History
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.
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. This feast was recreated by Chef Richard Spurlock for the hotel's 75th anniversary party.
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..."
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 were Vice 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 were 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. The hotel currently operates as an all suites luxury ocean front boardwalk hotel.