Wildwood’s neon sign maker is trying to keep the classic motel signs lit

WILDWOOD — You’d have to look up pretty high to notice that the palm fronds of the Isle of Palms neon motel sign had been unlit.

But inside Randy Hentges’ neon workshop on Park Boulevard, in the middle of Wildwood, one of the last great neon destinations, the palm tree repair is underway.

Glass tubing is being fashioned to match the old patterns, some of which were done by his father before him.

The glass tubes, bent by fire, are lined with various phosphorus powder, which interacts with either the neon (red) or argon (blue) gas to create other colors, all eventually energized by a high-voltage transformer mounted seven stories high.

“So every glass can be two colors,” he explains.

There’s more to know about how neon signs are created and repaired, how their materials are sourced and stored, how the gases work to create the distinctive brightness that we know as neon. It’s an amalgamation of science experiment and pop art.

The Isle of Palms motel, around the corner on Atlantic, is waiting.

The fragile neon tubing can break in the wind, especially when mounted high up, a block from the ocean. But it’s also surprisingly hardy — the signs can last a half-century, longer than the LED technology that is overtaking them (which Hentges also makes). It’s a near lost art, and Hentges is one of only two neon guys left in Wildwood.

Hentges is not old, but he’s old-school, and he knows it.

Born in 1965, he began working in the family business after high school. Neon is still big in Wildwood, the old doo-wop capital of the world, but the neon scene is fading with every motel that turns into a condo and with every decision to just go LED.

“It’s dwindling quickly,” Hentges said, during an impromptu tour of his workshop on Park Boulevard earlier this month. “So what ends up happening is we end up taking them down. I have one in the backyard from the Ivanhoe motel.”

Less than 100 historically significant mid-century motels remain in Wildwood, out of what was more than 300. Many of the old motels, like the Chateau Blue in North Wildwood, have been torn down, or have become condos, which don’t need their signs anymore, and certainly not attention-attracting neon. (Hence the Ivanhoe motel sign that awaits a collector.)

“People say you have to save them,” he said, “but no one wants them people thought.”

Hentges has been busy this summer with neon repair, with fashioning a bunch of dinosaur skeletons (not neon) for the Wildwood Splashzone Waterpark, and with building a giant plastic LED Kohr’s ice cream cone. Especially back in May, when seasonal businesses flip the neon switch and see what’s broken, there’s a mad dash for his time. This spring, it was the Isle of Palms that came knocking, among other places.

“Over the winter, he had a bunch of it that got wrecked,” Hentges said.

At this point, though, the guy at the Isle of Palms, whose broken palm fronds Hentges has finally had the time to begin refashioning this month, has said it’s already too late in the year to put the new palm tree and pink border back atop the seven-story hotel. It’ll only mean more trouble over the winter. So the imperfect palm tree will ride out the summer. It gives Hentges some breathing room to finish the job.

He’s lost two employees, he says, and the two that remain, Ryan Nardy, 34, and Alex Figueroa, 59, are not neon guys. Nardy can take the finished product and install it back onto the buildings, and Figueroa is the graphics guy. The neon falls upon Hentges.

He was asked by Dock’s Oyster House to recreate its iconic Atlantic City sign from old photos, for when the restaurant expanded. He was once asked to do neon for a strip club in Atlantic City where, he said, they wanted the neon in weird places (like over door entrances). He ended up doing LED for safety.

And beer signs are constantly coming in for repair, though he says those are typically with glass that has been painted on the outside, a bit of a short cut to a true neon sign.

The big rush of the 1950s and 1960s in Wildwood led his father to create A.B.S. Signs. “He always had neon guys,” Hentges said. “But then in the 1970s and ’80s, plastic came out, and it was a lot cheaper. A lot of people got away from neon. Then in the ’80s, neon really made a big resurgence.”

What’s killing it now, he said, is the LED lighting. “Neon lasts way longer, but it’s fragile,” he said. “It breaks and only certain people can do it. It’s pretty energy efficient, but it could be dangerous. It’s got high voltage.”

The backyard of his workshop is littered with old neon signs, the Ivanhoe, Crest Savings Bank, the McDonald’s arches, but he’s still carrying the (neon and argon gas) torch for the nostalgic and intricate creations that once defined Wildwood.

“This has been sitting in here since probably early May,” Hentges says of the Isle of Palms project, “but I haven’t had any time to sit and do this.”

John Donio, president of the Wildwood Business Improvement District and owner of the Daytona Motor Lodge (another neon sign Hentges created), says the shortage of neon repair guys makes it hard for motel owners to keep their properties looking fresh.

“It’s difficult to get a neon repair job in 2025,” Donio said. “There’s two people left in our area who could do it.”

In the old days, his dad had no full-time guy doing neon. Hentges would be asked to load up all the neon pieces in his dad’s station wagon to bring to the neon guy in Philly. And then return it, praying nothing broke on the way back.

“I told my dad, let me learn how to do it, so at least if it does get broken, we don’t have to go all the way back to Philly,” he said.