Jersey Shore Realtor's World-Traveling Sign Returns To NJ

WALL, NJ — The sign that sailed the ocean blue for more than 5 years has finally made its way home to New Jersey — by plane.

Diane Turton, the Realtor whose sign washed up on the shores of Bordeaux, France, in May, recently flew to France to meet Hannes Frank and retrieve the sign that was blown away from a property during Superstorm Sandy.

Turton, her husband, Bruce, and Perry Beneduce, the real estate company's marketing director, flew to Bordeaux to meet Hannes Frank, the Belgian man who found the sign in May and then contacted the real estate company through its website on May 18.

"I was skeptical about where it could be coming from," Beneduce said, but when they checked the latitude and longitude information embedded into the digital information on photos Frank sent to them, they were able to confirm Frank was telling the truth.

Diane Turton, one of the largest realtors in New Jersey with 425 agents, has 18 offices across Monmouth, Ocean and Middlesex counties, but because each office has its respective cell phone numbers on its signs, they knew the sign had come from the Wall office, Beneduce said. But they were able to narrow it down even further.

"That office doesn't have many waterfront listings," he said, but they knew that a home in Brielle had lost its sign during Superstorm Sandy on Oct. 29, 2012. The home, which has since sold, sits on Debbie's Creek, which eventually feeds into the Manasquan River. It traveled out of the river to the Atlantic Ocean, eventually ending up in Bordeaux.

Bonaduce said he and the Turtons met up with Frank and his family on Aug. 12 to retrieve the sign, which Frank had been holding onto for the meeting. He took them to the spot where he found the sign.

"This is the exact spot," Frank says in a video Bonaduce posted on the Diane Turton, Realtor, Facebook page, as he posed with Diane and Bruce on the beach, wearing a T-shirt with the company's new slogan: "Global Knowledge, Local Expertise" above a photo of the sign.

Diane Turton said the sign will be going to a museum now that it is back in New Jersey.

"It is so nice to know someone would take the time to do that (find us and send the sign back) in this day and age," Beneduce said. "It's also nice to know that our signs will stand the test of time."

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Photos provided by Perry Bonaduce of Diane Turton, Realtors, published with permission