Cape May County is a peninsula, located at the southernmost tip of New Jersey between the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay. From the thrill and excitement of the boardwalk to the gracious hospitality of Victorian Inns, there is something for everyone on a Jersey Cape vacation.

The common thread of a Jersey Cape vacation is the 30 mile ribbon of clean, white sandy beaches which winds along the cool gentle surf of the Atlantic Ocean and connects the resorts of Ocean City, Sea Isle City, Avalon, Stone Harbor, the Wildwoods, and Cape May. Each of the resort communities of the Jersey Cape offers a wide variety of activities for seashore getaway.

Come frolic in our surf, relax on our beaches, stroll our Boardwalks, tour our Victorian Inns, relive our past, climb our lighthouses, browse our shops, fish our waters, enjoy an outdoor concert, be part of our night life, visit our botanical gardens, spend a day at our park & zoo, hunt for “Cape May Diamonds”, sail our bays or experience our natural beauty at one of our campgrounds.

No matter what is in your vacation plans, you’re sure to find it on the Jersey Cape…

www.thejerseycape.net/

World War II Lookout Tower

Now Open Daily!

Restoration of Cape May’s World War II Lookout Tower (Fire Control Tower No. 23) Museum and Memorial on Sunset Boulevard in Lower Township, is MAC’s latest historic restoration project.

Fire Control Tower No. 23 is New Jersey’s last remaining restorable World War II tower, part of the immense Harbor Defense of the Delaware system known as Fort Miles. Built in 1942, the tower was one of 15 towers that helped aim batteries of coastal artillery, stretching from North Wildwood, N.J. to Bethany Beach, DE. Four were in Cape May County, N.J.—the towers located in North Wildwood and Wildwood Crest were torn down and a third tower is located inside Cape May’s Grand Hotel, Beach and Philadelphia avenues. Fire Control Tower No. 23 is on land now part of the Cape May Point State Park. The tower was listed on the New Jersey Register of Historic Places on May 29, 2003 and on the National Register on Nov. 17, 2003.

Phase I of this project is set to include the following: building spiral staircases in the Tower so that the public can safely climb to the top; construction of a wooden walkway from the street to the Tower, and a deck around its base, to preserve the fragile dune environment; replacing the missing windows and doors; recreating historical details, such as the original wooden ladders, and outfitting the watch room and viewing platform at the top; installing interpretive panels along the walkway and at every level in the Tower; introducing lighting and safety alarms; and upgrading the existing parking lot across Sunset Boulevard and connecting it with a cross-walk to the Tower.

MAC is planning a grand opening ceremony of the fully restored tower on Saturday, May 16, 2009. This project was helped made possible by MAC’s restoration architect, Robert Russell of Holt Morgan Russell and three agencies which have awarded MAC $1.3 million in funding for the project: the New Jersey Historic Trust, the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority and the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs.

Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts-Article and photo

www.capemaymac.org

Source: The Press of Atlantic City
Written by: Vincent Jackson
Published: Thursday, December 25, 2008

CAPE MAY – The numerous bed and breakfasts here attract visitors year around, but the choices of where to stay decrease dramatically on Christmas Day. It’s not that there’s no room at the inn, it’s just that the inn isn’t open.

Some innkeepers close during the holiday season and don’t reopen until February or the spring. Others shut down for just a few days before and including Christmas Day, so they can spend time with their families. There is a belief that few people will need a place to stay for Christmas.

One of the newer innkeepers here, Cat Cronin is breaking from the pack. Most bed and breakfast places are closed on Christmas Day, but her place is open.

“I live here. I have no place else to go,” said Cronin, who took over the Primrose Inn on Lafayette Street in May 2007.

The Primose Inn was open last Christmas Day, but no one called to make a reservation. Last Thanksgiving and Christmas, she brought food to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars hall. This past Thanksgiving, Cronin arranged through the Red Cross for two 20-year-old Coast Guard recruits to have dinner at her place.

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“All they wanted was family contact, to call their parents and girlfriends,” said Cronin, who picked them up and dropped them back off on the same day and let them use her computer and her telephone for hours. “I have never entertained two people who were happier to be here in my life. It warmed my heart. It was the greatest Thanksgiving I ever had.”

