Mystic Island (also called Mystic Islands or Mystic) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within Little Egg Harbor Township, in Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the CDP's population was 8,301.
Mystic Island is a large, mostly waterfront development originally planned as a resort community that started in the early 1960s as a waterfront community with vacation bungalows. In the past few years, however, many of the original bungalows are slowly being replaced with much larger homes on pilings that are popular in nearby beach communities such as Long Beach Island.
Early history
The area that is currently Mystic Island was once called "Hickory Island", and was serviced by the Tuckerton Railroad and one two-lane street named "Shore Road", which was later renamed "Radio Road" after the Tuckerton Wireless Tower.
The Tuckerton Wireless Tower () was built in 1912 by the German "Hochfrequenzmaschinen Aktiengesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie" company (The High Frequency Machine Corporation for Wireless Telegraphy, often referred to as HOMAG) when the present-day Mystic Island was called Hickory Island. The tower was used to communicate with an identical radio telegraph station in Eilvese, Germany starting on Jun 19, 1914, less than two weeks before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The station continued to communicate with Eilvese until America entered World War I on April 6, 1917. It is rumored that it was used to send the message to order the attack by a German U-boat on the RMS Lusitania. After President Wilson's Declaration of Neutrality, the President ordered the US Navy to take over the station on Sep 9, 1914 to assure the neutrality of messages sent to and from the station; however, the station continued to be operated by German nationals employed by HOMAG and continued to communicate only with the Eilvese radio station. When America entered the war, all U.S. radio stations were seized and shut down by Executive Order. The Tuckerton Radio Station was assigned to the US Navy, which used it primarily to back-up the communications of the US Navy's main transatlantic radio station in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The remaining German personnel at Tuckerton became war prisoners and were replaced by Navy personnel when the U.S. entered the war. anchored by three large concrete blocks, was taken down on December 27, 1955, or 1950. in the middle of South Ensign Drive,
Development
thumb|left|200px|A postcard from the 1960s of W Playhouse Drive looking north, between Ship Drive and N Captains Drive
After the demise of the tower, RCA sold the Hickory Island property at a sum of $55,000 to Lagoon Parks, Inc., a land development company of the 1950s and 60s, whose corporate partners are now deceased. The development was named "Mystic Islands", plural, encompassing seven small islands where the waterways were filled in to produce buildable land. Construction began slowly in 1959. The lagoons were dredged up until the early 1970s, when it was stopped by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection with the passage of CAFRA I and CAFRA II. Several unfinished lagoons can still be seen along the west end of Calabreeze Way and on the Osborn Island section. Mystic Islands only encompasses all areas south of Calabreeze Way; locals commonly refer to surrounding neighborhoods and streets as part of the community.
The first sections to be completed were the Radio Road terminus, while the Twin Lakes Boulevard section was constructed well into the 1970s. The island currently known as "Osborn Island" was dubbed by its developers as "Oceanview", which was only accessible via a bridge on Radio Road. Up until the early 1990s, all homes part of the original were addressed by a confusing lot-and-block numbering system, which were eventually replaced with more conventional house numbers. Street signs were originally on wooden posts, with the names written vertically. They were slowly replaced with more conventional street signs, one on the corner of Twin Lakes Boulevard and Mountain Lake Drive still existed well into the late 2000s. Street signs in the Oceanview section were replaced by custom signs created by the Osborn Island Resident's Association.
Some of the original bases of the Tuckerton Wireless tower were never removed. One is located in the backyard of a home on North Ensign Drive, while two stand on the middle of both Staysail Drive and South Ensign Drive, in which roundabouts were built around the blocks. Some smaller bases are also found in surrounding lagoons and marshes.
Home designs
thumb|200px|Radio Road near Playhouse drive, near the former site of the Tuckerton Wireless Tower.
The original home designs were basic bungalows, with 2 or 3 bedrooms and one bathroom, and a carport at the left side. The homes were intended to be sold as recreational or year round homes, as standard equipment included a furnace and Johns Manville R-7 Insulation. Over time, several more models were added, nearly a dozen during its boom period. Home designs included slab homes, raised homes, two-story, flat tops, raised roofs, etc. Two- and three-bedroom homes were also available. Model homes were located on Radio Road across from the Shops of Mystic Isle strip mall; the homes were later torn down to make way for the model homes for the Westwood development, all of which still stand and currently serve as commercial properties.
The homes were made in a warehouse on the intersection of Radio Road and Playhouse Drive, near the site of the Tuckerton Wireless tower. Buyers ordered the design by catalog, and the homes were delivered a week later. The model homes were located on Radio Road, across from the present-day "Shoppes of Mystic Isle" shopping center.
After the dredging of the lagoons was stopped, construction began on the non-waterfront section north of Calabreeze Way. The area east of Radio Road was named "Pulaski Village" and consisted of small, narrow homes, while the much larger section west of Radio Road, named "Westwood", contained suburban-style ranches and split-level homes. While these areas are not officially called "Mystic Islands", some homes of the original bungalow designs were constructed in these outlying areas, while at the same time, the larger, suburban homes were also offered on the original waterfront lots. However, tough economic times halted the development of the Westwood subdivision. In the early-1990s, development resumed in this unfinished area, when the empty lots were filled in with mid-size suburban homes built by several different developers. Homes on Oneida Lake Drive and Greenwood Lake Drive are part of the Noble Homes community titled "Fairwinds", while most homes from Mountain Lake Drive and north were dubbed "Drewes Landing". However, Drewes Landing was plagued with failed loans and racketeering, and in August 1995, one of the developers and investors, 35-year-old Joseph G. Paggi Jr. killed himself after he failed to pay back loans for the development.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, Mystic Island had a total area of , including of land and of water (10.08%).