942.

“Coming back, I realized, I saw that many of those houses were gone, the Spanish-colonial style houses were gone they don’t exist anymore, they’ve been demolished or refurbished to the point where the original architecture is unrecognizable,” Kelley added.

Kelley said that the Spanish-colonial style houses are going extinct and at he is grateful to be giving this presentation.

His presentation opened up with an aerial photo of Atlantic Beach in 1927 from the Long Beach Historical Society. The photo shows the Atlantic Beach Bridge connecting the Five Towns to sand that was built on to make the Atlantic Beach community.

“Atlantic Beach has always been shaped by the Atlantic Ocean tides and by major storms,” Kelley said. “By the teens of the 20th century, Atlantic Beach was becoming a more stable barrier island, it was constantly shifting and constantly moving around.”

Sixty years ago, Mediterranean-style stucco homes with tile roofs, lent a distinctive and picturesque identity to the village at the west end of the barrier island, Kelly said.

“The section of the village east of the bridge is where most of the Spanish-colonial style homes were concentrated, the section of the village west of the bridge consists mainly of homes built during and after World War II, most of them were simple bungalows,” Kelley added.

What originally was built to be summer homes, ended up being year-round homes where residents are proud to live, Kelly said.

“Spanish-colonial homes remain in the eastern part of AB were built in the 20’s and 30’s and feature architectural components, characteristics of the Spanish-colonial style,” Kelley said.