Cronin will host two different Coast Guard recruits today and is open for anyone who needs a place to stay tonight.

Besides the recruits, Cronin will spend the day serving a roast beef dinner to her sons Chris, 24, Jack, 20, and her husband will come down from northern New Jersey, where he still lives.

One of the first inns here to cater to Christmas Day guests was the Queen Victoria Bed and Breakfast on Ocean Street.

In 1981, the Queen Victoria started opening for Christmas and never closed, which is a tradition that lives on to this day. It didn’t have a seasonal mentality and had a bank that required a mortgage payment every month, said Joan Wells, who co-owned the Queen Victoria with her husband from 1980 to 2004.

“In the early years, no restaurants were open to feed people. We planned a package for a Christmas Day dinner. (Doing) the cooking wasn’t so bad,” said Wells.

Apparently there was a need for a place serving Christmas dinner in Cape May. As more people came for Christmas, more restaurants stayed open. “Sometimes, we had between 40 and 50 people guaranteed. The guests were incredibly generous with us. Guests brought us little gifts.”

People stay on Christmas Day at bed and breakfasts for different reasons, Wells said.

The explanations ranged from family estrangement to young couples with a desire to do their own thing and not worry about whose relatives they will spend the holiday with, to people who want to start a new tradition after death or illness in the family.

“They came to us to have a readymade family,” said Wells, who added their only child, Elizabeth, would leave her parents table to have Christmas dinner sitting at whatever table had the rowdiest guests. “They were here at Christmastime because there was generally some issue or other. We were a readymade family to be with for a few days.”

Running an inn is tough work. Running an inn when pregnant is even tougher, running an inn when pregnant and taking care of a toddler and preparing for a holiday is toughest of all.

Welcome to this year’s Christmas for Lisa Matusiak, who is due in March.

Matusiak, 38, is an innkeeper at the Bacchus Inn. She’s been in the business for six years, so she knew what she was in for. Matusiak handles making breakfast and does the business’ paperwork while her husband, John, 37, spends more time entertaining guests and doing maintenance, but throw in a young family, with another child on the way, and the demands can sometimes be daunting. The Matusiaks arranged for all their guests to leave by Dec. 21 and will reopen on Dec. 26.

The holiday season of 2006 offered bigger obstacles even though Matusiak arguably faced more demands on her time this year.

“It was much more challenging, just being able to answer the phone,” said Lisa Matusiak, who added she tried to pick up the phone on the first ring, so that her son, J.T., then six months, wouldn’t wake up, and she had to make time for nursing. “We (she and her husband) have to be constantly coordinating our time. … It’s part of the juggling act. You do what you have to do.”

With the Bacchus Inn consisting of two buildings – the Main House at 719 Columbia Ave. and the Cottage at 710 Columbia Ave. – the couple, who live here, do a great deal more holiday decorating than your typical homeowners.

They put up four Christmas trees and started their exterior decorating before Thanksgiving and the interior decorating afterward.

J.T., now 2 1/2, is old enough to help out by holding something or handing it over. The Matusiaks make a point keep J.T. away from guests unless they ask to see him, and they do. Repeat holiday season customers usually bring something for the couple or J.T. when they visit.

“It’s an extended family or a bunch of nice friends,” said Lisa Matusiak about their repeat holiday season customers.

If J.T. has an ear infection and they receive less sleep during a night in the holiday season, which happened earlier this month, they just have to roll it. On the mornings where mom needs more sleep, dad adopts more of the Mr. Mom role and rises out of bed earlier to take care of their son.

“I have to be regimented. I have always been organized and good at coordinating things, but this is more than I ever handled,” Lisa Matusiak said.

E-mail Vincent Jackson:

VJackson@pressofac.com

Come stay at The Bacchus Inn Cape May Bed and Breakfast for a wonderful Cape May Christmas.

