There being no other ground on the Atlantic coast of the same character with that at Long Branch and as those who may hereafter want this ground can only get it by paying your price for it, it is a question whether your present plan of operation is adapted to bring about the largest demand.

According to this plan, when you have sold one half your land you will have increased the population of the place by thirty families at the most. Your idea is that the reduction of the area in the market which will then have occurred will enhance the value of what remains and thus the whole will at length be disposed of at a satisfactory profit. These thirty families, however, [105] will have taken the choicer ground and what remains will be intrinsically less desirable for building ground than it is at present, because thirty houses will have been built between it & the ocean, and will have cut off the view from it of the ocean. It will inevitably be regarded as comparatively undesireable because of the fact that as long as sites commanding the ocean and near the beach could be obtained, no man would build upon it. Whoever buys it will be regarded by the others as unfortunate—will himself regret the necessity. Wealthy men under such circumstances will be apt to consider whether they cannot as well go somewhere else—whether, as there is no first rate, building spot left at Long Branch, it is quite necessary to go to Long Branch at all. [And this will operate to limit or dampen the demand.] At best you have in view—after all is done—a neighborhood on your part of the ground of say sixty families and altogether of wealthy people at Long Branch, besides those at the hotels, of not more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty families. This is making a fair allowance for all the ground that will be required for other purposes.

There is certainly room for doubt whether with proper managment, considering the unique character of the place and the rapid growth of New York & Philadelphia, the growing distaste for hotel life, and other circumstances, a very different destiny might not reasonably be anticipated for Long Branch, and one from which you might expect much larger profits.

Whether it is “in the cards” that a town should rapidly grow up at Long Branch, more resembling Brighton, [Dover] Leamington and most other European watering places than Nahant, Newport (villa) and most other American watering places is a question which it is not my business to consider. If, however, you are disposed to speculate on the chances of it, it is my business to study how you could best use the elements of the case which are under your control to favor such a result.

It is evident that your present plan is not well calculated to this end—that it is calculated, on the other hand, to secure a permanent monopoly in a few hands, of all the special attractions of the place, and so to prevent any very large number of summer residencies from being established upon it.

Suppose you conclude to change your plan and look to the larger result, what are the essential elements with which you have to deal? They are the following:

• 1st The accessibility of the place
• 2d The view of the ocean from it
• 3d The sea-breeze
• 4th The beach with its bathing
• 5th The unusual elevation of the ground fronting upon the ocean.
• 6th The unusually agreeable character of the surface of the ground fronting toward the ocean.

[106]

None of these are peculiar to your property except the last two. These then are the only natural circumstances which would lead your property to be preferred for marine villas to much other property such as can be bought by the mile at fifty to a hundred dollars an acre. Your speculation then turns on the use you make of these. They constitute your monopoly in the market, and are the trump cards of your game.

Let us see what they amount [to] & what can be done with them.

The beauty of the surface of Long Branch is not so much positive as comparative, the condition of positive sterility which elsewhere on the coast is a disagreeable circumstance and of which visitors tire, is not encountered here. Enjoyment of the sea is not as much overcome at Long Branch as it [is] elsewhere by repugnance to the shore. That is all. Anywhere away from the coast, you would not be struck by the beauty of the ground.

Positive rural beauty if you are ever to have it remains to be developed. As I professionally look upon it, there is a large amount of dead capital of this sort in the situation. At least I am sure that whatever advantage it has over other coast places in this respect at present may be very greatly increased. It is, in fact, practicable to give Long Branch a very distinguishing aspect of elegance and luxury, so that visitors will be impressed with the idea that it has a much higher quality in this respect than any other watering place. And this quality would be insensibly associated with the reputation of those who visit it. That is to say, it would help materially to make it the fashion. And in proportion as this were accomplished would be the price which people would be willing to pay for the opportunity of living in it.

All that remains of that which is peculiar to your property and which would lead it to be preferred to fifty other places as a site for a town of marine villa residencies, depends on the circumstance of its elevation, and the satisfaction there is in looking off over the ocean from elevated ground.

When there is once a line of houses, stables, fences, shrubbery, gardens and garden structures established along the bank and you have no other land to sell except that in the rear of these, this advantage will no longer exist as an element of your speculation. That is to say, the intrinsic value of your land will be no greater than that of land which is elevated but a foot above high water mark—not as great as that if the latter is close on the ocean. And there are many miles of such land, quite as accessible from New York & Philadelphia as yours; as near likewise as your rear land will be to a beach as good as yours. With as good a sea breeze also as good fishing, as good bathing.

