Outcome of a Wikipedia digression.

From the Wikipedia: Lucy the Elephant.

Lucy the Elephant is a six-story high building shaped like an Asian elephant, built in 1882 by novelty architect James V. Lafferty. Unlike many examples of novelty architecture which are really just whimsical sculptures, Lucy the Elephant is an actual functional building that has, at times, served as a restaurant, business office, cottage and tavern.

Lafferty designed and built Lucy in a misguided attempt to sell real estate in the area. Though the Wikipedia mentions nothing about the structure’s effectiveness in luring home-buyers, I confidently write “misguided” because I can’t imagine anyone in 1882 or today being particularly eager to move in next door to a completely terrifying 65-foot high wood-and-tin elephant.

Still, no one before Lafferty had thought to erect a zoomorphic building. He was awarded a patent for Lucy’s design, earning him the exclusive right to make and sell animal-shaped buildings for the next 17 years, undoubtedly a prized distinction.

Though the patent, per the Wikipedia, extended to all animals, Lafferty specialized in elephants. Just five years after completely Lucy, he built an elephant-shaped hotel in Coney Island called Elephantine Collosus, which I believe is the name of the Decemberists’ next album. The hotel burned down in 1896.

Lucy the Elephant was scheduled for demolition in the 1960s, but a group of concerned citizens canvassed the community and saved the structure, moving and refurbishing it and eventually getting it onto the National Register of Historic Places Shaped Like Elephants.

Lucy the Elephant still stands proudly in Margate today, though the tips of its tusks were blackened by a 2006 lightning strike.

Also, the Wikipedia article refers to Lucy the Elephant as “she” throughout, even though a) It has tusks, which only male Asian elephants can boast and b) it is a building and does not actually have a gender.