Claridge Atlantic City

The Claridge Hotel
The Claridge Hotel at night
Former names	Del Webb’s Claridge Hotel and Casino Claridge Hotel and Casino
Alternative names	The Skyscraper By The Sea
General information
Location	Atlantic City, New Jersey
Address	Park Place & The Boardwalk
Estimated completion	1930
Opening	December 1930
Renovated	1977, 2014
Owner	TJM Properties
Technical details
Floor count	24
Other information
Number of rooms	400
Number of suites	400
Parking	500
Website
http://www.claridge.com
Claridge Hotel and Casino
Opening date	July 20, 1981
Closing date	February 2014
Theme	London
Previous names	Del Webb’s Claridge Hotel and Casino

The Claridge Hotel is a historic hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, that opened in 1930. Beginning in 1981, Claridge's operated for many years as a casino, known first as "Del Webb's Claridge Hotel and Casino", then the "Claridge Hotel and Casino". The hotel was acquired by Bally's on December 30, 2002, as a hotel tower of Bally's Atlantic City. In February 2014, the property was acquired by TJM Properties of Clearwater, Florida, who returned the property to a stand-alone hotel without casino gambling.

Located between Park Place and Indiana Avenue, with an attached parking structure extending to Ohio Avenue, the Claridge is set off the Boardwalk behind Brighton Park. The Claridge stands next to the site where the Sands Atlantic City used to be located.

The Claridge Hotel is different from most Atlantic City resorts, because it did not grow out of a modest boarding house. It was the idea of Philadelphia architect John McShain who designed the 24-story, 400-room hotel. Opened in 1930 during The Great Depression, the Claridge became the last of the great hotels built in Atlantic City near the Boardwalk; no new resorts rose in the city until the 1960s when a Howard Johnsons hotel was built along the boardwalk. Due to the hotel’s tall, slick, slender appearance it gained the nickname “The Skyscraper By The Sea".

The Claridge was a successful hotel during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Marilyn Monroe was a special guest there in the 1950s when she was a judge of the annual Miss America Pageant. Despite Atlantic City’s downturn as a premier vacation resort in the 1960s, the hotel continued to operate and survived into the casino era.

In February 1977, Claridge Associates, a group of Connecticut investors led by F. Francis D'Addario purchased the Claridge Hotel. In 1979 they took on Del E. Webb Corporation as a partner in order to obtain financing. Del Webb was the owner of several Nevada casinos, including The Mint Hotel and Casino in Downtown Las Vegas. The Claridge hotel was expanded with 200 new guest rooms being built. The Claridge had the distinction of being the last of the pre-casino Atlantic City hotels to be refurbished into a casino. New Jersey then Governor Brendan Byrne had been dissatisfied with what he called “Patch and Paint” jobs of the city’s old resorts, this had been done with Resorts Atlantic City, and the Dennis Hotel, which is part of Bally's Atlantic City, and lobbied hard for the old structures to be torn down in favor of new resorts. Del Webb faced a difficult time obtaining a permanent license but finally obtained one in 1982. At that time, Del Webb bought out Claridge Associates' interest in the partnership.