The Lake Shawnee Club
A Private Lake Community
Purpose
The Lake Shawnee Club is established for the following:
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Promote recreation, enjoyment, good fellowship and community betterment.
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Provide and maintain the club properties, facilities and water resources.
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Provide and maintain an effective system of administration of the club. To promulgate and enforce the the standing rules for the use of the club properties and facilities for the mutual benefit of the membership.
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Maintain master deed covenants over the properties in the Reservation. Where deemed appropriate, communicate the needs for community services and Member concerns to government agencies
The Lake Shawnee Reservation was established, developed and incorporated by the Arthur D. Crane Co. in 1946. It is comprised of an 83 acre private lake as well as 6 club properties which include Whites Cove, Beaver Cove, North End, and Beaches 1, 2, & 3. The Club has within it 533 property owners. All property owners are required to become Club Members. A Board of Governors is elected by the membership to oversee the Club in accordance with the Club bylaws. Members in good standing and their guests are entitled to the use of the lake, beaches, docks, clubhouse and club activities. The Board of Governors strives to maintain all of the Club facilities so its members can enjoy its many social and recreational activities. The Club also maintains a number of committees to promote its purpose which include a social committee and an active and successful swim team.
Board of Governors
The Lake Shawnee Club was incorporated in 1946 and as per the Club bylaws, there exists a Board of Governors established to conduct the daily business of the club. The board consists of 5 Club officers including a President, Executive Vice President, Membership Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and eight Board Members-at-Large. The term of service for all officers is one year. Our eight Members-at-large serve a term of two years. All Board Members are volunteers elected at the Club's annual meeting by the membership present. The Board of Governors meets the first Friday of each month with some exceptions at 7:00pm at the clubhouse to discuss Club business. All meetings are open to members in good standing.
President - Eric Wilsusen​
Eric Wilsusen is our current Club President and has been happily married to his wife, Kristine, since 1995. They have two beautiful children, Karly and Katelyn, who were raised here in beautiful Lake Shawnee and served as lifeguards.
Eric enjoys service to his community and church. Eric served as the Deputy Chief of Police and retired in 2016 from the Jefferson Township Police Department after 30 years, and has since been employed as the Director of Child & Youth Protection for RC Diocese of Paterson. In 2019, Eric became the Mayor of Jefferson Township and has been very involved at Our Lady Star of the Sea RC Church and many other organizations throughout the community over his lifetime. And if community involvement isn't enough, he also instructs a spin/cycle class at Black Bear Fitness.
Eric is a 3rd generation Lake Shawnee resident. His grandfather built one of the first Lake Shawnee homes on West Shawnee Trail in 1949. Eric is essentially a lifelong resident of Lake Shawnee. He was born on West Shawnee Trail in 1964, and in 1970, his parents built a house on Island Trail, the house he lives in now after his parents retired to North Carolina. Eric and his wife lived for a short period in the Prospect Point section of the Township from 1995 to 2000, moving back to the lake right after the Great Flood of 2000!
Eric has served on the Lake Shawnee Board since 2002 and has been President since 2007. His experiences growing up here and his community activities bring a wealth of knowledge to the board. Besides being the Club President, Eric's responsibilities as a Board Member include managing the property on First Beach and serving on many different Board Committees. Eric loves his daily walks around Lake Shawnee with Kristine and mentioned that he could not think of a better place to grow up and raise his own children!​​​
​​​Executive Vice President - Vince Matrisciano
Vince has been on the Board of Governors since 2006 and is currently the Executive Vice President. He and his wife Gina moved to Lake Shawnee in 1993 and subsequently had two children, Amanda and Matt. Vince is semi-retired from a career as a Project Management Engineer at Picatinny Arsenal, where he now consults part time. During his career, he managed many advanced technology product development projects and portfolios, including development of product portfolio strategies that influenced the direction of investment in certain technologies. In the execution of his job, he became proficient in project management and product development processes, Lean Six Sigma efficiencies, contracting and legal matters. He was and remains a teacher/trainer in project management, Lean Six Sigma, and leadership courses. For fun, he likes to play golf in the summer and ski in the winter. He also has a knack for pairing food with wine, beer and spirits, and hosts these types of events for the Lake Shawnee community. Vince brings all of his experience and expertise to the Lake Shawnee Board and Community, as he manages large and small projects (he managed the renovation of the Clubhouse and the rebuilding of the dam). He reviews contracts and other legal documents on behalf of the Club and recommends and documents specific policies to the Board when needed. He also helps as needed around all Club properties, whether it means fixing something, landscaping, or other upgrades. He feels very fortunate to live in such a great community and looks forward to serving on the Board now and in the future.
