Lucy the Elephant is a six-story elephant-shaped building in Margate City, New Jersey, built in 1881 as a real estate stunt. She’s the oldest surviving roadside attraction in America, a National Historic Landmark, and one of the only buildings on earth you can walk into through its leg. If you’ve driven the coast road south of Atlantic City and done a double-take at a giant tin elephant staring back at you from the dunes, you weren’t imagining things.
What Exactly Is Lucy the Elephant?
Lucy is the world’s largest elephant, and the only one in America designated as a National Historic Landmark. She isn’t a statue you admire from the sidewalk — she’s an actual building, with a frame, a skeleton, and doors. Standing six stories tall, weighing 90 tons, covered with 12,000 square feet of sheet tin, Lucy was more than an object of awe; she was a functioning building, serving first as a real estate office, then as a hotel, a summer home, even briefly as a tavern, until unruly drunks nearly burned her down.
The engineering under that tin skin is stranger than you’d guess. According to her original National Register nomination paperwork, Lucy’s skeleton is a large frame box of 12×12 inch timbers and 8,560 wooden ribs, with skin made of 12,000 square feet of heavy tin and 24 glass windows. Her features are oversized to match: her ears run 17 feet long, her tusks stretch 22 feet, and her trunk measures 26 feet and was originally designed to double as a chute for garbage disposal. You enter and exit through spiral staircases tucked into her hind legs — access to the interior was gained through two spiral staircases, one in each rear leg.
Why Would Anyone Build a Six-Story Elephant?
Blame real estate. Lucy was built in 1881 as a spectacle to attract prospective real estate buyers to Margate, then known as South Atlantic City. The man behind her, James V. Lafferty, wasn’t an architect — he was a developer with a flair for marketing. Lafferty had actually been granted exclusive rights to make animal-shaped buildings for 17 years, which tells you he planned on this being a whole business model, not a one-off gag. He hired Philadelphia architects to make it real, and construction reportedly cost Lafferty $38,000 — a staggering sum for the era.
The design wasn’t random, either. Lucy was inspired by Jumbo, the famous elephant from Barnum and Bailey’s circus. Lafferty built two more elephant buildings after Lucy, one in Cape May and one at Coney Island, but neither survived. Lucy is the last of her kind standing anywhere in the world.
Once she went up, Lucy lived a genuinely chaotic life for a building. In 1902, an English doctor and his family leased the elephant as a summer home, moving into her interior and converting the main hall into four bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, and parlor, with a bathroom outfitted in one of the small shoulder closets using a miniature bathtub. A storm the following year nearly buried her: Lucy was heavily damaged in the storm of 1903 and was standing knee deep in sand before volunteers dug her out and moved her farther back from the sea. Then came her brief, disastrous career as a bar. Lucy was converted into a tavern, but rowdy drinkers kept knocking over the oil lanterns used for lighting, and in 1904 she was nearly burned to the ground as a result. That ended her bar career for good.
How Lucy Almost Didn’t Make It to Today
By the 1960s, the novelty had worn off and the building was falling apart. The Gertzen family that owned the land wanted to sell, the wooden elephant was rotting, the metal skin was rusting, and developers wanted to tear her down to build condominiums. A group of locals weren’t having it. In 1969 they formed what became known as the Save Lucy Committee, and they were given a 30-day deadline to move the building or pay for its demolition.
They pulled it off through sheer neighborhood hustle — Lucy was spared through various fund-raising events, most notably a door-to-door canvassing campaign by volunteers. On July 20, 1970, the actual move happened, and it must have been a sight: a group of South Jersey house movers jacked Lucy up on dollies, fastened her to steel beams, braced her with wood columns, and towed her creaking and groaning through town on a flatbed truck while thousands crowded Atlantic Avenue to cheer her on. She only traveled about 100 yards to her current spot, but it took about seven hours, and Lucy remained closed to the public for repairs until 1974. Two years later, in 1976, she earned her National Historic Landmark status.
She’s kept surviving ever since. In 2006 she was struck by lightning, which blackened the tips of her tusks, and in 2012, when Hurricane Sandy slammed the Jersey Shore, the storm came ashore at this very spot, and Lucy weathered it.
What’s It Like to Actually Go Inside?
You enter through the leg, climb a spiral staircase, and pass exhibits on Lucy’s history before the tour wraps up at the top. The tour climaxes with a stop in the open-air “howdah” atop Lucy’s back, which offers sweeping views of the shoreline. It’s a short visit — the tour itself runs about 30 to 45 minutes — but it’s not something you’ll forget. The crowds back it up: in 2023, Lucy booked a new record high of 42,267 tours, surpassing the previous record set in 2018. That popularity got national recognition too — in May 2025, Lucy was voted the No. 1 Best Roadside Attraction in the country in USA Today’s readers’ choice awards.
Can You Actually Sleep Inside Lucy?
Briefly, yes — and it was a huge deal. On February 27, 2020, Lucy began allowing overnight stays, listed on Airbnb for $138 per night on March 17, 18, and 19, 2020. It wasn’t a total first, though — Lucy had hosted overnight guests once before, long ago. The opportunity to spend a night inside her wasn’t actually new; Lucy hosted her first overnight guests in 1902 and even once hosted former President, and New Jersey native, Woodrow Wilson. The 2020 stay came decorated in Victorian style with a queen bed and antique furnishings, and proceeds supported the nonprofit that keeps Lucy standing.
Visiting Lucy the Elephant Today
Lucy still stands at 9200 Atlantic Avenue in Margate City, right near the beach, and she’s not going anywhere — if anything, more investment is headed her way. In January 2023, the City of Margate approved a plan to create a visitor center on Lucy’s existing site, a proposed two-story building with a retail area, information displays, meeting spaces, and restrooms, replacing the current gift shop. A federal grant for interior restoration has had a bumpier road — a $500,000 federal grant announced in August 2024 to fund restoration of Lucy’s interior spaces was rescinded by budget cuts in April 2025, then restored in March 2026.
If you’re planning a trip, go in summer when the full tour schedule runs and you can catch her birthday celebration — Lucy’s “birthday” is marked every year on July 20, the same date as her famous 1970 move down the street. Bring a camera, wear shoes you can climb a spiral staircase in, and don’t expect a quick stop. Once you’re standing in that howdah looking out over the Atlantic, you’ll understand exactly why a bunch of Margate locals refused to let a wrecking ball anywhere near her.
NOTE TO THE ADVENTURER: This guide is meant to spark curiosity for what lies beyond the horizon — not to serve as a guarantee. Roads fall into disrepair, buildings are torn down and rebuilt, and properties change hands; 'tis your responsibility to do your own research before setting out. Always heed local and regional law, and always respect ground that isn't your own. Take every entry here as a suggestion, not a decree. This guide's contents were gathered with the aid of artificial intelligence, and like any scout, it will from time to time lead you astray. You assume all risk in following its counsel, and neither this blog nor its author is liable for any loss, injury, or misfortune that results.
