Oceanview Lobby Demolished – Madison Resorts

Oceanview Lobby Demolished 

In what some are calling a major loss to Doo-Wop preservation, the historic Oceanview Lobby has been demolished.

Located at 7201 Ocean Avenue in Wildwood Crest, the Oceanview motel is going through a massive rejuvenation to become the new Madison Resorts.

The Oceanview Motel, which opened in 1963 as the Admiral Motel, was later renamed Admiral East before finally settling on its current name.

Built by contractor Lou Morey, The Oceanview was notable for its unique lobby featuring a “blast-off” roof in the style of Googie or Doo-Wop architecture.

Some of these architectural elements include geometric shapes, bright colors, and futuristic design elements.

This style was extremely popular here in the Wildwoods and would later be known as the “Doo-Wop Capital of the World” due to the abundance of these motels.

The roof, which mimicked the shape of a jet plane taking off, was a prominent feature in many of the motels in the area during the 1960s when space travel was a popular theme.

Over the years sadly the Wildwoods started to lose many of these motels, especially during the condo boom. It is estimated that in the Wildwoods over 90 motels were demolished.

This was why the Doo Wop Preservation League was created. To help save and support these beautiful motels.

Fast-forward to January of this year and the island was in danger of losing the Oceanview motels and its historic lobby.

The proposed owners wanted to demolish the lobby and turn the entire property into luxury condos. We here at the Wildwood Video Archive and the team from the  Doo Wop Preservation League stepped in to save this lobby.

The WVA recorded over 5 videos, and 7 articles and even set up groups to visit the pending planning and zoning meeting while the DWP submitted the Oceanview for New Jersey’s historic register landmark program and helped to get letters sent to city hall to voice our option.

It worked and a new owner purchased the building with the hopes of keeping it a motel.

Now named Madison Resorts, the new owners had a big envision. They are turning the motel into a massive resort by adding additional floors, Infinity Pool, a restaurant, and a cafe.

This project would take several years but they wanted to have phase one completed by Memorial Day 2023.

That is easier said than done since the building was in bad shape they would have to inspect every beam to make sure it can hold the weight of the new project.

Construction started right at the end of summer and crews got inside to start demolition on the main building.

Their inspections came back showing that the metal beams at the beachfront grill have been corroded and not sound. This caused them to completely remove the terrace.

Crews started to remove the outside covering of the beams of the lobby and unfortunately found the same problem.

The owners who had it over the course of 20 years didn’t maintain the property well. This caused most of the wood in the lobby to be rotted and the metal to almost be like tin foil.

The WVA was there on Sunday, the day before the demolition, and had documented that the metal at the base of the lobby had holes inside.

Note, at that time we had no idea that the lobby was being demolished.

On Tuesday, December 20th, D R Bradley’s Bikes Rentals uploaded photos online showing the lobby partially demolished.

We reached out to the Madison Resort who said that the steel and wood had to be replaced due to neglect but they promise that the lobby will look like the mock-up photos.

These photos, which you can see HERE, showcase an almost similar lobby to what used to stand there. The major difference is that the blast off roof will curve up at the end allowing taller vehicles into the lobby drop-off.

On a personal note. While we do praise the Madison Resort for wanting to keep the Doo-Wop feel, it is a bit upsetting to see history demolished like this. Sometimes things are just beyond repair and need to remove to be built bigger and better. The sad part is not knowing about it since there were historic things inside that building that could have been saved. At the end of the day at least we are keeping Doo-Wop alive. 

Below is the construction project tour where the WVA shows you what the building will look like once it’s done.

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