WILDWOOD – While the days of seven beers for $1 have long been over, at least some part of the legendary Wildwood bar, Shamrock Beef & Ale, will live on.
Tom Gerace, who owned the Shamrock briefly through its final chapter, moved the old house that sat above the bar a few hundred feet across Pacific Avenue to a new lot, off Lincoln Avenue, where he plans to make it his home. He had already done extensive remodeling to the inside.
Early in the morning Jan. 19, crowds gathered behind police tape around the building, some in their beach chairs, to reminisce and celebrate as they watched something they seldom get to see – a 120-ton house rolling down Lincoln Avenue.
Jack Barron, a server at the Shamrock in the 70s and 80s, stood in the street, as the iconic structure inched onto Lincoln Avenue, and told the story of the day he got engaged in an alley behind the bar.
“I would have liked to go to the beach, but we had a couple of drinks and I thought it would be better to stay here,” Barron said. “I popped the question between a dumpster and a Corvette.”
Sean Ford, grandson of Cornelius Ward, the original Shamrock owner, said in a phone interview that the place sold only one type of beer – Budweiser – and they sold so much of it that Anheuser-Busch would send the Clydesdales to Wildwood, a promotion reserved for only their best accounts.
He said the walk-in box would hold 100 kegs, piled three high, but they would need about 25 reinforcements to get them through the weekend, which were brought in by a friend in a U-Haul truck to skirt union regulations.
The bar dates to 1937 and Ford said his grandfather made his money as a bootlegger during prohibition. A pardon issued by John F. Kennedy, likely received because Ward used to move Joe Kennedy’s scotch, was proudly displayed behind the bar.
Ford said that he and some of the other children used to stay in the house above the bar during summers, but one night a guy named Seamus McBrien fell asleep with a cigar and almost burned the place to the ground, so they stopped doing that.
Ford’s family sold the bar, after more than 50 years of ownership, to Jim Goodroe in 1989 and Ford went on to open Avalon Coffee.
Before it became a bar, the cross-gabled Queen Anne used to be the Berwind Hotel and dates to the 1900s, according to Preserving the Wildwoods, a historic preservation group in the city.
It was raised to allow the large mahogany bar to be built underneath it after his grandfather purchased it, Ford said. If that wood could talk, it would have some stories.
It was once at the center of Wildwood’s nightlife, and though the area lost its luster with time, the Shamrock continued to draw customers year-round until its closure.
Wildwood’s mayor was 3,000 miles away once when he was reminded of the bar’s institutional status.
“I was in Hawaii in 1982 and there was a person walking my way on the beach with a green Shamrock T-shirt. That’s a true story,” Byron said. “It’s been a Wildwood landmark for 90 years.”
Last Call
The Shamrock’s last story involved its involuntary closure, after the state suspended the bar’s liquor license for violations of Covid-related health orders. It never reopened.
With the house in the middle of the street, Gerace, standing in the now-empty lot, by a drain with the old bar floor tile still visible, said he wasn’t sure why, but he felt he was targeted.
“It made me very angry, but I’m over it. You can’t stay angry forever. I’m doing the best thing I can do now by getting the house out of here,” Gerace said. “I wasn’t really doing anything any other bar down here wasn’t doing… It could be a bunch of different reasons; I don’t know.”
The mayor said he wasn’t familiar with the specifics of the violations but said that the city had no role in them. Byron said other bars across the state were held to the same standard.
“No one liked to see that. I would have liked to see Mr. Gerace continue with it, but no one was targeted. He wasn’t the only one that got cited by the state two summers ago,” Byron said. “I don’t blame anybody for doing what they’ve got to do to try to survive. No one had a bullseye on the Shamrock.”
Making it Happen
Gerace said he has been in Wildwood since 1984, liked the older houses, and took pride in being able to save the one above the Shamrock.
“It’s a big doing to try to get everything coordinated to try to get a house moved down the street, that’s for sure,” he said.
Coastal Builders and Excavators, of Court House, was hired to perform the move, but owner Eric Siekierski said Gerace had the hard part of the job, trying to coordinate the different subcontractors and utility companies.
Siekerski said he does this all the time and seemed unphased as he thumbed through a takeout menu, looking for lunch, while the house sat in the middle of Lincoln Avenue.
One of the switches that shut the main power off in the high-tension lines, which needed to be taken out of the way by Atlantic City Electric, didn’t work, according to Gerace, causing the start of the move to be delayed about 45 minutes Jan. 19.
Gerace also said the contractor had to swap out the wheels under the house for manual ones because they were needed for a different project and the Jan. 3 snowstorm pushed the Shamrock’s moving date back.
What some expected may happen quickly was a painfully slow process, but something interesting enough to draw a crowd of at least 50-plus spectators at certain times throughout the day.
The move ended up lingering into a second day and then bad weather and different complications pushed it into the third day. Parts of Lincoln Avenue were closed for about three days, but that poses little inconvenience this time of year, Byron said.
“I’m very happy that Tom (Gerace) had the financial ability and the foresight to try to preserve as much of that as he can. We’re very pleased about that, frankly,” Byron said.
As for how much the move cost, Gerace said, “The whole process of moving the house is probably a couple hundred thousand.”
He added that he has a construction company, which will have to perform a couple of months’ worth of work before he can move into the home on the new lot.
What Will Become of It?
Gerace said now that the house is moved, the deal with B.G. Capital to buy the block-long Pacific Avenue facing lot should close within 20 days.
A necessary Coastal Area Facility Review Act (CAFRA) approval for another B.G. project, currently under construction on Pacific Avenue, diagonal to the former Shamrock, requires land somewhere to be used for parking.
Developer Joe Byrne, of B.G. Capital, previously told the Herald he plans to put the parking on another property he owns, in the 3800 block of Pacific Avenue, where the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and a bar, that most recently opened as The Wood, are located.
The development requiring the permit is at the site of the old Fairview Café, M.T. Bottles and 2nd Street Annie’s, which B.G. plans to develop with retail and a pool bar and restaurant on the ground floor and a 74-unit housing complex marketed toward foreign students, working for the summer on their visa, above.
Byrne did not immediately respond to a text message or phone call after the Shamrock’s move, which was said to be the final hold-up in the deal to sell the lots.
However, the state initially said Wildwood was a qualified municipality, meaning the pool bar and housing project wouldn’t require CAFRA permits. It later said it issued those determination letters in error, and permits would be required, which created the need for the parking lot.
Byrne and the city have taken the position that the parking is unnecessary since the 74 units would be occupied by foreign students who would not have cars. The city is working to get that qualified municipality designation.
“We’re working pretty hard to try to get this approval to where you wouldn’t need it. That would be huge for the city, and it would be huge for Joe (Byrne),” Byron said Jan. 20. “I’m waiting to hear something almost any day on that. We’re keeping our fingers crossed and I’m pretty optimistic that we’re going to be able to achieve it.”
To contact Shay Roddy, email sroddy@cmcherald.com.
