Ada's Cottage
Known Name(s)
Ada's Cottage
Address
1404 Summerfield Asbury Park, NJ
Establishment Type(s)
Cottage
Physical Status
Extant
Description
The 1930 Sanborn insurance map recorded 1404 Summerfield Avenue, located in a quiet residential neighborhood of Asbury Park’s West Side, as a small, two-story, frame dwelling with a one-story porch to the front. The house exists today, its Craftsman forms, including a large, front-facing, gabled dormer, evident.
Source: Sanborn Map Co., Insurance Maps of New Jersey Coast, New Jersey, Vol. 2 (1930), sheet 203.
Detailed History
Ada’s Cottage was listed in The Green Book as a vacation resort from 1949 through 1962. The address, 1404 Summerfield Avenue, was misspelled as “Sumerfiled.”
1404 Summerfield was the home of African-American couple George and Ada Bryan. Ada Martina Jones Bryan was born in New Jersey in 1908, and died in 2003 at the age of 95 in Asbury Park. She was active in her Catholic parish and also in community politics. According to the 1950 census, Mrs. Bryan worked as a “servant.” George I. Bryan was born in Maryland, and died in 1974 at the age of 72. Also active in his parish as well as in politics, Mr. Bryan served as a committeeman.
Sources: “Ada Martina Jones Bryan,” Asbury Park Press, 7 April 2003; “George I. Bryan,“ Asbury Park Press, 12 June 1974.
J. Shaffer
