Weird NJ: Ghost tales of the Essex & Sussex Hotel
The Essex & Sussex Hotel in Spring Lake was a Jersey Shore icon and one of New Jersey’s last grand old hotels by the sea. In its heyday, the Essex & Sussex was only open for three months of each summer, when the well-to-do would vacation there to take advantage of the cool ocean breezes. The hotel hosted many high society gatherings, where opulence and extravagance was the fashion of the day. It remained a very successful resort for most of the 20th century, but by the 1970s things had begun to decline. The hotel finally closed its doors for good in 1985, and the vacant building languished away for the next decade and a half, boarded up behind a chain link fence. Eventually plans were approve to remodel the grand old resort into a pricey age-restricted year-round residential condominium complex.
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