Soak it up

KID-FRIENDLY: There’s lots of family fun and a charming downtown in Jersey’s waterfront Spring Lake community.

If Snooki were house-hunting, she’d do well to skip Spring Lake, NJ, a laid-back coastal town that is the antithesis — and the antidote — to the rowdy resorts that dominate the Jersey Shore.

Picture a Great Gatsby tableau of gracious, turn-of-the-century, lushly landscaped manses, spacious wraparound porches with wicker furniture, sloping green lawns and blond teens tooling about on bicycles. Spring Lake — 70 miles from Manhattan in Monmouth County — is a throwback to an era of gentility that barely exists anywhere.

The gobsmacking number of lovingly preserved 19th-century houses lining Ocean Avenue and gorgeous turreted creations on tree-lined streets are a big draw for second-home seekers with deep pockets. The five-block, walkable community surrounds a trout-stocked, 16-acre, spring-fed lake crisscrossed by wooden bridges. Think lots of wedding-photo ops. (And it’s all intact — Spring Lake was spared by Hurricane Sandy because the town sits above sea level.)

The never-too-crowded beach has a commercial-free boardwalk; strict rules enforced by the “ponytail” police (tanned, pretty teens) send muscle-flexing, big-haired, cotton-candy-craving shore lovers elsewhere. There’s no food or alcohol or dogs on the beach. Tossing a football is verboten when too many sunbathers are around. You can’t bike or Rollerblade on the boardwalk. Residents, however, do have access to a beautiful seaside saltwater pool on the boardwalk.

Call it stuffy or call it paradise — depends on what you like.

Spring Lake is not for everyone, but it attracts second-home owners like author Mary Higgins Clark who want the ocean, a peaceful part-time oasis, phenomenal “cottages” on manicured streets, a great downtown with shops and restaurants and a tight-knit community.

A four-bedroom, 2 1/2-bathroom, two-story cottage-style house on a tenth of an acre is listed for $689,000. But for $2 million — which is what Andrea Patterson, a sales associate with Gloria Nilson and Co. Real Estate, says is the median house price — you can get a three-story, four-bedroom, 2 1/2-bathroom, updated 1911 Victorian with decorative molding, 10-foot ceilings and a wraparound porch — a must-have in Spring Lake. Oceanfront properties, on average, start at $3 million.

Of the 75 houses on the market, 12 sellers are asking upwards of $5 million. There’s a 12,000-square-foot Master Craftsman house with five bedrooms and six bathrooms priced $12 million.

Known as the Irish Riviera, the town has a year-round population of less than 4,000. Barons of industry flocked here in the summers in the mid-1880s, creating the architectural legacy that makes this place resemble a Hollywood set. The private, 115-year-old Bath & Tennis Club on Ocean Avenue suggests the Gilded Age is alive and well.

Sharon and John Sullivan (principal owner of NYC pub McFadden’s) have cashed in on Spring Lake’s historical assets. The couple, who have four children, bought the former Sea Crest by the Sea Inn, and converted the nine-bedroom, 11-bathroom, 1885 Queen Anne Victorian into a private home.

“We love to entertain,” says Sharon Sullivan. “We get a lot of visitors. It’s like we’re running an inn, only without the fees.”

In the summer of 1916, there was a wave of shark attacks along the Jersey Shore, including one at the ocean in Spring Lake. Charles Bruder, a 27-year-old Swiss bellhop for the Essex and Sussex Hotel, was the second of five victims. These attacks inspired the novel, and later the film, “Jaws.”

The Essex and Sussex, and the Hewitt Washington Hotel, both former grand hotels, are the town’s only condo properties. The former is a 55-and-older adult community; neither building offers units with full kitchens.

Downtown, which runs along Third Avenue, is a jumble of appealing boutiques, ice-cream and gelato shops, candy stores, the Irish Center (which sells fisherman sweaters and Waterford Crystal), upscale eateries, Tom Bailey’s Market, a surf shop and more real estate offices clustered in one commercial hub than you can imagine in a post-2008 real estate world. You won’t find any franchises or big boxes here. A limit on liquor licenses is yet another rule that makes this Jersey Shore town unique (though BYOBing is allowed).

Aside from sunbathing and porch-lolling, part-time residents enjoy fishing, boating, water-skiing, biking, tennis and horseback riding. A five-mile Memorial Day run brings thousands to town, and band concerts at the Gazebo and theater at the Community House are big draws.

There’s plenty to do beyond Spring Lake’s borders: golf courses within a 20-minute drive, Monmouth Park Racetrack to the north, Atlantic City to the south and world-class deep-sea fishing everywhere.

But it’s Spring Lake’s serenity that people gush about.

“We call it the Bubble,” said Jared Kaloostian, who runs the Ocean House Inn. The 36-year-old, who left for college and worked in finance in Manhattan, came back to manage his parents’ business three years ago. “I lived in fun places. Austin. New York. But the salt air is in my bones. And this is a place like no other.”