It’s no secret that the Wildwoods lost some of its characters over the past 20 years.
Residential homes and motels have been torn down to make room for condos that leave the island with cookie-cutter designs lacking any kind of personality.
This is a far cry from what the island is known for. Just as Cape May is known for its victorian Stick-Style architecture, the Wildwoods, especially Wildwood Crest, is known for their motels being in a mid-century architecture, known as Doo Wop or Googie.
This futurist architecture created gave an exaggeration on shapes and angles. It’s where our world-known neon signs, plastic trees, and building shapes came from.
In 2003-2006 we lost close to 50 of these Doo Wop motels due to the big building boom.
These motels were replaced with condos and removed thousands of rentable units.
Fast forward to 2018 where things did change for the better.
Motels weren’t being town down but rather be turned into Condotel. This process is called adaptive reuse architecture. The process of using this kind of architecture is a win-win as it keeps the existing structure somewhat full of its original character but also increases taxables on the island.
In these past few years, we have seen this adaptive reuse architecture work very well. Examples of this are Mark I Motel and the Surf Motel.
Though sometimes these adaptive reuse architectures do not work well for use. A good example is the old Singapore motel. This motel note only lost its architecture but also its building shape.
Today we could have the chance to save some kind of Wildwood Crest architecture.
It has come to our attention that the Oceanview Motel, located at Rambler Ave and the Beach is being sold and will become condos.
This motel was first built in 1964 as the Admiral and was later known as Admiral East due to a second one being built across the street.
The lobby of this motel is the definition of Doo Wop and Googie. Its roof is called a “Blast-off” roof, which includes an upward angle and a wall of glass.
This was only one of two motels on the island that featured this. The other was the Satellite Motel which we lost in the first building boom.
This is the first time we have any kind of advanced notice to help save our culture down here in the Wildwoods.
An application to New Jersey’s register of historic places had been submitted a year ago and we should be hearing from them in a month or two.
In the video below I put together a plan that I believe will be a win-win thing for the buyer of the property and the island.
If we are able to get enough public support behind it we, for one of the first time, could be saving history. The public meeting will be in Mid-February.
Please watch the video below for the full details.
[NOTE: UPDATE: those in the media who are trying to contact me please reach out to me first via email at [email protected]]
