The Ocean Forest Hotel was a 10-story castle with 202 ventilated guest rooms.
The Bullpen, where the staff stayed, is shown in the foreground. The roundabout that served as the hotel entrance still exists today where Poinsett and Calhoun roads meet near the Pine Lakes area of Myrtle Beach.
The writer’s father,Tony, having a cocktail at the outdoor Marine Patio in the early 1950s during intermission of a big band concert.
Two oceanside wings were added in the early 1960s, and the color changed after the hotel was sandblasted.
Shots from inside the Ocean Forest Hotel show that its opulence wasn’t just in its exterior.
The Woodside Brothers of Greenville were the visionaries responsible for building the Ocean Forest Hotel. They are (from left) Edward F., Robert I., Joel David and John T. Woodside.
Myrtle Beach photographer Jack Thompson has an extensive collection of photos of the Ocean Forest Hotel.
From cocktails al fresco to big band performances and everything in between, the Ocean Forest was the place to be for Myrtle Beach entertainment.
Nearly 50 years after its construction, the Ocean Forest Hotel was imploded on Friday, September 13, 1974. In a 1974 article in The Sun News, then hotel sales manager Albert Oliphant said, “plagued by rising costs, the 10-story hotel will be torn down and rebuilt because it is unable to meet the requirements of its insurers.”
