By Bruce Klauber
Although the grand hotels of Atlantic City like the Traymore, Ambassador, Dennis, Marlborough-Blenheim and the rest, continued to be relatively successful in the 1950s through the mid-1960s, not everyone could afford to stay in one of those palaces. Further, many shore visitors and their families were looking for something more modern, less staid and less formal than the old Boardwalk venues.
Developers in the hospitality business saw this void. Beginning in the late 1950s, Atlantic City proper saw an incredible growth in every type of motel imaginable. These pre-casino hotels rated somewhere between the informality of the upstart motels, to the grand old hotels. Good examples of these include the Deauville, Howard Johnson’s and the Boardwalk Holiday Inn.
The Deauville, on Pacific Avenue between Morris and Brighton avenues, was an outgrowth of the Chelsea Hotel, which opened in 1899 and had 250 rooms. By 1945, the hotel had 12 stories, 450 rooms and was said to be the largest private convention facility in Atlantic City.
In 1961, the aging and troubled property was sold and converted into what the builders called “a luxury hotel” named the Deauville. It continued to operate, but the older sections of the Chelsea were torn down to make way for a brand new structure. It continued as the Deauville and later, the Sheraton-Deauville until 1985 when it was torn down, along with the nearby Algiers Motel to make room for the Tropicana’s valet parking lot. FYI, interested visitors can still see what’s left of the Deauville on the Boardwalk. It still stands as a Days Inn, and the long-closed Country Kitchen.
In 1966, Howard Johnson entered the fray via Howard Johnson’s Regency Motor Hotel. In 1977, Caesars bought it, adding seven floors and a casino. Two years later, the Boardwalk Regency opened, and in 1983, the name was changed to Caesars Boardwalk Regency. HoJo’s still has a hotel presence in the city with Howard Johnson by Wyndham Atlantic City, located at 1339 Pacific Ave.
The Holiday Inn chain believed there was still a lot of life in Atlantic City in 1967 when it opened a 23-story tower on the Boardwalk, just across from the Million Dollar Pier. This, too, was billed as a “luxury hotel,” with a gourmet restaurant on the top floor and private terraces.
It lasted until 1979, when Penthouse magazine’s Bob Guccione began to build one of those casinos that never happened – the Penthouse Casino. The land sat vacant until the early 1990s. What was left of the Holiday Inn became a part of Trump Plaza. The only structure, still standing from the Holiday Inn/Trump Plaza days, is still operating as the Rainforest Café’.
The Lafayette Motor Inn is best known as the motel where The Beatles stayed when they were in town for their famed Aug. 30, 1964 concert at Convention Hall.
Built in the early part of the 20th century, it began life as the Lafayette Hotel, and continued to be called a hotel until extensive remodeling began some time in the mid-to-late 1950s. By that point, the name was changed to the Lafayette Motor Inn, in keeping with the “motor inn” trend of the day.
Located at S. North Carolina Avenue near Pacific Avenue, it was once known as one of Atlantic City’s most elaborate motels. It had 250 rooms, a cocktail lounge, something called “Stratosphere Sky Room Cabanas” (you can only imagine), “vapor mist baths,” all-weather swimming pools and live musical entertainment to boot.
In addition to the Beatles’ connection, the Lafayette has quite a history. Frank Gravatt, one of the original owners of the Steel Pier, and owner of the Traymore Hotel, bought the nine-story property in December of 1961. It was reported that Gravatt spent $2 million to build an addition and to generally modernize.
As a symbol of his old ballyhoo days at the Steel Pier, and ever the showman, Gravatt built an 80-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower, made of gold aluminum, on the roof of the building. “Margate has its elephant as a landmark, and now Atlantic City will have an Eiffel Tower as a landmark,” he told the Atlantic City Press at the time.
Despite the slow, downward slide of Atlantic City, the Lafayette was still going strong in the late 1960s. A 1969 newspaper ad hyped a $15 daily rate, which included breakfast and dinner. The Lafayette held on for years through a number of owners and there was even some talk of refurbishing it as a luxury addition to Resorts Hotel and Casino. Sadly, that never happened and the Lafayette became a part of history when it was torn down in 1996.
Space doesn’t permit listing all of the motels that operated in Atlantic City from the mid-1950s through, in some cases, the early 1970s. Some were torn down to make room for casino development, others continue to operate under different names. The majority of the motels had swimming pools, some had restaurants or cocktail lounges, and a few offered “free continental breakfast.” One or two had an ice-skating rink on the premises, and all offered free parking, some kind of television, and for the motor inns on the Boardwalk, ocean views.
Several of these names may be familiar and a few readers may have even stayed in one of them back in the day, but most have simply faded into obscurity.
Here is a partial listing, with addresses:
The Four Seasons, Missouri and Pacific avenues; Coronet Motel, 135-143 South North Carolina Avenue; Al Selkow’s Beautiful Sea-Winds, 9800 Atlantic Ave.; Mt. Royal Motel, Boardwalk and Park Place; The Flamingo, Chelsea and Pacific avenues; Lombardy Motel, Boardwalk and Kentucky Avenue; The Empress, Boardwalk and Michigan Avenue; Beachfront Gardens, Boardwalk and Massachusetts Avenue; the Sorrento, Kentucky and Pacific avenues; Malibu Motel, Boardwalk and Montpelier Avenue; Ascot Luxury Motel, Boardwalk and Iowa Avenue; Terrace Motel, Boardwalk and Pennsylvania Avenue; Eastbourne Motel and Hotel, Indiana and Atlantic avenues; Seville Motel, Boardwalk and Providence Avenue; Envoy Motel, 1416 Pacific Ave.; Tropicana Motel, Boston and Pacific avenues; Boardwalk Motel, Boardwalk and Rhode Island Avenue; Bala Motel, Boardwalk and Illinois Avenue, and the Saxony Motel, Pacific and Michigan avenues.
So what do the old days of Atlantic City hotels and motels have to do with 2025? One thing: There were dozens of great places to stay then, just like there are dozens of great places to stay now.
Bruce Klauber is the author of four books, an award-winning music journalist, concert and record producer and publicist, producer of the Warner Brothers and Hudson Music “Jazz Legends” film series, and performs both as a drummer and vocalist.
