Stone Harbor Loves Him Back: Museum Mainstay Bob Ashman Honored with Risley Award
Several years ago, Bob Ashman created the Risley Award, honoring individuals with unselfish dedication to Stone Harbor.
This year, the award came all the way home – to him. It is given annually by the Stone Harbor Museum, where he served for 12 years before leaving in January to honor its term limits. Departure enabled him to qualify for the Risley and gain a unanimous selection by the board of trustees.
This is a well-regarded distinction. It is named after brothers Howard, David, and Reese Risley, credited with founding Stone Harbor in 1914. Recipients are pillars of the community.
Earning the Risley was another pleasant milestone for Ashman, the man from Berwyn, Pa., who built his Stone Harbor home in 1996. Ashman moved here permanently in 2010 after retiring from a sales executive position at Proctor & Gamble.
“I was humbled and honored to receive this award,” says Ashman, who has long been enamored with the way Stone Harbor was founded and built.
Ashman received the award in July at The Reeds at Shelter Haven, the iconic Stone Harbor centerpiece that was opened in 2013 by recent Risley Award winners Ed Breen and John Sprandio.
The borough remains an aesthetic anchor for Ashman, who has carried on here after Connie, his wife of 50 years, died in 2010. Ashman has two married sons, 10 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. Family visits him frequently in the summer, enjoying this slice of paradise.
Ashman loves the open feel given from a string of single-family homes restricted to two stories.
“When we started vacationing here, we loved this being a nice, clean, safe, family-oriented small town with a wonderful beach,” he says. “We looked all over the country before building a home. This is where we chose to come and my family has loved it here for a long time.
“I love to see how the town grew according to a pretty good plan. They did a good job in setting the town up, laying out the streets, cross streets, and single-family homes. Stone Harbor compares so favorably with other beach towns that are densely populated, sometimes with three or four stories built on a small lot.”
Starting the Risley Award was one of Ashman’s major museum contributions. The Risley Gala and the Vintage Home program are two others. Owners of Stone Harbor homes built in 1965 or earlier can purchase a plaque issued by the museum noting the property as a vintage home. More than 250 homes hold that distinction.
The Stone Harbor Museum was founded in 1999. It acquires, preserves, celebrates, and promotes archives to inspire future generations.
The tourist attraction contains a treasure trove of artifacts and memorabilia. Highlights include “Stone Harbor Stories,” oral histories that take visitors back as far as the 1930s. Also, large collections of binders contain hundreds of stories and thousands of photos.
Also featured are a Timeline that takes visitors back to when the purchase of a $100 bond included a free lot.
“Stone Harbor Minutes” is a popular video series detailing interesting borough history nuggets. The current lineup includes early air-mail deliveries, the free bridge, and a look at barnstorming, which occurred here in the 1930s.
Barnstorming involved young pilots back from World War I traveling the country and performing tricks in their planes for crowds of spectators. They would often land in fields and use barns as venues for their shows. Stone Harbor was an unlikely destination for this and that led to some problems, as narrator Jim Talone details.
The museum reached several milestones during Ashman’s tenure. It moved from a small, 900-square-foot home to its current 2,500-square-foot location at 9410 2nd Ave., near the main shopping district on 96th Street.
The organization also was part of the Stone Harbor’s Centennial publication in 2014.
Stone Harbor Museum has evolved to include popular scavenger hunts with children, who can retrieve an historical item and be rewarded with a prize like pizza or ice cream from local merchants.
Adult scavenger hunts are being planned. All will take place inside the building.
Sparked by a new Taylor Swift collection and a remodeling project, the museum drew a record 6,000 visitors in 2024. Admission is free to the public, but donations are appreciated.
Ashman has left his mark upon this venue. Teri Fischer, the board of trustees president, considers him irreplaceable.
“I loved being on the board with Bob,” she says. “He was a wonderful board member and easily could have been the president if he had wanted to. Bob has so much experience in the history of the town, in finance and just with people in general.
“He is the type of person you want on any board. Bob is even-tempered, very thoughtful and insightful. He always focuses on what’s in the best interests of the museum. Any board would be lucky to have him.”
Fischer said she would be happy if he started a new board tenure in the future.
Will he have time?
Ashman juggles the schedule of someone 50 years younger. He does not look or sound like an 87-year-old.
“I don’t act it either,” he laughs. “I love a lot of things. One is playing golf with a bunch of guys, who go all different places. I like to play bocce and I am competitive in those games,” he says with a smile. “I like winning.”
He also likes serving.
Here are some of the things he is or has been involved in:
Chairman of the commission that developed the Stone Harbor master plan
Vice chairman, Cape May County Planning Board
Chairman of the Finance Committee for St. Brendan the Navigator Parish
Treasurer of Family Promise, which helps homeless families
Active in Stephen C. Ludlam American Legion Post 331
Ashman hasn’t indicated whether he will return to the museum in the future. But if board members want to lure him out of retirement, they might have to track him down first.
