I chanced upon a public domain picture of this 1923 NRHP site under construction and by luck, I happened to take an almost identical picture from the same angle. I stood in the street in front of my former residence, 1108 Ocean Avenue and snapped the photo facing northeast. The Flanders is located at 719 E. 11th Street in Ocean City, NJ. I realized the person who took the pic almost 90 years ago stood in front of the very same house I was standing in front of on Ocean Avenue.
The hotel was built in 1923 as was many other ostentatious hotels, schools, banks and other structures during that era. From what I have read they have newly appointed rooms and the lobby I saw was redone as well. In the 80s the place looked like an old lady on her last leg wearing a lot of makeup trying to look young but clearly close to the end. The end is no longer in sight and when I visited and went inside it was busy, people were working and the inside "mall" and shops were doing business as well.
I lived here for several years directly across the street at 1108 Ocean Avenue and always though the place was closed down. This was in the late 80s. I never noticed the architecture nor the aquatic-based frieze work; it is all quite magnificent. In its day this was as luxurious as something could get. Today, it is still a jewel, but an antiquated, restored jewel.
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.
From their website (Source listed below): 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