‘Mantoloking Miracle:' Sandy-surviving NJ home hits market for $1.8 mil

New York Post

10-05-2025

This Jersey Shore home was built to last — and now, it can be yours!
The 7,405 square-foot beach house the odds in 2012, when Superstorm Sandy destroyed more than 60 homes around it.
Nicknamed the 'Mantoloking Miracle,' the Barnegat Lane house was the last edifice standing after Sandy washed away or leveled every other home within a 200-foot radius.
5 The Mantoloking Miracle was one of the only beach houses in the tiny New Jersey town.
AP
Even the concrete road leading to the house was swept away in the floodwaters.
The house listed late last month for $1.8 million, and comes with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a 2-car garage, a chimney, central air, and 'unobstructed' ocean views.
5 One of these houses is the revamped Mantoloking Miracle.
Architectural Media Services
'Steps to the ocean and steps to the bay,' the listing reads.
The home's design was critical to its endurance.
It was built atop 34 treated pine pylons, driven 20 feet into the sand. The first floor is eight feet above beach level.
5 The home was barely damaged by Sandy, but looks much different today.
AP Photo/Julio Cortez; Architectural Media Services
The walls of the ground floor were also designed to collapse when pounded by ocean waves, sparing the rest of the structure above it.
5 The house listed late last month for $1.8 million.
Architectural Media Services
The mega-storm caused at least 182 deaths in the U.S., with 48 fatalities in New York and 43 in New Jersey.
The home was built on a plot of land teacher and skilled builder Ed Wright purchased back in 1981 for $54,000.
5 The home was built in 1983 by teacher and skilled builder Ed Wright.
Architectural Media Services
Wright challenged the town's building codes to complete Mantoloking's first elevated, pile-supported home in 1983.
Wright was 75 when he died in 2018.
The storm knocked out power to millions of homes, and caused $65 billion in damage.