The Legends Resort & Country Club, often called simply Legends, was a hotel located on County Route 517 in Vernon Township in Sussex County, New Jersey, United States. In the 1970s, Hugh Hefner built the facility as The Great Gorge Playboy Club Hotel, and it officially opened in 1972. The Playboy Club was sold in 1982 to the Americana Hotel franchise . The hotel was sold again to the Seasons Investment Corp. and reopened in 1991 as the Seasons Resort and Conference Center. The property was sold yet again to parent-company Metairie Corp (owned by Hillel A. "Hillie" Meyers with individual hotel rooms owned by Andrew Mulvihill), which reopened the hotel as the Legends Resort & Country Club. The hotel declined severely after 2000 and has been nearly derelict with the amenities all damaged and shut down. The hotel did stay open but mostly housed recipients since about 2005. After evicting long term tenants, the hotel finally closed to public operations in April 2018 with various plans to restore it for commercial use of some sort.
In July 2024 Mayor Anthony Rossi announced that the property had been sold to an affiliate of Lockwood Hotels.
The hotel
During the 1970s, the Great Gorge Playboy Club had 800 rooms, but various owners since that time have combined units and converted many into condominiums, reducing the total number to less than 400 rooms at the current Legends Resort & Country Club. The eight-floor hotel has a cabaret, ballroom, restaurant, a fitness center, indoor pool, jacuzzis and an Olympic-sized swimming pool located outside. Most of the rooms have been renovated at least once, but some are still set up as originally constructed in 1970s decor. Much of the hotel became derelict by 2005.
History
The Playboy Club, in the 1970s, was the host of the first New Jersey Special Olympic Games.
In 1978, six Bunnies were among about dozen women who were lured to a house in nearby Glenwood Lake, drugged and filmed in various non-consensual sex acts. The women were blackmailed to give up money and act as drug mules.
2008 murder
<!-- Image with inadequate rationale removed: thumb|right|175px|The August 19, 2008 front page of the [[New Jersey Herald, reporting the murder at the Legends Resort & Country Club.]] -->David Haulmark, a 36-year-old contract laborer living in the Legends Resort & Country Club, was beaten to death outside the hotel on August 17, 2008. Haulmark, an Oklahoma native who was working on a pipeline project in nearby New York, was found lying on a sidewalk near the east entrance of the resort around 3 a.m. He had been battered around the face and head, and authorities determined the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the head, neck and face. Jacob R. Gentry, 27; Jarrod C. Gentry, 20, of Port Jervis, New York and Emily M. Henry, 24, of Plymouth, Michigan, were arrested in Port Jervis on August 17 in connection with the homicide. The Gentry brothers were charged with first-degree murder and endangering an injured victim. Henry allegedly pepper sprayed Haulmark and left the scene of the crime; she was charged with endangering an injured victim and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Defense attorneys said Jarrod Gentry jumped in to defend his brother after Haulmark and Jacob Gentry got into a fight. Gentry family members said Jacob Gentry had previously lived in Legends and moved out due to prior physical altercations with Haulmark over Henry, who was Jacob's girlfriend. Jacob Gentry also worked as a contract laborer with Precision Pipeline, the same Eau Claire, Wisconsin-based company where Haulmark worked. The Gentry brothers and Henry, all previously lived in Michigan (the Gentry brothers are originally from Tennessee), waived their extraditions from Orange County, New York on August 19 and will be tried in Vernon. The crime was the first murder charged in Sussex County in almost two years.
All three suspects were incarcerated in Sussex County Jail, but Jarrod Gentry was released in 2011, having been sentenced to time served. Jacob Gentry was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his primary role in the murder. 19 February 2016, after having his original conviction overturned, Jacob Gentry was found not guilty on all charges in a jury retrial.
In December 2008, Haulmark's family sued the owners of Legends Resort, alleging that negligence of hotel staff led to Haulmark's death. According to witnesses, two hotel bartenders saw Haulmark bleeding profusely outside the hotel doors on the night of his death but did not assist him, and in fact one bartender allegedly instructed patrons not to call 9-1-1. The suit alleged that the hotel had become a "den of trouble" including fights and drug use, with frequent responses to the hotel by police. The suit also alleged that the hotel bar did not have a bouncer or check for underage drinkers.
2012 fire
On March 16, 2012, the McAfee Fire Department and other fire units from Sussex County and Orange County responded to a 9-1-1 call at 9:02PM reporting a fire at the resort. The fire was restricted to the balcony of a vacant apartment, room 518, and caused limited damage. It was under control by 10:45PM. The fire was not considered suspicious, and may have been caused by a tossed cigarette.