Shattered Union Beach home was Superstorm Sandy icon. After 12 years, it's getting rebuilt

UNION BEACH - When it finally came time to replace the 150-year-old home that became a symbol of superstorm Sandy, Jon and Meridith Zois wanted to make sure the new structure could withstand flood waters and piercing wind.

They wanted a fortress with windows that didn't leak. They wanted a home with a playroom for their 7-year-old daughter, Violet. They wanted a deck, where their friends and family could gather during sunsets and take in the view of the Raritan Bay and the Manhattan skyline.

And they had one more request: "I wanted it to not be yellow," Meridith Zois said.

The Zoises and Brick-based Zarrilli Homes are beginning construction on a two-story, 2,300-square-foot modular home that will be Pacific blue and white and will mark the return of a family whose previous home became one of the defining images from 2012's Superstorm Sandy — a yellow structure managing with all its might to stand upright in the gloomy aftermath, even though half the bottom floor was missing.

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It has been a long road back for Jon and Meridith Zois, who wore down from seeing images of their battered home in newspapers and on television, in books and in insurance advertisements, long after it was demolished. But the prospect of a new home where they plan to stay forever is providing, if not closure, at least some measure of peace.

"It's nice to see when they get back in, they stay where they want to stay," said Anthony Zarrilli, owner of Zarrilli Homes, whose own home and office were damaged by Sandy. "She doesn't want to leave the area. She loves the area. So to be able to get her to go back in and enjoy it and not have anxiety every time she goes into the house now, as corny as it sounds, it's actually a good feeling."

Picture of the storm

It's an emotional roller-coaster shared by thousands of Shore homeowners who needed to rebuild after Sandy. In Union Beach alone, 90% of the town flooded, with water ranging from 2 feet to 10 feet, and two-thirds of its 2,102 households sustained major or severe damage.

But the Zoises, or, more specifically, the home they were living in, landed in the spotlight.

Jon Zois said his family has owned property in Union Beach since the 1940s, spending their summers at the Bayshore. And they expanded their footprint over the decades, buying more properties. When the yellow Front Street house came on the market in 1994 at something of a discount, Zois' father, Constantine, and his aunt, Barbara, bought it.

The siblings rented the home before agreeing to let Jon and Meridith, who were dating, to move in. Six months later, Meridith looked out the window onto the bay and saw water swirling in a direction she hadn't seen before. When meteorologists warned about a giant storm approaching, they evacuated to a local hotel, alongside other evacuees and their pets.

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The morning after the storm, Meridith returned to see their mangled home, and then went back to the hotel in a daze, trying to figure out how the top part of the house could remain with part of the foundation knocked out. She received a text that night. It was a picture of their home on the Weather Channel. She showed it to Jon, who sent it to his father.

"His dad was like, 'Whoa,' still not thinking anything of it," Meridith Zois said. "Then it started compounding until it was like, 'OK, we've got something here,' and it just rolled from there."

The house didn't last long. It was bulldozed six weeks later in 15 minutes. And the Zois family pledged to rebuild. But they couldn't escape it; the photo struck a chord, managing to describe the indescribable. Producers and editors kept returning to it when they needed to illustrate a story about Sandy.

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'An eerie sense'

"Just the starkness of it," James J. Connolly, the former multimedia editor for Gannett New Jersey and the Asbury Park Press at the time of the storm, said of the power of the photo. "There was nothing else around, and it had an eerie sense. (The house) was still standing and that gave you some hope, but you knew it was completely gone. There was no other image, there was nothing close, that would make you feel that way."

Jon, 45, a car salesman, and Meridith, 41, a social worker, turned into nomads, moving among homes and apartments until they settled into another Union Beach home that was owned by Jon's aunt and was unscathed.

The family's plan to rebuild, though, ran into obstacles. They didn't have flood insurance and lost their argument with their insurer that the damage was caused by wind. And Constantine and Barbara couldn't agree on what to do with the vacant land.

Constantine died in 2021, and Jon eventually took control of the property with plans to begin building. "I would venture to say I don't think the Jersey Shore, or at the very least the Bayshore, is truly back while that property still sits empty," Jon Zois said. "I feel like it's over and above my own family."

But Zois faced a new challenge. With Union Beach set to open an expanded beach that is part of a flood control project, the town considered buying the Zois property, potentially through eminent domain, to turn it into parking. After the Zoises objected, the borough dropped the proposal.

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'You wanted to move on'

The Zoises remain upset over the battle. But Union Beach Mayor Charles Cocuzza said officials simply pitched the idea because the land had been vacant for so long. They ultimately decided the property was too expensive.

Cocuzza said he is happy the couple is rebuilding, checking off another milestone in Union Beach's recovery. He recalled going to the house after Sandy when he was a councilman and wondering how it didn't tip over.

"That image to me was always a reminder of what happened to us," Cocuzza said. "You remember Sandy, you remember what happened to everybody, and you didn't really want to address it anymore, you wanted to move on. … But every time you saw that image, it was a reminder of what everybody went through."

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Zarrilli Homes expects to begin construction in late May or early June and to complete the project in four months. When it is done, the three-bedroom home will be elevated by 14 feet. And it should be better protected from future storms thanks in part to a massive Army Corps of Engineers dunes project.

Meridith Zois stood on the property one day this week sounding ready to move back in.

Not that it is easy to leave the old memories behind. She still can't believe that an insurance company used a photo of the home in an advertisement when, she said, her own insurance company denied their claim. And she has found herself reassuring her daughter, who has seen the photos, that their new home rising in its place will be safe.

But Meridith Zois is looking forward to buying new furniture, inviting friends and family over to watch the fireworks from their new perch, and finding peace once again.

"I just want it to feel cozy," she said. "I just want to be able to come home and pull up a chair on the deck and just breathe it all in. Know what I mean?"

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Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter who has been writing about the New Jersey economy and health care industry for more than 20 years. He can be reached at mdiamond@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Union Beach home torn in half by Sandy getting rebuilt after 12 years