The Peras built the Pier Ballroom and the Lakefront Hotel in the 1920s.

The Pier complex included a bath house on the beach.

The ballroom opened in July 1928 as "The Breakers." The name was selected from contest entries and stood until 1929, when the owners changed it to The Pier Ballroom. Eusebio Pera considered the ballroom his greatest accomplishment. Big bands like Glenn Miller, Lawrence Welk, Duke Ellington and Ozzie and Harriet Nelson played there.

The dance hall held its last dance in 1976. Used for storage thereafter, it was razed in 1994.

When the Great Depression hit, dance halls survived by charging by the dance. To make sure dancers cleared the floor, rope boys used long ropes that stretched across the length of the floor. The rope boys "swept" the floor clear of dancers by moving the rope across the floor and kept unauthorized dancers off the floor when the music played.

Many nationally known bands/orchestras performed at the dance hall, including Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa, Lawrence Welk, Ozzie and Harriet Hilliard, Dorsey Brothers, Guy Lombardo, Tommy Tucker and Ben Bernie. Kay Kyser (1905-1985) was a frequent guest at The Pier and lodged at Shady Beach, owned by the Bowers family. Kyser's rent was pennies a day. As Kyser's fame increased in the 1930s, he brought his band members to the resort town and the orchestra stayed at Shady Beach.