Secretary - Kristeen McConnon
​Hello, my name is Kristeen McConnon. I have served as Secretary on the Lake Shawnee Board of Governors since 2012. I have been living in Lake Shawnee on Mountain View Trail since 1996 (almost 30 years, wow!) with my husband, Troy. Here we raised our girls, Madelyn and Jaclyn, in this amazing community and they (and we) are forever grateful for such wonderful childhoods filled with great friends and neighbors and so many fond memories. Our girls both swam on the LS Swim Team, worked as lifeguards and taught swim lessons to so many young swimmers throughout the lake, and Jaclyn even worked as Summer Security before both girls moved to Florida in 2020. I have always been actively involved and given back to the community by volunteering at various Social Committee events, swim meets or other Lake activities even before serving on the Board for the past 13 years. As Board Secretary, I am responsible for keeping records for the monthly Board meetings and the Annual meetings, I am editor of the Lake Shawnee News, and I serve on several Board committees such as the Budget committee and the newly formed Lake Shawnee Foundation. I, along with fellow Board member, Dina Troha, helped to create the Lake Shawnee Scholarship Committee to provide annual scholarships to youth in our community each year and have awarded over $8000 in scholarships since 2019. I also served on the 75th Anniversary Committee and was able to research and compile Lake Shawnee history including all of the past Board minutes from our inception in 1946, which I hope to archive for future generations. In my spare time, I have been a one-on-one aide for students on the Autism spectrum in Jefferson Twp. schools for the past 16 years and I continue to teach dance at a local studio, which I have done for over 30 years. I truly feel blessed to live in such an amazing community and would love to continue to serve as your Board Secretary.​
Treasurer - Marc Sanderson
Marc is our second longest serving Board Member, volunteering his time for over 30 years. He purchased his home in 1977 and married his lovely wife, Donna in 1992. Marc is a CPA with an office right here in town. Marc is currently our Treasurer, ensuring everyone is being fiscally responsible by wearing different colored shirts to board meetings. Yellow meaning proceed with caution and red is don't even go there. I am not sure I have ever seen a green shirt. Marc was instrumental in deciphering all the ins and outs of the legal and monetary aspects of our SBA Loan. He is also very involved in Phase 2 of our Dam Repairs and the creation of our new Foundation. He provides monthly finance reports and has the best interest of every member in mind when calculating our dues each year. One of Marc's accomplishments was funding our $300K clubhouse rebuild without taking out a loan or mortgage. This is why you may have heard Marc referred to as Mandrake, he will always finds a way to get the job done. Marc enjoys his role on the board, loves his community and is looking forward to remaining Treasurer as long as he is able.
Membership Vice President - Dina Troha
For many years, Dina had worked in the corporate world but when her son Zachary was born, decided a career change was needed. She happily became a stay at home Mom and volunteered as much as she could, first at school and then in the community that she called home, Lake Shawnee. Since moving from Brooklyn, she always missed that feeling of family in a neighborhood. Once Dina moved to Lake Shawnee in 2001 with her husband Rob she felt like she was home again. Summers in Lake Shawnee have always been the most memorable and watching Zach swim on our Swim Team was something she always looked forward too. In 2009, Dina ran into Eric Wilsusen at a Swim meet in Lake Forest where she found herself saying yes to chairing the Social Committee. She loved to try new things and that really showed in the Club's calendar of events. Dina decided she wanted to learn more about the community, so in April of the following year she ran for a Board position and was elected. After ten years of leading the social committee she stepped down to focus on other activities, but has remained involved with the board with a brief hiatus in 2020. Dina is currently serving as the Membership Vice President. She is honored to continue the work that Milt Felter had been doing for over 50 years. You will now find her welcoming new members with a bottle of wine and a smile. She has been working with our office manager to update how we gather data for our new members and has recently introduced an online newsletter, Harry's Happenings as an additional resource to keep members informed. She still plays an active role in helping the Social Committee run events. She loves being on the Board and hopes to be able to continue to do so for many more years.
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Member-at-Large - Al Pichieri
​I’ve lived in Lake Shawnee for thirty-five years. I enjoy the opportunities it gives me to do things that I enjoy such as fishing, biking (I need to get back to doing this more frequently), walking around the lake and the hiking trails in the area, gardening, and fishing. I used to fish a lot on Lake Shawnee but have switched to fishing on Lake Hopatcong. It’s always exciting when you connect with a large hybrid striper! I’ve been a board member-at-large for seven years and am the property manager for Whites Cove. That’s a busy property since it has the boat ramp and the largest number of racks for boat storage. I recently retired after a thirty-three year career in the pharmaceutical industry. Thanks to that I got to travel around the world to eleven different countries. And once I literally traveled around the world working with manufacturing sites in three countries. What I’ve found is that people are pretty friendly everywhere, you need to respect their customs, and they’ll welcome you. In my teens I was in Scouting and earned my Eagle Scout award. Now that I’m retired I’m volunteering with the Patriots Path Council, BSA. It’s real interesting to see how Scouting has evolved since I was younger.
