Monmouth Beach Clubhouse Hotel, 1910. Matthew Houghton – the man who “made Monmouth Beach what it is,” according to the Long Branch Daily Record — bought the clubhouse operations in 1872 paying $15,000. He’d run it for a quarter century during town glory years — hosting at least two US Presidents, the son of another, a Vice President and US House Speaker. The son of a Massachusetts farmer, Houghton died in September 1907.