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Progress will deliver a knockout blow via a wrecking ball.

One of Spring Lake”s best known landmarks, the Warren Hotel, officially ceases to be this week. Ownership of the property is being transferred to developers who will raze the 110-year-old hotel to make way for 10 multi-million-dollar single family homes.

The sprawling hotel complex consists of several structures, some five stories tall, and even Helen Gilman, the hotel”s sales director for the last seven years is unsure of the exact number of guest rooms. She believes the actual count is about 200, but only 135 were rented out on a regular basis, with 30 reserved for out-of-state employees.

Even as times changed around it and Spring Lake”s other grand hotels closed down, the Warren kept a loyal following of guests drawn to its old-time feel and traditions ranging from formal dinner and dancing on Saturday nights to thronged weekend pool parties.

Beginning April 8 and continuing for about three weeks there will be an ongoing auction of the Warren”s decorative moldings, bannisters, doorknobs and other appurtenances. In May the remains of the once-proud hostelry will be demolished to make way for the 10 Victorian-style homes. The developers say they are planning to put up 4,000 square foot homes priced at between $2.3 million and $2.8 million each. Two will have ocean front views. Seven have already been sold.

Mary Carroll Long and her then-husband, Thomas Long, bought the Warren in 1974. The Longs have since divorced and she has remarried and is now Mary Long Russell. Gilman said Russell and her ex-husband decided to sell the property upon learning of the land”s value for home development.

A Spring Lake Tax Assessor”s office spokeswoman said the hotel, which is located on a 2.7 acre tract, had a 2000 tax valuation of $6.2 million and paid taxes of $88,798.09. New houses on the same land valued at an average of $2.5 million will generate considerably more tax revenue for the town, about $29,650 each, or just under $300,000 a year.

Last week, Gilman was still working out of a rear office at the Warren, one of the last rooms in the historic hotel to still have furnishings. “I don”t know when my last day will be,” she said.

At the closing on the sale scheduled for Wednesday, National Home Developers of Spring Lake, owned by Daniel Matthews, his brother, Jim, and sister, Susan, and their venture partners in Warren Beachfront Estates will take title to the property, capping a 30 month effort. James T. Sabaitis, a Spring Lake Heights attorney, is one of the partners in the venture, but he and Daniel Matthews declined to identify the others.

Neither Thomas Long nor Mary Long Russell were available for comment. But last September Russell reportedly said the property was to be sold for more than $8 million. Neither Matthews nor Sabaitis would comment on the selling price last week, saying final details were still being worked out.

Albert “Sandy” Ratz, Spring Lake”s construction official said the hotel property was the largest remaining privately-owned parcel in the town except for the nearby Essex & Sussex, a huge oceanfront hotel, closed for many years and the subject of long-running legal disputes, but now in the process of being converted to rental residences for senior citizens.

“It”s a financial thing. I feel very sad about it, but I have no control over it,” said Patricia Mangini. Her parents, Fred and Amelia Cosgrove owned and operated the hotel for more than 30 years and Patricia grew up there. “Hopefully they will build nice houses. The owners kept up the Warren. It was Old Spring Lake.” Mangini said her daughter married the grandson of Zev Confrey at the hotel last October. Zev Confrey was a friend of her father and the long-time pianist in the hotel”s Molloy Room, the main dining room. He was famous as the composer of “Kitten On The Keys” in the 1920s.

Her memories include formal dining on Saturday nights, full moon beach parties and guests who included Gloria Swanson, a friend of her parents, and World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Rocky Marciano. She”s proud of the autographed photo she has of herself at age 16 on the beach with Marciano.

The Warren was named after one of the four roads bordering the property, and adjacent to which the first hotel structure was built by Emma Lucas following her 1891 purchase of three building lots from James Moses. Lucas built a “double” four-story building that was added to the existing Lucas Cottages on the site, bordered by First, Warren and Mercer Avenues according to Dorothy Lau, president of the Spring Lake Historical Society.

Throughout its history the Warren was a family hotel, and in the late 1930s regular guest events included hay rides, scavenger hunts and costume parties for guests.

“In the early 1970s the hotel was purchased by Chuck Carroll, who then sold it to his sister, Mary Carroll Long and her then-husband, Thomas Long, in 1974. It was one of the last full American plan hotels serving three meals a day and one of the few Old Guard hotels where guests could stay for the entire summer,” Lau said. Along with Swanson and Marciano, other notable guests included Bob Hope and New York”s Cardinal John O”Connor, who came every fall to address priests of his diocese who stayed at the hotel for a week.”

The last overnight guest checked out on November 25, Gilman said, but the hotel continued hosting events, including weddings and a Spring Lake Historical Society party through December 16. She said the hotel was constantly booked and even last week she continued to receive calls from clients seeking reservation information for the coming vacation season.

For National Home Developers the project is nothing new. It has been building or remodeling upscale custom homes since 1983, concentrating on the Jersey Shore as well as other upscale communities like Chatham and Madison in northern New Jersey. The company has handled more than 110 projects including 75 in the Spring Lake area, Matthews said.