Children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Floyd L. Cranmer, a prominent Long Beach Island contractor and builder between 1924 and 1954, braved the wind and cool weather in Beach Haven, Thursday, May 28, for an official dedication of the Fifth Street Pavilion, the original of which Cranmer built. His daughter, Ellie Cranmer Ollivier, was instrumental in establishing the honor.
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| Photo by Jack Reynolds Relatives of Floyd L. Cranmer join together at the Fifth Street Pavilion, which Cranmer originally built. |
Beach Haven Council members approved the dedication during a public meeting in November, awarding Ollivier with a plaque that she and her brother Floyd L. Cranmer Jr. helped unveil Thursday.
“It’s quite an honor for me because I feel my father is getting the respect he certainly deserves,” Ollivier, who still lives on Fifth Street, told The SandPaper.
In 1950, Cranmer also built the former U.S. Post Office on Fifth Street, which was situated next to his workshop.
“So Fifth Street means quite a bit to my family,” Ollivier said, adding that many of the relatives in attendance lived on or often visited the street.
Cranmer constructed all of the borough’s pavilions. The Fifth Street Pavilion, built in 1953, lasted nearly 65 years before it had to be replaced after Superstorm Sandy severely damaged it. The reconstruction cost $145,000, noted Sherry Mason, municipal clerk.
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| Photo by Jack Reynolds David Ollivier and his kids, Allison and David, listen to Floyd L. Cranmer Jr. reminisce. |
“We are standing in a pavilion which is an exact replication of the originals,” announced Mayor Nancy Taggart Davis, whose home – the fourth of the seven sisters houses – was also built by Cranmer. “I am quite sure that Mr. Cranmer couldn’t conceive of what we paid to have these built after Superstorm Sandy. It is a tribute to him that we all loved these pavilions so much that we wanted to reconstruct them exactly as they were.
“I remember sitting on our porch with my mother, reminiscing about those times, and later finding photographs of my house when under construction,” she later told the audience.
Cranmer built many of the town’s residential homes and public buildings, including hotels, churches and schools. He doubled the size of the Beach Haven School by constructing an addition to the original building in 1926.
The list of structures built by Cranmer can be found along with pictures in A Pictorial History of the Building Projects of Floyd L. Cranmer Contractor & Builder. The book was written by Cranmer Jr. and copyrighted in 1998. A copy is available for reading at the Beach Haven Public Library, which Cranmer helped construct with his brother Firman. The book is now in its ninth printing. It is available for purchase at the Long Beach Island Historical Museum, which was originally built as Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church; Cranmer constructed the chapel on the east side of the building in 1938.
“I just thought I owed it to my father,” Cranmer Jr. said in reference to the book, which took him about 10 years to complete.
Cranmer Jr. once worked as a contractor for his father. The most important thing he learned, he said, was that the job needed to be done correctly.
Although Cranmer was primarily a carpenter, he also did his own concrete and roofing work. One of his first recorded jobs in 1925 was to install concrete sidewalks on a portion of Fifth Street as well as on Beach Avenue from Fourth Street to Eighth Street.
Cranmer is also well-known for keeping people employed during the Great Depression.
“During this low ebb in our country’s history, the year-round population of the Island was able to survive due to people such as Floyd Cranmer, who kept folks working though he made little profit,” Taggart Davis said. “In many ways, the town was shaped by his creations. Many lovely buildings that are still standing attest to Cranmer’s skill as a craftsman,” she added.
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
This article was published in The SandPaper.
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