By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
The now-closed Ludlam hotel complex in Sea Isle City had everything up for sale – including the kitchen sink.
Beds, dressers, flat-screen TVs, stainless steel kitchen equipment, sinks, tables, stools, silverware, dishes, glasses, advertising signs and much, much more were among 1,000 items sold Saturday during an online auction.
“It was well worth doing,” Christopher Glancey, the Ludlam’s owner, said of the liquidation sale conducted by
geyerauctions.bidwrangler.com.
Glancey and his business partner, Bob Morris, are planning to redevelop the property at the corner of John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Landis Avenue into an upscale boutique hotel that will also be called The Ludlam.
The auction was a prelude to the demolition of the existing buildings on the property, including the hotel tower, the former Ludlam Bar & Grill and a bakery called Shorebreak Café.
Demolition is expected to begin in two weeks and take about a month to finish. Construction on the new hotel is scheduled to get underway in August and take two years to complete, with a grand opening in the summer of 2026, Glancey said.
The Ludlam hotel complex is expected to be demolished in about two weeks.
With demolition now imminent, the auction was held to clear out the contents of the old buildings. In all, 1,005 items were up for sale to the highest bidders. Virtually everything was sold, with some items going for as little as $1.
As for the kitchen sinks up for sale? Several of them were auctioned off, including one for a mere $3.
Although furniture, kitchen equipment, silverware, dishes and other items common in hotels, restaurants and bars were sold, some of the old advertising signs attracted the best prices during the online auction.
Glancey speculated that nostalgia was a big factor in the demand for the old signs. Some of Sea Isle’s iconic businesses – now long gone and part of Sea Isle’s history – were advertised on the signs.
A “Welcome to Nickelby’s” wooden sign was sold for $800. Nickelby’s was the longtime bakery located at 83rd Street and Landis Avenue in the Townsends Inlet section. After Nickelby’s closed in 2023, Glancey and Morris bought the property and are now using it as a site for the relocated Shorebreak Café.
The "Busch's Famous Seafood" sign sells for $290. (Photo courtesy of Geyer Auctions)
Another sign that sold at the auction was for “Busch’s Famous Seafood.” It went for $290. The old Busch’s Seafood Restaurant stood for more than a century on Landis Avenue between 86th and 87th streets.
Glancey and Morris redeveloped the old Busch’s site in 2016 for a mixed-use project called The Cove. The Busch’s sign was a keepsake of Glancey’s that he kept in storage for 10 years.
Glancey said he wanted to sell the old advertising signs so that other people would have an opportunity to appreciate them.
One of the most prized items from the auction was a large, neon sign for the legendary LaCosta Lounge. It sold for $2,700. The LaCosta sign greeted customers entering the side entrance of the Ludlam’s bar and grill.
Glancey explained that the LaCosta sign remained on the Ludlam complex because he didn’t want to spend the time or effort to remove it from the roof and then make repairs once it was gone.
Glancey and Morris bought the old LaCosta Lounge in 2018 for $7.3 million and then converted it into The Ludlam Hotel. They had originally planned to redevelop the site for a boutique hotel, but instead renovated the property for its transformation into the Ludlam hotel, restaurant and bar complex.
Now, they have revived their original plan to build a high-end boutique hotel. They plan to seek approval for the project in July from Sea Isle’s planning board.
An architectural rendering depicts what the new Ludlam boutique hotel project will look like when completed. (Courtesy of Christopher Glancey)
The project will feature 26 hotel suites, 20 residential units, a restaurant, bar and small bakery. There will also be a swimming pool on the second floor for hotel guests.
The new Ludlam hotel will continue the evolution of the corner of JFK Boulevard and Landis Avenue, the entryway into Sea Isle’s downtown business district.
When it opened in the 1960s, the LaCosta Lounge was built on the same spot where some of Sea Isle’s most historic businesses once stood, including the former Bellevue Hotel and Cronecker’s Hotel & Restaurant dating to the late 1800s.
