| It was for the purpose of creating a first class boardwalk hotel
that a group of Ocean City, New Jersey businessmen formed the Ocean Front Hotel
Corporation in 1922. The first meeting, held at Atlantic City Country Club in
Northfield, included William Massey, Howard Stainton, Allen Corson, William Shriver,
Randolph Fogg, Henry Cooper and other prominent citizens of the day. They decided to
build an elegant seaside hotel that would compete in service and appointments with the
best hotels in America, a project supported by a $100 a point stock investments by
ordinary citizens of the community. |
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| Designed by a renown local architect, Vivian Smith, an Ocean City native
who achieved success in Philadephia before returning home to assist in the design of the
Ocean City Music Pier, Smith also designed Ocean City Hall, Ocean City High School,
Ventnor City Hall and a number of Atlantic City hotels. He also laid out the unique,
planned rural town of Belcoville, near Mays Landing. |
| The Flanders Hotel is of Spanish Mission Revival style, similar to the
Chatterbox, the Music Pier, Grace Kelly's family home at 26th and Wesley Avenue and the
Golden Galleon shops on the boardwalk, which sets a classic tone for the town.
Constructed of steel girders and concrete, the hotel was not quite complete when a Grand
Opening dinner party was held on July 28, 1923. The over four hundred guests,
dignitaries and prominent citizens enjoyed a cuisine that included Aiquilette of Striped
Bass, Consome Yvette, Potatoes Hollandaise, peas, Supreme of Chicken Mousselene and an
entree of saddle of Spring Lamb, with Mousse glace Flanders dessert. It was a feast
the Flanders chef Richard Spurlock recreated for the hotel's 75th anniversary party. |
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The Flanders
January 4, 1923 |
The Flanders
April 10, 1923 |
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The Flanders
April 21, 1923 |
The Flanders
July 26, 1923 |
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| The Flanders Hotel is named after Flanders Field in Belgium, where
poppies grow over the rows of gravestones of American soldiers who died during World
War I, the cemetery made famous by the John McCrae poem: |
"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row...
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved,
and now we lie in Flanders fields..." |
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| The first national marbles tournament was held at the Flanders to
publicize the opening of the hotel, which was originally managed by J.Howard Slocum.
Having previously managed the Waldorf Astoria, the Princeton Inn and the Normande Hotel,
Slocum established the precedence of fine cuisine, appointments and service that have been
continued through the years. |
| The hotel miraculously survived the devastating fire of October 1927,
when twelve city blocks were leveled, after which the boardwalk was rebuilt a block closer
to the ocean, which made room for what became the salt water swimming pools. |
| The stock market crash of 1929 caused economic hardship for the
corporation and in 1932, Elwood F. Kirkman assumed ownership of the hotel. Most of
the original investors were paid dimes to the dollar, but even in hard times, Kirkman
maintained the hotel with an atmosphere of hospitality and continuation of the first class
standards. |
| Among the hotel's more prominent guests wereVice President Charles
Curtis, the three Lit brothers of department store fame, cartoonist Al Capp, Grace Kelly
and Jimmie Stewart, all of whom spent time in the Ocean Room, which traditionally was the
center of activities. |
After Kirkman died, his family sold off the property in parcels. Other
plans devised to make the hotel into a retirement community, but the city wanted to
maintain the hotel as one of the city's premier landmark attractions. James M. Dwyer
purchased the Flanders in 1996, remodeled the rooms as condominium units and restored the
hotel to much of its former grandeur. The Drifters and the Coasters performed at the
hotel's grand reopening on Labor day 1997, a function that was attended by then New Jersey
Governor Christie Whitman. |
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