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Egg Harbor Business Owner Saves This Old House

An Egg Harbor business owner found a way to get a “new” home and save three buildings at the same time.

In 2020, the owners of Shipwrecked bought land next to their brew pub for eventual outdoor expansion or parking, and on that land, a historic cottage and modern two-car garage went up for sale. There was a catch: The buyer of the structures would need to move them by March 15.

Erin Anschutz – the 20-year operator/owner of the Patricia Shoppe women’s clothing store – put in an early bid and eventually learned it had been accepted. On Jan. 12, the village planning commission approved her site plan, which, she said, had no objections from neighbors. A week later, she was signing papers to buy the house.

“It’s kind of a win-win for everybody,” she said.

Shipwrecked gains space. Egg Harbor will not lose a cottage that was constructed in 1898 – it’s just moving four-tenths of a mile to the south. The business that operated in the old house, Be Beauty, simply moved to a different location about one block north, and prior to that, Christine’s, a women’s clothing store, had operated there for years. 

Anschutz will gain a charming, 2,000-square-foot home that’s modernized inside and move out of a 900-square-foot cottage she’s been living in next to her store.

Anschutz said she will pay “upwards of” $60,000 for DeVooght House & Building Movers to take the house and separate garage to the property next to her store at the south end of downtown Egg Harbor. She said that moving cost – which is greater than the price she’s paying for the structures – includes large payments for utility companies to raise or lower lines.

Even after site improvements and interior redecorating, she’ll have a classic house and garage for much less than she could buy an old or new place in or near Egg Harbor.

“It matches, architecturally, my cottage and store,” Anschutz said, mentioning the house’s overall character, clapboard siding and roof pitch. “I would have hated to see it torn down.”

She said she loves the idea of saving old houses, and the movers will rescue one more while they’re in town: They plan to disassemble and repurpose a 450-square-foot cottage that stands near the Patricia Shoppe.

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