New Book Releases

Constructed in 1919, OHEKA CASTLE, Long Island's largest Gold Coast mansion, was once described by the New York Times as the "finest country house in America."

Enrico Caruso sang in its grand ballroom, and Arturo Toscanini lifted his baton to its soaring ceiling. Appearing as the mysterious mountaintop castle in the opening scenes of the film classic Citizen Kane, its majestic edifice and meticulous grounds continue to dazzle the screens of major Hollywood movies and television shows. It was a playground for the rich and famous of the Gilded Era, when heads of state, royalty, stage and screen stars, great comedians, and bohemians alike cavorted about its great halls. In subsequent years, it became home to an eclectic array of occupants, including New York City sanitation workers, World War II radio trainees, military school cadets, and eventually vandals and squatters. After its abandonment and descent into unrecognizable ruin, a Long Island developer with an appreciation for history reversed the adverse effects of time and neglect, transforming OHEKA into the largest restored home in America.

Over 200 historic photographs and fascinating text combine to create an illustrated history of New Jersey's thirty-eight lighthouses and forty-one life-saving stations.

From the seventeenth to the twentieth century, New Jersey's low-lying, sandy coast has been the site of thousands of shipwrecks as ships bound for New York City or Philadelphia foundered on its offshore shoals. As coastal and international trade dramatically increased after the War of 1812, the federal government was forced to increase safety aids to mariners. To ensure their safe passage, a series of lighthouses was built and the U.S. Life-Saving Service was created. More than two centuries of the history of New Jersey's treacherous coast are preserved in Guarding New Jersey's Shore: Lighthouses and Life-Saving Stations. Gathered from a wide array of sources, more than 200 historic photographs and fascinating, documented text combine to create the only illustrated history of the state's thirty-eight lighthouses and forty-one life-saving stations. Sandy Hook, built in 1764, is the nation's oldest operating lighthouse. Navesink's Twin Lights was the first lighthouse to use electricity and was the home of Marconi's early radio experiments. From the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, which once served as a lighthouse, to Cape May Point, and up the Delaware Bay and River, the fascinating story of protecting mariners from perils ""Down the Shore"" is presented and preserved in Guarding New Jersey's Shore: Lighthouses and Life-Saving Stations.

Approximately 110,000 soldiers of the Union and Confederate armies fought along the banks of Antietam Creek in the bloodiest single-day battle in American history.

In 12 hours of fighting, approximately 23,000 men fell, either killed, wounded, or missing, forever scarring the landscape around the town of Sharpsburg. Established as the Antietam Battlefield Site in 1890, Antietam National Battlefield became a National Park Service landmark in 1933. The park grew from 33 acres in the 1890s to encompassing over 3,000 acres today. Some of the Civil War’s most recognizable landmarks now sit within its boundaries, including Dunker Church, Bloody Lane, and Burnside Bridge. The events that occurred across the fields and woodlots around Sharpsburg and along Antietam Creek bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to Antietam National Battlefield every year.

Kevin Pawlak serves as a certified battlefield guide at Antietam National Battlefield. Antietam National Battlefield is filled with historic photographs of the battlefield and its development from the collections of Antietam National Battlefield Library, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the United States Army Heritage and Education Center, private collections, and more.

Discover the history of Barnegat Light and journey through time with Author and Curator for the Barnegat Light Historical Society & Museum, Reilly Platten Sharp.

At the mouth of Barnegat Inlet, Native Americans, whalers, pirates, fishermen, and revolutionaries once lazed, fished, fought, and died on Barnegat Light's sands before modern progress and big-city developers tried to build the next Atlantic City. Treacherous shoals just offshore claimed the lives of thousands of immigrants seeking new starts in America before the current lighthouse was designed in 1856 by the later victorious general of Gettysburg, George Meade. The Ashley House, one of the first shore resort hotels in the country, went up in 1821. In the 1880s, Benjamin Archer and William Bailey of Camden built bigger hotels, cottages, and roads in town, even bringing the railroad. Barnegat Light never became a bustling tourist town like her developers dreamed, but a close-knit community of fishermen, lifesavers and their families have endured for generations to call the still small town of Barnegat Light home.