Party Bus Service in Lebanon Township, NJ: Limos, Weddings and Airport Runs in Hunterdon’s Highlands

By GEOFF CAPLAN

Lebanon Township does not look like the New Jersey that shows up in movies. No boardwalk. No turnpike exits stacked on top of each other. What sits up here instead is 31 square miles of ridgeline, hayfield, trout water and gravel driveway, tucked into the northernmost corner of Hunterdon County where it bumps against both Morris and Warren. The Musconetcong River draws the northern boundary. The elevation runs past 900 feet in spots. Roughly 6,200 people call it home, which works out to a lot of elbow room per resident.

That rural footprint is exactly why residents here call a limo company instead of thumbing an app. Rideshare coverage thins out fast on roads like Anthony, Sliker and Bunnvale. A driver two counties away is not going to find a farmhouse at the end of an unpaved lane at 4:30 in the morning. Action Limos has been solving that problem for New Jersey families since 1979, going on 50 years now, and Lebanon Township sits comfortably inside the service map.

A Township Older Than the Country

The paperwork trail starts on October 26, 1731, when Lebanon Township first turned up in the colonial record, carved partly out of the long-vanished Amwell Township. Nobody knows the precise circumstances. The records are thin, the way records from that era tend to be. What is documented is February 21, 1798, when Lebanon became one of New Jersey’s original 104 incorporated townships.

It was enormous back then. The original borders ran all the way from the Musconetcong down to Readington. Over the following century and a half, chunks kept breaking off to become their own municipalities. Tewksbury went its own way in 1755. Clinton Township followed in 1841. High Bridge and Califon both incorporated as boroughs in 1898. What remains is the hilly northern remnant, and locals seem perfectly happy with the trade.

The township is not one town so much as a loose confederation of hamlets. Woodglen. Changewater. Bunnvale. Anthony. New Hampton. Hoffmans Crossing. Each has its own character, its own cluster of old houses, and in several cases its own listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The Lebanon Township Museum keeps the paper history in order for anyone curious enough to dig into deeds and cemetery records. More about the municipality is posted at lebanontownship.net.

Voorhees State Park and the Observatory on the Hill

The township’s marquee green space came from a governor’s generosity. In 1929 Foster M. Voorhees, who had run the state at the turn of the century, handed over his 325-acre farm to the people of New Jersey. Later purchases pushed the total past 1,400 acres. During the Depression the Civilian Conservation Corps set up camp there, planting trees and hand-building the shelters and trail cuts that hikers still use.

The wrinkle that surprises visitors is the telescope. The New Jersey Astronomical Association runs an observatory inside the park, and on clear nights the elevation and the relative absence of light pollution make for genuinely good viewing, which is a rare sentence to write about anywhere in this state. Details on the park sit with the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry.

Ken Lockwood Gorge

Ask anybody in Hunterdon to name the prettiest two and a half miles in the county and a lot of them land on the same answer. The South Branch of the Raritan cuts a steep, wooded ravine between Califon and High Bridge, and the state bought the 563 acres around it back in 1948. It carries the name of Kenneth Lockwood, the outdoor columnist whose work ran in the old Newark Evening News and who spent decades arguing that land ought to be set aside before it got paved. He died in April of 1948. The gorge was named for him almost immediately afterward.

Today it is a designated Trout Conservation Area with its own rulebook, popular with fly anglers, bikers on the Columbia Trail rail bed, and photographers who show up in the third week of October and fight for parking. The access road is narrow, rutted and not somewhere to bring an eight-passenger stretch. Action Limos drivers who run this territory know where the sensible staging spots are.

Nearly 50 Years, and the Only Indoor Showroom in New Jersey

Action Limos opened its doors in 1979, which makes it the oldest limousine service in New Jersey. It was founded by John Garrabrant, who still owns the company and still takes the business personally. Longevity in this trade is not common. Operators come and go with the economy. Five decades of continuous operation means five decades of maintenance records, driver training and repeat customers who have now booked cars for two generations of the same family.

Then there is the showroom, and it is worth explaining why it matters. Most limo companies email a stock photo and hope the customer does not ask follow-up questions. Action Limos runs the only indoor limousine showroom in New Jersey, at 261 Monroe Ave. in Kenilworth. Customers walk in, open the doors, sit on the seats, check the headroom, test the sound system and see the actual vehicle that will pull into their driveway. For a bride comparing a classic Rolls Royce against a 20-passenger party bus, that hour in the showroom settles the question fast. The drive down from Lebanon Township runs roughly 45 minutes, mostly on Route 78.

What Lebanon Township Actually Books

Weddings and Barn Venues

Hunterdon County has quietly become one of the strongest rural wedding markets in the Northeast. Restored barns, hilltop farms, vineyard lawns. Beautiful, and logistically tricky. Guests get lost on unmarked roads after dark, parking is a field, and the nearest hotel block is fifteen minutes away in Clinton or Flemington. Shuttling guests in a party bus solves three problems at once. Action Limos has specialized in wedding transportation for decades, and the fleet spans vintage and antique cars for the couple alongside larger coaches for everyone else.

Airport Transfers

EWR Newark Liberty is about an hour out via 78 East. Lehigh Valley International over in Allentown is often closer and less of a headache for a short hop. PHL Philadelphia International runs around 75 minutes on a decent morning. Trenton-Mercer is a quiet third option. A scheduled sedan at 4:00 a.m. beats gambling on whether any driver will accept a Bunnvale pickup before sunrise.

Cruise Port Runs

Cape Liberty in Bayonne sits about an hour and fifteen east. Luggage for a family of six does not fit in a sedan, and long-term parking at the port gets expensive quickly. A single van or bus handles the whole group and both directions.

Winery, Brewery and Distillery Tours

The Hunterdon and Warren corridor is thick with tasting rooms, and the whole point of a tour is not having to designate a driver. Party bus tours through the region are among the most requested bookings from this part of the county, especially between September and November when the foliage cooperates.

Proms, Concerts and City Nights

Voorhees High School proms, concerts at PNC Bank Arts Center, Broadway shows, Yankees and Giants games, birthdays, bachelor and bachelorette parties. Manhattan is about 60 miles east. A party bus turns a long haul into the fun part of the evening instead of the tedious part.

Famous Faces and Farmland

For a township of six thousand people, Lebanon has produced and attracted an unlikely roster. Merv Griffin, the television producer behind two of the most successful game shows ever made, owned a farm here. Distance runner Mary Decker has roots in the township, as does Olympic 5,000-meter competitor Julie Culley. Children’s book illustrator Adrienne Adams lived and worked here for years. The quiet is apparently productive.

Frequently Asked Questions