Above the Hook
Eric and Mary on the water off Highlands, the New York skyline behind them.

Eric and Mary.

Highlands, New Jersey.

We live here. We love it here. That's most of it.

It started with deep love for this land, its history, and the community here today. We weren't trying to build a company. We were trying to get something down before it changed, because this town changes fast and most of it goes unrecorded.

People noticed. Then they started asking. Above the Hook is what came of that: the two of us, plus a short list of collaborators, making things about this stretch of coast — and, more and more, making them for the businesses that work here too.

What we've built so far

  • Films

    Documentary and short-form work about this coast, and for the people who make a living on it.

  • The Local Lookout

    A quarterly magazine, in print, free at the counter across Monmouth County.

  • The Stream

    A live camera pointed at Sandy Hook Bay. It hasn't stopped since the day it went up.

  • The Studio

    Rooms above the bay for recording, podcasting, art, and production. Built for our own work, open to yours.

  • Goods

    Hook Pendants, tees, hats. Made here, sold here.

Who we work with

Above the Hook is a couple locals and a short list of collaborators we trust with our own work.

Businesses we work with

  • Montecalvo Family of Companies

  • The Legendary Bahrs Landing

  • Waterwitch Neighborhood Grocer & Gourmet

  • In the Garden

  • Lady K Charters

  • Salty Dog Watersports

  • Brown Dog Mechanical

  • Abby Miggins Art

  • DockterSea Marine

Preserve the Hook

Some of what we make isn't for sale. Preserve the Hook is our community program: the Highlands history archive, the photographs and documents people bring us, and the work of getting this town's record written down before the people who remember it are gone. It runs on our own time, and it always will.

See the archive
Ocean bathing at Highland Beach, colorized — bathers in the surf, and a crowd watching from the pavilion above the bulkhead.

Highlands, New Jersey

One square mile between the Navesink and Sandy Hook Bay, with the city on the horizon. We're not a firm that services this area. We live in it, our work is about it, and you can find us on Bay Avenue.

Highlands from above — the Twin Lights on the hill, the town under it, the river running out to the ocean.

If you're making something about this place, we should talk.

Start a project

Or come see the studio