Member-at-Large - Jeff Keith
I have lived in Lake Shawnee for 46 years. I have been on the board for 38 years. My responsibility on the board is to oversee the health of our 90 acre lake. This entails weed and algae growth, geese population control by finding nests and addling their eggs so they cannot reproduce, and most recently removing deceased wildlife from the lake and burying them.I survey the lake almost every day during the summer while out on my paddle board and every 2 to 3 weeks I am out with the biologist from Tigris(our treatment management company) on their airboat doing a more detailed survey for plant growth to assess if we have to treat or not. We also test for dissolve oxygen in the water, PH, temperature, and water clarity. All these factors contribute to the health of a body of water. Needless to say I take this job seriously. I love this lake and consider it an extension of my property. I try to keep residents up-to-date about the health of our lake and what they can do to keep it clean through articles in the Lake Shawnee News called Ask Jeff.
Member-at-Large - John Stern
Hello Lake Shawnee friends and neighbors, my name is John Stern and I’ve been a Member-at-Large Lake Shawnee Board member, for over 3 years now. One of my duties is to manage the property at 3rd beach. I’ve spent so much of my time there, grilling and chilling over the 36+ years living here on Lake Shawnee. I’ve lived in the same house all of that time with my wife Margie. I have 2 daughters, Gillian and Cat, who both grew up here, participated in the many activities and both were on the swim team for many years. I have always thought, what a great place this is for them to grow up. I took early retirement from the United States Golf Association (USGA), after working there over 32 years where I managed a Tech Support Team. If you’re thinking that I must be a golfer, you’d be right. I’m not the best, or the worst, but I do like to have fun on the links. In addition to golf, I like most all sports and I’m still out there trying to run (more like jogging) 4 days a week. You also may see me out walking our 2 dogs, Delilah & Dexter, 2 to 3 times a day. Yes, they are spoiled babies, but I’ve been a dog lover forever. ​
Member-at-Large - Matt Dallicardillo
I moved to West Shawnee Trail in 2013 with my wife Jen, herself a lifetime Lake Shawnee resident. Shortly there-after we started our family here, welcoming Sadie (‘16), Wyatt (‘18), and Peggy (‘21), and finally our new puppy, Luna. I began participating in work days in 2015 with the installation of the new playground at Second Beach, and have since regularly volunteered my time and materials to fix things I have noticed in dis-repair around Lake properties. In late 2024 when a board position was available, I was glad for the opportunity to serve the community further. Professionally, I have been an Application Developer with Gotham Technology Group since graduating from college in 2012. In my spare time I enjoy a myriad of hobbies, from guitar to woodworking to 3D printing, but time with my family is always my priority. When the weather is nice you can find us at the beach, out on our paddle boards, or at the park, and when it’s not, you can be certain we are battling it out in a board game marathon. I look forward to spending the rest of my life in this beautiful community, watching it and my family grow, and I am honored to serve the community as a board member for as long as I am needed.
Membership
Membership in the Lake Shawnee Club is required of all persons owning property within the Lake Shawnee Reservation and as per the "Schneider Deed" the master deed of the reservation. Lake Shawnee was established in 1946 and membership is limited to those owning or renting within the lake reservation. On March 14, 2008, the NJ Appellate Court, after a review of the original formation documents of the Lake Shawnee Club, rendered an opinion and upheld that Lake Shawnee is a mandatory membership community. Membership dues are assessed on an annual basis by the Board of Governors based on the operating expenses of the Club as well as reserves that are set aside for capital projects such as dam repair or dredging. Dues billing is mailed in March and payment is due by April 1st. All new property owners, not already a current member, are required to pay a one-time $500 initiation fee in addition to Club dues.
Since all members are required to follow our bylaws, members are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Club bylaws and standing rules. Only members in good standing and their guest are then entitled to full use of the facilities, including the lake, beaches, docks, and clubhouse. They can enjoy swimming, boating, sailing, summer and winter fishing in stocked waters, ice skating, hockey, swim team competitions, volleyball, playgrounds, horseshoes, and social events. There are annual community days, movie nights and camp outs, numerous children's activities, summer ice cream socials, Halloween trunk & treats, winter festival, seniors club, baby & me and more. Guest badges permit non-resident visitors to members' homes to participate as well. Member Guests can take advantage of the numerous amenities and activities that the Club provides.
Of special importance, is the impact that the Club's maintenance of the lake, dam, clubhouse, beaches, docks, and other facilities has on sustaining property values throughout the lake. It is through volunteer efforts as well as membership dues that make this possible. If you are new to Lake Shawnee, please consider this a special invitation to join in our social and volunteer activities, help maintain our community, and enjoy all that the lake has to offer.
Call or visit the Clubhouse between 8:30 am and 12 noon any Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday for more information. Office #973-663-1307.
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