Nothing but fashion—fashion established, as far as your present plans go, by about a dozen families—will enable you to sell your rear land at anything more than its value for agricultural purposes.

[You cannot have a town, nor even find more than sixty purchasers, on the largest calculation, for your land.]

With reference to the speculation in question, then, under your [107] present plan you will soon have disposed of all that is valuable of this part of your monopoly.

To make a more provident use of it you must adopt a plan which will in the first place give some advantage of the elevation of the coast at this point to the greatest practicable number of building sites, even if it should be necessary for this purpose that no one building site has the greatest advantage possible in this particular. The interests of the few must yield to those of the many. It is a question, however, [ .. . ]

What you propose to offer the public (or your customers for the rear lots) there, can be had just as good of its kind at Newport and many other places. Indeed something a great deal better of this kind can be had at several points that I have seen which are equally accessible from New York.

You might have a marine parade like that of most English Sea coast vacation places, or some other form of promenade, gathering place or rendevous, near the bank at Long Branch, with which there could never be anything to compare in the least degree from Maine to Mexico. And I should think that there were many hundreds if not thousands of people to whom such a resort would be more attractive than any other that could be offered them for a summer vacation. It is not the social element alone nor the natural element alone nor the change of scene & habits alone that draws people to watering places, but the agreeable association of these three conditions.

Such a feature might not at all improbably be the turning point upon which Long Branch would become the leading watering place of the continent. If therefore you are disposed to speculate upon this possibility, you should immediately hold up in the sale of your front lots.

Of course it is not necessary that the whole front should be given up to public use, but a considerable stretch of it should be—enough to impress the mind as an important feature of the place.

In short if your plan was to be adapted to a town lot speculation, the main question would be: How can the common property which the town may have in the ocean be made available in the highest degree to the largest number of householders?

It would be a subordinate but yet important question: Are there not some artificial circumstances which can be presented by which the place can be made to contrast favorably with all other American watering places, so as not [to] be dependent solely on the mere fact of its elevated outlook upon the ocean and upon the company which resorts to it, on this account, for its attractiveness?

P.S. I will add a few notes & queries which occur to me.

[Two or three questions occur to me as worth some consideration in your plans, possibly.]

[108]

1 Is it not possible to make the “season” at Long Branch longer? Not merely longer than it is now, but longer than it is at any American watering place at present? Attractions early & late are wanted for this purpose, and at first, perhaps, “sensational” attractions.

2 Great hotels being essentially detestable, as at present conducted; cannot some plan of accommodation for families be found which shall be intermediate between the duplication of a man’s own townhouse and furniture, & all his establishments of servants etc, and the clatter, scandal, vulgarity and complete undomesticity which is now a necessity of the only alternative offered? There is an undoubted reaction this year from the excessive gregariousness of pleasure seekers which has hitherto prevailed. Interior farm-houses with their stifling chambers, indigestable bread & tough steaks are crowded at the expense of the Saratoga, Newport & White Mountain hotels. But people want to come together (to a reasonable degree) in their pleasure seeking & they enjoy the seashore, with fish & Fulton Market. If there were a thousand lodgings at Long Branch like those of Brighton, Bath or the French & Italian watering places, or inns like the Rainbow or the Dove or many more that we remember gratefully, is it possible that people would not be willing to pay higher rates for the use of them than they now do for their hotel accommodations?

3 Could not an inland attraction, corresponding in its influence to “the lake” at Saratoga, be made available at Long Branch?

4 Midway between New York & Phila, could not Long Branch be made a place of rendevous for certain special purposes? Ball matches for the championship for instance—a good ballground with stands is needed. There will soon be some sort of race course. A bad one placed near your land might be anticipated and staved off.

4 Might not the bathing, fishing and sailing advantages be easily improved very much indeed, so as to constitute more of a special attraction than they are. No study has ever been given to those things anywhere else. The arrangments are all slipshod—the spontaneous contrivances of rude men without capital. At 10 prct additional cost, the boats, bathing houses & places of observation of them of the meanest watering place I have ever seen could be made much more attractive to the eye than the best are now.

5 None of the hotels at Long B. have been planned by architects. If a new hotel is to be built, can’t you secure its construction on a respectable plan? At an addition of five or ten per cent to the cost, a character of elegance might be secured & probably a large addition made to its attractiveness & actual accommodation. At least it struck me that without any additional cost for land or building, the Stetson house might have presented a quarter more room space looking out upon the ocean, than it does.

[109]

6 If you sell land for a great hotel, can you not [make it a condition to] take stock in it