The Spring Tulip & Garden Show sponsored the Cape May Chamber of Commerce, April 25-26. Activities for this year’s homage to spring will be held in Rotary Park – where the gazebo is – on Lyle Lane behind the Washington Street Mall. One of the highlights of this year’s garden show will the ninth annual silent “Poster Painting” auction sale. This year Cape May artist Patricia Rainey’s donated an original watercolor painting of Jackson Street (right). The proceeds go to benefit the Chamber of Commerce.

Tickets for the Secret Garden Tour and all other tours are available at the Chamber of Commerce office on Lafayette Street or the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts (MAC) ticket booth on The Mall at Ocean Street. For more information call the chamber at 609-884-5508 or visit

www.capemaychamber.com

Cape May.com Article & Photo
www.capemay.com

Herald – Article and Photo

SUNSET BEACH — The World War II Lookout Tower: Fire Control Tower No. 23 Museum & Memorial opened to the public Friday March 27 with a steady stream of visitors and a coastal artillery reenactor inside from Cape Henlopen State Park who explained the purpose of the structure and how ships were spotted from the top level.

In 2008-09, Cape May’s Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts (MAC) restored New Jersey’s last freestanding World War II Lookout Tower, an important part of Cape May’s World War II history.
The World War II Lookout Tower was part of the immense Harbor Defense of the Delaware system known as Fort Miles. The tower was used for spotting enemy ships during World War II and aiming guns to fire on them.

From Fire Control Towers along the coast, soldiers would determine the exact location of an enemy ship using the geometric principle of triangulation. Each of these towers had at least two azimuths, which were binocular-like instruments that gave the precise angle between the ship and a base line.

Mike Rogers, lead interpreter and historian from Delaware State Parks at Cape Henlopen at Fort Miles demonstrated an azimuth, a telescope like device. He compared fire control to a quarterback on a football field whose eyes tell his brain how hard and how high to throw the ball.

If the quarterback wants to throw the football to a receiver, “Is he going to throw it right at him? No, he’s going to lead it a bit because he wants that ball and that receiver to get in the same place at the same time,” said Rogers.

“The whole system works like your body and Fort Miles had eyes and the eyes were the towers,” continued Rogers.
He said two towers, like two eyes, are needed for depth perception. Each tower had a M-19 azimuth at the top, which took the position of their target from their viewpoint, and a crewmember telephoned that information to Fort Miles.

The data from two towers was put together in the plotting room to find the point in the water where the lines of sight cross. The information was sent to the guns, which “could throw something as heavy as your car 25 miles away, said Rogers.

The azimuth in the tower is on loan from Cape Henlopen Park. A World War II tower is open to the public there but has not been restored like the tower at Sunset Beach. Fort Miles has a fully restored gun battery with weapons.

Rogers said Fire Control Tower 23 was assigned to a particular gun battery. A fire commander would identify the ship to be fired upon and phone the information to the tower. Another tower would also be tracking the ship from their angle creating a triangle with the ship being the third point.

The towers needed to stay synchronized so a bell chimed three times every 30 seconds.

“On the third chime, they would stop and read what the setting was on azimuth instrument,” said Rogers. “The guys in the other tower were doing the same thing.”

Readings were taken at the exact same time providing a synchronized mark that can be used to plot a ship out in the water. The azimuth would allow a ship to be seen on the horizon as far as 20 miles away and see its distinctive features.

Towers were not paired with a specific other tower but as needed depending on the position of the ship. The fire control commander occupied Tower 12 at the harbor entrance control post at Fort Miles.

The bunker at Cape May Point State Park had big six-inch guns, four 90 mm guns and four, 155 mm guns, said Rogers. He said they were covering this side of the bay where guns in Delaware could not reach.

“Nobody is getting through this bay entrance without being in range of somebody’s weapon, “ said Rogers.
The guns were test fired on a monthly basis but never used to sink a ship. They were fired once at freighter that failed to stop and give proper identification. Rogers said Fort Miles was unable to contact the freighter by radio or signal lights.

A 155mm gun was loaded from the Delaware side with the order to fire three shots, one over the bow as a warning shot, the second shot between the smoke stacks and the third shot to hit the freighter. The first shot fired went between the smoke stacks which caused the freighter crew to believe they were being fired upon with no warning.

