OCEAN FOREST HOTEL

 People called it The Million Dollar Hotel, The Castle on the Ocean. Most people just called it…The Hotel. For most of its life it was the magnificent white structure on the north end of town we called The Ocean Forest Hotel. It loomed large over the beach on a 30-foot-above-sea-level plateau. It was much more than just a hotel. It was a splendiferous architectural remnant of the most ambitious attempt to "Create the most desirable haven of rest and recreation in the world…the most complete playground ever contemplated."

These high-filootin words were in fact the voice of the visionary developers describing their grandiose venture. The venture, called Arcady, was named after a place in ancient Greece where men found peace and solitude in their natural environment. Finished in 1929, the hotel was to be the main actor in a breathtaking resort production called Arcadia. But the '29 Crash lopped the economic legs off all but a few pieces of the dream. John T. Woodside, founder of the Arcady concept, lost more than his shirt. He lost his textile mills, his bank, his fortune his magnificent hotel, his dream…he lost Myrtle Beach.

Arcadia was to be the most ambitious resort haven in the country. Family memberships sold for a heady $1,250. Twelve miles of pristine sand dunes, live oaks and wax myrtle forests…garnished with a 27-hole golf course and 60-room Georgian clubhouse, designed by the first PGA President Robert White. Other playtoys were a separate course for ladies, separate course for children, 22 tennis courts, skeet & trap range, a beautiful horse stable, miles of hiking, hunting & riding trails and of course…The Ocean Forest Hotel.

This white-brick 10-story sandcastle boasted 202 ventilated rooms, indoor & outdoor pools, lighthouse spire, salt or fresh running water, spectacular marble verandas, magnificent ballrooms, 20-foot chandeliers, ocean front dining, outdoor amphitheater, men & women's exercise clubs, bowling alley, arcade shops, and hoity toity salons…it even offered ice water piped into each room. Seventy-five years later nothing touches it.

Big bands, Great Gatsby-ish cocktail galas and summer stock theater names like Veronica Lake, Sinatra, John Ireland, Tuesday Weld, Diana Barrymore, Eddie Bracken, Tallulah Bankhead, Zazu Pits graced the stage, gambled in the tower, and prowled the lounges and verandas. For 40 years it was the beach's most significant structure. Ask any local directions and the answer went something like…"Be bout a mile past the Ocean Forest."

Most all us local boys fastened our first cummerbund, oogled our first cleavage, kissed our first bare neck, sipped our first cocktail and did our first cheek to cheek dancing in the Ocean Forest ballroom. Twas an elegant brownfaced bowtied bartender served me my first cocktail, a nutmeggy brandy alexander, at age 6 in the Brookgreen Room.

In my mind it's still there. I never ride past without imagining it refurbished, seeing linen-garbed, pomaded dreamy couples sipping perfect manhattans on that perfect veranda in front of windswept myrtles on that perfect stretch of cabana'd beach.

Fifty years after its immaculate construction, On Friday the 13th of Sept 1974 the Woodside brothers’ dream was tumbled into twisted rubble by Hudgins and Company demolition. We sat behind sand dunes and cried for our Castle on the Sea.

All that's left is postcards, Pine Lakes, and pangs of what might have been.