The Tremont was one of the two original hotels in Sea Girt. Opened in 1877, it was located at the east end of what is now Chicago Blvd. Residents may remember it as the Yankee Clipper and the Sand Bar, the last remnant of the hotel which came down in the late 1990s. The property had a long and interesting history, as a hotel, rumored sanitarium, summer retreat for nuns, Coast Guard headquarters, entertainment venue and hotel under a big band leader, rumored condos, before it became a supper club and beach bar, and then private homes. It’s also a lesson, that structures near the ocean need constant upkeep and renovation, and noisy bars make bad neighbors.
1890s hotel ledger page listed on EBay
Paul Thurlow’s brother Stephen had purchased the Sea Girt Estate and Farm in 1866 from Commodore Stockton. By 1869, they were looking to develop it as a resort property. Paul sold his yarn works in Philadelphia around the 1875 resort’s launch and put his money into a 100-room hotel property with a wraparound porch facing the ocean. He bragged the Tremont had ocean views from all rooms. It was more basic than the Beach House, the luxury property and former home of Commodore Stockton, located to the south of Crescent Park.
1885 photo of the Tremont with J. Bunford Samuel’s home in the foreground. The view is north looking toward Spring Lake. The Beacon House, Devlin’s Parker House, and the Ridgewood House, are visible on the left, and the Monmouth in Spring Lake is to the right across the inlet. The porch at the ocean was not enclosed. Library Company of Philadelphia Photo Marriott C. Morris Collection
Thurlow hired Thomas Gregg, a retired Civil War Cavalry captain to run the Tremont’s boarding house and restaurant until his death in 1885. Operations were then turned over to Sarah Leeds. Sarah had built a reputation for running hotels all over the shore, with the Crystal Cottage Ocean Beach (Belmar) and the Chalfonte (Atlantic City) two of her more popular assignments.
A surviving guest log from the Leeds era shows prominent guests at the beachfront hotel, including some of Thurlow’s friends, and business associates.
The ballroom hosted several “Hops” and “Germans”. The hops were single-person dances which were more popular and casual, (and girls could dance alone) while the germans were waltzes and other couple dances. Advertisements for the Tremont bragged that most of the fish prepared at the hotel was caught right out their front door, with clams, crabs, and oysters supplementing the day’s catch.
The finances of the Land Improvement Company suffered, and maintaining the hotel was not a priority. The hotel was purchased at the onset of WWI by Sea Girt resident Horace A. Rounds and his wife Lucia who was very influential in social circles of Spring Lake and Sea Girt. He improved the house and she helped bring in business. In 1917, the Sea Girt Borough Council held its first meetings in the Tremont until Borough Hall was completed.
In 1919, the Rounds had purchased property in Glendale California, and looked to sell.
The buyer had been made moderately wealthy by the onset of the automobile. Tim Hurley of Spring Lake sold the contents of his Spring Lake Stables in 1913. He sold 50 wagons and harnesses along with 42 horses. His stables would be moved and converted into a hotel, and stands today as the Spring Lake Inn.
Hurley’s stables were converted to a hotel. Vincent Dicks photo
The Clayton brothers of Freehold bought the livery on Third Ave. and converted the stables into a garage for repairing cars and storage of vehicles. Most of the hotels built in the horse age had no room for cars to park indoors, and the leather seats and wood trim of early roadsters would be damaged in the elements.
Visitors who arrived in Spring Lake or Sea Girt without cars could rent one. Clayton offered pick-up and drop-off valet service for $2 per day. It proved so lucrative that Tim Hurley bought half the business for $17,000 with the proceeds of his stables. He was a real estate investor now.
Hurley also bought the Tremont. By then, the hotel was a bit run down, and Hurley looked to find longer-term tenants. Rumors circulated that the property would be sold to a syndicate and converted into a Sanitorium-Asylum. The Borough Council passed an ordinance in October 1920 that excluded uses in the residential zone for operating “Asylums, Nunneries, Almshouses, Homes for the Aged, Parochial Schools, or similar uses”, with a fine of $200 and 90 days in jail.
The rumors proved valid when the Tremont was sold to The Sisters of Saint Elizabeth in 1921. They called the facility Stella Maris. While a ‘nunnery’ was prohibited, the sisters used the property to send their order’s many teachers on a summer vacation.
The Tremont and bathing pavilion on Chicago in a 1920s postcard. Monmouth County Historical Society
For the 1925 season, the town wanted to gravel Ocean Road for parking and build a public pavilion, bathhouse and boardwalk from Chicago Blvd. to the lighthouse. The pavilion would be on the beach in front of the Tremont. Two years earlier the Borough was stopped because they had not gotten clean title to the beachfront land from Henry Yard’s American Timber who had gotten their deed from the Sea Girt Land Improvement Company. Just after fixing the deed issues, the Sisters sued the Borough for the loss of their view.
In what might appear to some to be retaliation, the tax-exempt status of the Tremont property was challenged. The Borough and the County argued that the Sisters were not using the property for tax-exempt use, as teaching and a nunnery were prohibited, and it was simply vacationing teachers.
After the town built its pavilion and the nuns lost the tax case, they sold the property to Harry Shier. He also owned the Brielle Inn and the Hotel Squan. He updated the Tremont with modern services, new plumbing, and electrical.
The property reopened to guests until near identical fires in 1929 and 1930 caused over $15,000 in damages. Both times the structure was saved by the volunteer fire companies in Sea Girt and Spring Lake.
