Spruce Run Reservoir
— a lake the farms agreed to let happen.
Not only on a wall.
Spruce Run Reservoir, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The third-largest reservoir in New Jersey, cupped below Round Mountain and the long fields above Clinton. Three creeks feed it. A low earthen dam holds it. Anglers come for hybrid striped bass and the occasional northern pike. On a calm morning the water carries the colour of the sky and the line of the ridge above it.
The place, in three passes.
Spruce Run Reservoir sits in Hunterdon County, about 15 miles southwest of Morristown, holding roughly 1,290 surface acres of water against a low earthen dam completed in 1963 by the New Jersey Water Supply Commission. It is the third-largest reservoir in the state, after Round Valley and Wanaque. Three streams feed it: Spruce Run Creek, Mulhockaway Creek, and Black Brook. The surrounding 2,000 acres became Spruce Run Recreation Area, managed by the New Jersey State Park Service, with a swim beach, two boat launches, and a 67-site campground above the western shore.
The reservoir is one of the most productive warmwater fisheries in New Jersey. The Division of Fish and Wildlife stocks it with hybrid striped bass, walleye, channel catfish, and tiger muskellunge, and it holds wild populations of largemouth bass, northern pike, sunfish, and carp. A state-record hybrid striped bass came from these waters in the 1990s. Two boat ramps serve the north and south shores; rowboats and electric motors run without restriction, and gasoline outboards are capped at ten horsepower.
The park stays open through every season, but the calendar sets what visitors do. The swim beach runs from Memorial Day through Labor Day, supervised when lifeguards are on. Spring and fall bring the boats: April for early-season trout and stripers, October for walleye and the last warm afternoons. Winter draws ice anglers when the cap is thick enough, usually January into early February. The campground above the western shore opens April 1 and runs into October, drawing weekend traffic from Newark, Morristown, and Allentown.
