The Chesterfield Inn, a historic Myrtle Beach staple, was torn down Wednesday after the hotel couldn't keep up with the times.
Starting around 7:00 a.m. Wednesday morning the historic Chesterfield Inn off 7th Avenue North and Ocean boulevard began to come down.
"It's bittersweet, but it's a blessing," Owner Karon Mitchell says.
By next spring, the nearly 70-year-old Ocean Boulevard motel will exist only in photographs and memories. In its place will be an entertainment complex, including a miniature golf course and oceanfront restaurant.
Part of the golf course will be blacklight golf that will run through the old cellar of the inn.
Mitchell said the original inn, with 27 small rooms and only four of them facing the ocean, just couldn't keep up with the times.
"When people come to Myrtle Beach now they want the oceanfront balconies, they want the swimming pools and water parks and everything," Mitchell said.
The Chesterfield property includes a 21-room annex built in the early 1960's. It will also be torn down.
Mitchell said the inn has been around since the 1930's and was renovated and reopened in 1943. It was the oldest surviving oceanfront motel in Myrtle Beach, before it closed last year.
