Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino

Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino
Location	Atlantic City, New Jersey
Opening date	Never
Casino type	Land-based

The Penthouse Boardwalk Hotel and Casino was a proposed hotel and casino that was to be built in Atlantic City, New Jersey during the late 1970s. Due to financial and legal difficulties, the hotel was never completed and a casino license was never issued.

The hotel-casino was to be built by Boardwalk Properties, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Penthouse International, Inc., the publisher of Penthouse magazine. Initial construction of the project began in 1978, but was halted in 1980 due to financing problems and gaming licensing difficulties. Owner Bob Guccione had made some wildly optimistic predictions in a 1978 interview regarding the casino, saying that a gaming license would be issued in six months, that the casino would open that year, and that another casino (on the site of the Mayflower Hotel) would open the following year.

Penthouse had previously engaged in the casino business, but had not been successful. In 1970, the Penthouse Club in London, England operated a casino. However, the next year the casino license was revoked by the gaming authorities. In 1972, Penthouse opened the Penthouse Adriatic Club casino on the island of Krk in Yugoslavia (now Croatia) at a cost of $45 million. However, the casino filed for bankruptcy the next year and was closed. Guccione had previously tried to purchase the Shelburne Hotel in December 1977, but the owner backed out. In early 1978, Boardwalk Properties purchased the Four Seasons Motel and the Holiday Inn, located in the block bordering the Boardwalk, Pacific Avenue, Missouri Avenue and Columbia Place. It also planned to purchase all the other properties on this block, but it was stymied by one homeowner, Vera Coking, who refused to sell out (even at a reported offer of $1 million). The company began construction around Coking's house, which was in the middle of the block, but only finished a four-story steel framework structure when the construction stopped. [The film "Atlantic City" features a scene showing the construction of the casino around the Coking house.] The structure languished and rusted for years until Donald Trump acquired the property in 1993. Trump renovated the Holiday Inn building, rebranded it as the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino East Tower, and demolished the remainder of the structure.

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