Lucy the Elephant is a six-story elephant-shaped wood frame and tin clad building, constructed in 1882 by James V. Lafferty in Margate City, New Jersey.

[5] Lucy was modeled after Jumbo, the famous elephant with Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, and constructed at a cost of $25,000 - $38,000.

Lucy was constructed with nearly one million pieces of wood, and required 200 kegs of nails, 4 tons of bolts and iron bars; 12,000 square feet of tin covers the exterior.

[6] Originally, Lafferty brought potential real estate customers to view parcels of land from Lucy's howdah (carriage).

[7] Lucy's birthday is commemorated each year on July 20, which includes a fundraising event and celebration of children's games and much fanfare.

Lucy remained unscathed, although the surge reached the building's toes and a small booth in the parking lot was blown over.

[10] On July 23, 2016, Lucy's staff announced the building's fake candidacy for President of the United States at a celebration for her 135th birthday.

[12][13] In August 2021, the Save Lucy Committee announced a plan to repair and replace the metal exterior skin after receiving a $500,000 grant from the National Park Service.

With the exception of the number and relative size of the windows, and the design of the howdah, its exterior was a nearly exact scaled-up replication of Lucy.

It held a cigar store in one leg and a diorama in another, hotel rooms within the elephant proper, and an observation area at the top with panoramic sea views.

Lafferty was not directly involved with the construction but granted patent rights to Theodore M. Rieger, a real estate developer like himself, who sought to do for Cape May what Lafferty did with Lucy for Atlantic City[32] It is unclear whether the Light of Asia matched the quality of the other buildings; the only known surviving photo of Light of Asia appears to have been taken while still under construction with no metal skin and an incomplete head, and with yet another different howdah design.

[34] A prospectus was published in 1892 by Kirby (while Lafferty still owned the patent) for a fourth building, even larger than Elephantine Colossus and with a moving trunk, eyeballs, ears and tail as well as a Calliope in the throat, to be built for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.