Originally named, Elephant Bazaar, the 65-foot high, 60-foot long, and 18-foot wide elephant “building” was born in 1881 as a sales gimmick meant to attract tourists and potential property buyers. Real estate speculator, James V. Lafferty was the man behind the idea, and Philadelphia architect, William Free built it for something between 25 and 38 thousand dollars. Once it was complete, Lafferty would escort his prospective customers up to the ‘howdah carriage’ at the top of the elephant to point out parcels of land for sale.
Lucy, as the elephant came to be known, was a sight to behold and attracted curious locals, tourists, and future homebuyers from all over the region, all of whom wanted to go inside. The “building” was made of nearly one million pieces of wood with 22 windows, including two round eyes. Its construction required 200 kegs of nails, 4 tons of bolts and iron bars, and 12,000 square feet of tin to cover the outside. While Lucy’s physical features were apparently modeled after a male Asian elephant, today she is generally considered to be female.
But Lucy’s time in the limelight didn’t last long. By 1887, a mere six years after her construction, she had already lost most of her appeal amongst tourists. She was sold to Anton Gerzten of Philadelphia and would remain in the Gertzen family until 1970. Historical accounts reveal Anton’s daughter-in-law, Sophia, was the first person to give the elephant her now well-loved moniker, “Lucy the Elephant” in 1902. In the early 20s, Lucy served as a restaurant, business office, and rentable summer cottage. Her time as a tavern was short-lived as Prohibition forced it to close. While the building was often depicted on souvenir postcards as “The Elephant Hotel,” Lucy never actually accommodated guests, though there was a hotel next door. Since then, it’s been her primary role to stand and look east toward the ocean while slowly deteriorating. By the 1960s, Lucy had fallen into disrepair and was slated to be demolished. But in 1969, a local group from Margate formed the Save Lucy Committee and were granted 30 days to either move Lucy or pay for her demolition. A wildly successful door-to-door canvass campaign raised enough money to finance the move, so that on July 20th, 1970 Lucy and all her 90 tons, were hauled via trailer down Atlantic Avenue to her current home at the corner of S. Decatur Ave. That’s now her birthday and is celebrated with carnival games, activities, rides, food, and more on the boardwalk. Can you imagine that? A six-story tall metal elephant rolling down the small town beach road? Well, believe it; the entire move was thoroughly documented on film for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS).
Once re-rooted, she was completely refurbished, steel reinforced, and given a new replica ‘howdah’ to replace her old one. In 1976, Lucy became a National Historic Landmark and has once again become a major tourist attraction in the area. Guided tours take visitors into the building, through the spiral staircase in the left rear leg, up into the interior, and then up again into the ‘howdah’ to see views of the shoreline, Atlantic Ocean, and Atlantic City. She is under construction at the moment, to restore her exterior, but the gift shop is still open and you can join a guided tour scheduled every 45 minutes. Check out the website for more details and contact information should you have any questions. Want to see her? Make a day of it and stay the night with us at Seaview.
