Cape May summer

CAPE MAY, N.J. — The wide, roofed colonnade that surrounds Congress Hall, this resort city’s grande-dame hotel, protects the rooms on three floors of the four-story hotel from the hot summer sun. It offers a shady place to sit in a rocking chair and read and sip something cool while time moves slower in the gentle ocean breeze.

“I’ve been coming here 57 years,” said a lady rocking nearby. “Except when it was closed, of course. I still came to Cape May then, but I went someplace else, but, I tell you, these bed-and-breakfast places don’t feel like you’re on vacation. I don’t like their coffee or doughnuts.

“I started coming here with my grandparents, then my parents, and now sometimes my grandchildren come to see me here. You don’t know how glad I am that Congress Hall is back.”

Unsolicited testimonials are easy to come by at Congress Hall, one of the nation’s first resort hotels at what is claimed to be the nation’s oldest seaside resort. Those guests who have come here over the years would not think of going anywhere else.

The colonnade, with its roof 32 feet overhead, is a distinguishing mark of Congress Hall, which, like many other Cape May hotels, is L-shaped. Bar service, in addition to the rocking chairs, is available under the colonnade. The top floor, above the colonnade roof, has dormer windows.

Congress Hall was opened by Thomas H. Hughes in 1816 as the Big House, so named by Hughes. Far different from today’s accommodations and amenities, it basically was a boardinghouse built of wood, with one large room downstairs and partitioned quarters for guests on the upper floors. Local residents hooted about Hughes’ barnlike Big, or Large, House and named it “Tommy’s Folly.”

The name was changed to Congress Hall after Hughes was elected as a Republican congressman in 1828. About 20 years later, Congress Hall was enlarged to twice its size, and it and Cape May found their place in the sun, becoming premier summer destinations.

Although a fire destroyed the hotel and much of Cape May in 1878, Congress Hall was rebuilt — in brick this time — and reopened within a year.

To get away from the humid Washington summer, President Benjamin Harrison conducted the nation’s affairs from Congress Hall, which gave the hotel its name as the summer White House. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan also escaped Washington’s heat to vacation there.

Composer and band master John Philip Sousa also liked Congress Hall and conducted concerts on the hotel lawn. He composed the “Congress Hall March” for the hotel in 1882 — and today’s owners would love to have a copy of the march.

Hard times came in the first years of the 20th century, but by the early 1920s, Congress Hall had been renovated and reopened. After the repeal of Prohibition, Cape May’s first cocktail bar opened on the site of today’s Brown Room in Congress Hall.

Congress Hall entered another phase from 1968 to 1995, when the late Rev. Carl McIntire, a radio evangelist who led counterprotests to marches against the Vietnam War, used the hotel as part of his Cape May Bible Conference. For much of its existence, Cape May was popular as a summer religious retreat house for several denominations.

Mr. McIntire is credited with keeping Congress Hall intact while similar resorts at Cape May were being demolished to make way for motels. He also is praised for buying threatened old houses and moving them to new locations for preservation.

Since 1965, Congress Hall has been under the same ownership, Cape May Resorts, which includes Curtis Bashaw, a grandson of Mr. McIntire’s.

The new owners brought Congress Hall up to date while retaining the hotel’s charm of an old-fashioned beach resort. Seventy tons of new steel were inserted into the old building — along with 47 miles of new wiring and 11 miles of plumbing. Coat all of this with about 240,000 gallons of paint and, presto, the revived Congress Hall. The renovation also added a spa and a fitness room.

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