Bells Lake Homes for Sale

Living in Bells Lake

Bells Lake is one of the largest and most active neighborhoods in Washington Township, built mainly between 1957 and 1965. The streets are Bells Lake Road and Drive, Wedgewood Drive, Barclay Drive, Greenview Drive, Sherwood Drive, Woodbrook Road and Lombardy Road. Three and four bedrooms, one to two and a half baths, on public water and public sewer.

The land here is the most consistent in the township. Almost every lot in Bells Lake measures right around 9,750 square feet — a shade over a fifth of an acre — and it repeats address after address, street after street. This was platted and laid out as one piece, and it shows. There is essentially no lot lottery here: what your neighbor has, you have. That is unusual enough in this county to be worth saying out loud, because in most of the older neighborhoods around here the parcel is the single biggest source of value variation.

The houses run the full mid-century catalog — ranchers, raised ranches, split levels, bi-levels, colonials and a contemporary or two. And the feature set is the reverse of what you find in the township's newer communities: basements are nearly universal here, while garages are the exception rather than the rule. Most homes in Bells Lake do not have one. If a garage is on your must-have list, that narrows this neighborhood considerably, and it is the first filter to apply rather than the last.

Something to watch when you search: Bells Lake sits across two postal names. Part of the neighborhood carries a Blackwood mailing address and part carries Turnersville, both in 08012, and the line runs through the middle of it rather than around it. Barclay Drive alone shows up under both. The municipality is Washington Township either way, and that is what actually governs.

One more naming trap worth knowing: Wedgewood Drive is a street inside Bells Lake, and the township separately has communities called Wedgewood, Wedgewood Farms, Wedgewood Forest and Wedgewood Greens. A Wedgewood Drive address here is a Bells Lake house. Searching the name will return a mix of five different things.

This neighborhood turns over steadily — there is almost always something moving in Bells Lake, which makes it one of the easier addresses in the township to actually buy into. Schools are Washington Township throughout, which means Washington Township High School; one district for the whole township, so there is no sending-district question here. The township's recently sold homes are the best read on where this end of the market sits.