Charles A. Wagner was the next proprietor. He kept the place going through the 1930’s depression, running a fine house with his wife Sarah J. Wagner. They hired a social director and kept the entertainment simple, most nights a string trio. The Tremont was affordable for the modest times, but the Tremont’s receipts did not keep pace with the bills.
Wagner abandoned the business, and his wife moved to the Lake View Inn in Spring Lake as an employee. The Tremont closed as World War II approached. The unpaid tax bill on the property was a problem for the Borough. They took possession and looked to lease the property as hard times continued.
They found their next tenant. The US Coast Guard took over the hotel for the summer of 1943. They were patrolling the coast for German submarines. In 1942 the oil tanker R.P. Restor was torpedoed and the Coast Guard was only able to save two of the thirty men on board. Seven bodies washed up on the Spring Lake beach.
Publicity photo of Gus Steck from the 1930s
When the war ended, the shuttered hotel needed another update. The savior was Newark’s Gustave, “Gus” Steck, a big band orchestra leader who led the house band at the Chanticleer in Chatham NJ in the late ‘30s, and then the Brook in Summit which burned down in 1947. He spent summers at the Berkeley Carteret in Asbury Park, and used his musical earnings to purchase the Tremont. He brought his brand of music to Sea Girt. He restored the Tremont’s 100 rooms. It took a year, and many local contractors, like Ernie Westphal owner of the Beacon House. The results were well received, and the new place was a source of pride in the community.
One of Steck’s recordings
Steck had a restaurant and a bar built on the second floor looking over the ocean, enclosed in glass. Decked out in green, dubonnet, and white, it was called the Surf Room, with a seahorse theme, and he maintained a formal setting for dining, with air conditioning. Full dinners were moderately priced, starting at $2.75, and included a V-8, fruit salad, soup, a shrimp cocktail, and entrees like broiled scallops, Hungarian Goulash, and Hawaiian Ham steak. Dessert of jello, cake, or ice cream was included. The bar sold cocktails and there was nightly dancing after 9PM. The killer view was the best at the Shore.
On the beach level, below it he opened the “Milk Bar” to sell ice cream to the kids and the “Sand Bar” to sell drinks to adult bathers. He lived in the town with much of his family and was a fixture at his establishment each summer.
Steck’s logo for the Surf Club was on the side of the building
Steck continued to operate the suit-and-tie restaurant and seasonal beach bar, occasionally bringing famous radio personalities to the venue throughout the 60s.
The hotel portion of the business suffered again, due to its age. He first tried to rebuild the hotel, with ambitious plans for a smaller 60-room hotel with parking below ground and a rooftop pool. He was denied in 1966. This was shortly after the town had limited the options to replace the aging Stockton Hotel, which burned after it closed for good in 1965. Steck, came back again with a proposal to build 32 condominiums on the property in 1968. Denied again.
Finally, in 1972, he razed the 90-year-old structure. The Tremont was gone. Steck sold the western part of the land for homes and with the proceeds rebuilt the restaurant and bar section of the building and rechristened the place the Yankee Clipper. The interior was done in navy blue, and a ship’s wheel hung above the new bar, with plenty of mirrors which made the room look bigger. The Sand Bar remained at beach level. The new building was a hit with the locals, and popular local acts were hired to play popular music. Steck was permitted to put an office on the third floor.
You can still find matchbooks on EBay for the old restaurant.
Gus retired and passed ownership to his daughter Nancy Rauso and her husband Patrick. She was raised in Sea Girt and lived in Spring Lake. Nancy carried on her father’s legacy at the Clipper, and other than a few problems inherent with a bar at the beach level closing at 2AM, and then midnight, the Clipper was a staple with consistent food and a killer view. Young people loved spending the day on the sand with a beach bar across the street, and live nightly music.
When Nancy left the business, the building was sold. An investor group paid $1.2 million for the operation and the building in 1984. A separate company run by Anthony Cancro, a Hackinsack-based financier held the liquor license and did operations. Cancro admitted to rarely visiting the facility, preferring to hire managers to operate the restaurant.
Several fine dining experts were brought in from New York over the years. George Neal had managed the Russian Tea Room for ten years before taking the Clipper job in 1989. Each focused on upgrading the Surf Room’s menu. Most reviews were favorable, but the Sand Bar was a continual nuisance to the neighbors and Police Chief Joule. Accusations of underage drinking, public urination, noise, and lack of parking were the usual issues. Annual liquor license renewals generated discussions of problems from prior summers.
Cancro was fined in 1990 for labor law violations and then faced charges in late 1994 for additional labor problems raised by former employees who claimed they were not paid properly. He subsequently claimed a manager stole from him while he was ill and accused his bank of negligence.
The Coast Star reported Cancro was ordered to pay $50,000 in fines and back wages to employees in 1995. He could no longer hold the liquor license. The property owners attempted to have the license transferred to their company, along with a promise to put $100,000 into the building, which by then was shuttered for almost two years. The town wanted no part of a problematic property in a residential zone with a non-conforming use and the Borough Council denied the transfer.
In December 1996, the Chancery Court ordered the auction of the restaurant’s contents. By January 1997 the property was in the hands of a couple who turned the land into a new private residence. The Tremont and now the Clipper were gone from the beachfront after 120 years.
Postcard of the Tremont and Surf Room during the heyday of Gus Steck 1950s