Cape May, NJ

Along the Garden State Parkway in south New Jersey—just when the smell of saltwater becomes distinctly noticeable—a sign warns the highway is about to end. It doesn’t mention that life as you know it is also about to change, for at road’s end is the Victorian world of Cape May.

Sitting on a hook of land at the tip of the peninsula stretching 20 miles out to sea, Cape May (pop. 4,490) is one of the oldest seashore resorts in the United States. It’s also home to some of the most charming Victorian homes in the country—and Cape May is committed to keeping it that way.

In 1976, the town accepted the designation of a National Historic Landmark City. The designation requires that a community retain all structures in their original form and design. It’s a distinction—and a responsibility—only a handful of cities in the country hold.

“Cape May is very beautiful,” says Cynthia Curtis, owner of Perry Street Inn. “It has its Victorian charm, and the town has great examples of Victorian architecture. Vinyl siding would look out of place here.”

Curtis’ bed & breakfast inn was built in 1902, and she’s dedicated to maintaining the history of Cape May. There are many things she loves about the town, but a stroll on the beach just after a snowfall is one of her favorites.

“There are no other footprints but yours and the birds,” Curtis says. “You feel like you own the world.”

Named after a Dutch sea captain, who visited the peninsula in 1620, Cape May briefly became one of several whaling villages along the south Jersey coast. But it was during the Victorian era that the town became a vacation spot and acquired its beautiful homes.

Although a fire destroyed nearly 35 acres of Cape May in 1878, the town quickly rebuilt, keeping to its Victorian theme.

“The fire was a mixed blessing,” says Pat Pocher, curator of the Greater Cape May Historical Society and mistress of the Colonial House Museum. “So much was lost, but today we have so many gingerbread homes because of the rebuilding.”

Those homes appear untouched by time, and the ornateness of the era is everywhere: in turrets and towers, cupolas, gazebos, balconies, and in iron fences around tiny yards and “widow’s walks” atop the houses. Homes are brightly colored and rich with carved wood and gingerbread ornamentation.

History breathes in Cape May’s streets. Strolling along red brick sidewalks fronting the graceful homes, it’s easy to imagine a woman in Victorian bustle or a boy in ankle-length bathing suit.

Pocher often loses herself in the history of her town. “I really consider myself the mistress of Colonial House, the oldest building in Cape May,” she says. “I’m always thinking like the people who lived here, how they lived, and what life must have been like for them.”

Every summer, Pocher sets up the front room of Colonial House as a tavern. “It’s a scene from 1768 to 1790,” says Pocher. “A place where the fishermen and pilots cursed the King.”

The Atlantic washes Cape May’s beaches and has tales of its own to tell. Off Cape May Point, near the Cape May Lighthouse, the cracked and weathered hull of the Atlantus juts from a watery grave of more than 70 years.

An experimental concrete ship, the Atlantus found birth from a steel shortage during World War I. At 250 feet, the freighter weighed 3,000 tons. After serving a year in New England, the ship was sent to the Bone Yard in Norfolk, Va., in 1920. In 1926, a Baltimore firm, hoping to start a ferry service across Delaware Bay, towed the stripped Atlantus to the cape. But before the ship could be positioned, a storm grounded it where it sits today.

Residents of Cape May are not only surrounded by history, they live in it—Jackson Street, for instance, still has gaslights. And despite the town’s popularity with visitors, there’s no neon-lighted boardwalk with vendors hawking goods—just beach, ocean, and the seabirds.

“The past,” says Pocher, “is still very much alive here.”

Tracy Leinberger-Leonardi is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

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