The freighter came to a dead stop in the water and the crew came on deck waving white bed sheets to surrender. The freighter turned out to be an Allied vessel coming to pick up supplies from Wilmington and Philadelphia.

Rogers said the crew did not know the ship had to be stopped and searched before proceeding into Delaware Bay. The freighter continued on its way the following day but requested an armed escort after having the life scared out of them from the shot from Fort Miles.
The towers communicated by telephone instead of by radio since it could be intercepted, said Rogers.

The tower will be open daily; call for times, (609) 884-5404. Tower admission is $6 for adults and $2.50 for children (ages 3-12).

If you are in need of a hotel or bed and breakfast while visiting the newly renovated observation tower try the Bacchus Inn in the center of historic Cape May NJ at 609.884.2129. We are a proud business partner of Cape May MAC.

Source: Press of Atlantic City
Published: 1/20/09
Written By: BRIAN IANIERI

CAPE MAY – At the Emlen Physick Estate on Monday, Tom Celandine spoke of his first and only jump from an airplane.

In 1964, with the U.S. Naval Air Reserve, he packed his parachute and was told the rip “wasn’t bad enough to make any difference in your jump.”

Celandine wasn’t being nostalgic as he told the story to employees at the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts.

He was auditioning.

The MAC held auditions Sunday and Monday to fill 20 slots for characters to tell historical stories to crowds on the streets of Cape May later this year.

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Geoffrey Berwind, the storytelling stage director for the new program, asked actors to tell their personal stories or historical stories for their auditions.

Berwind tried to get a feel for how they will tell a story and captivate an audience.

He looked for energy, friendliness and confidence without cockiness for the acting assignments that will place thespians almost in the roles of town criers who will encourage passers-by to explore the attractions of Cape May.

It’s an unusual acting job because the audience might not even know they’re an audience at first.

About 45 people tried out for the roles, which include pirates, rum runners, auto racers and historical characters from the 17th century to World War II.

Their stages will be at the Cape May Lighthouse, Emlen Physick Estate, Washington Street Mall and the Cape May Welcome Center.

The job combines acting with hospitality, customer service and marketing, Berwind said.

Through two days of auditions, Berwind saw actors from the young and nervous to seasoned and steady.

Celandine teaches at Atlantic Cape Community College and acts as a hobby. Jamie Evangelista, an acting student, told a story of an encouraging nun she had as a teacher.During her interview, Berwind asked her to act like a pirate and to elicit “arrghs” from an unenthusiastic audience.

Terry Harris, an actor and educator who teaches at Atlantic Cape Community College, recently returned to the area and said he wanted the opportunity to tell stories. His audition involved telling about the life of American playwright Eugene O’Neill.

Other actors told true stories of pirates, a trip to Punxsutawney, Pa., and a wilderness experience of being stuck between a mother bear and her cub.

There has been heavy interest in the roles, which continue through the fall and pay $10 to $12 per hour. When selected, the actors will begin rehearsals in March and will be out on the street April 25.

The program is modeled after the “Once Upon a Nation” series in Philadelphia’s Independence Park and is funded by a grant from the New Jersey Cultural Trust.

E-mail Brian Ianieri:

BIanieri@pressofac.com

www.pressofatlanticcity.com

Source:  Cape May County Herald
Written by:  Al Campbell

Robert Elwell and Carol Boyd detailed plans Thursday, Jan. 15 at the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce monthly meeting for this summer’s 400th anniversary celebration of Henry Hudson’s infamous navigational blunder that stuck his vessel, the Half Moon, on a sandbar somewhere off Cape May Point in Delaware Bay.

The city is planning a festival, which, if sufficient funds ($30,000-$50,000) can be collected, will include a visit of the replica Half Moon.

Elwell, with the aid of Norris Clark, displayed “Hudson, The Dreamer, 1609,” a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. Ferris was born in Philadelphia on Aug. 18, 1863, and created 78 works that depict American history. The painting Elwell showed which will hang in Cape May City Hall to mark the anniversary.

Elwell and Boyd, co-chairs of the 400th Anniversary Committee, also told of the ball at Congress Hall Feb. 15, that will help raise funds for the summer celebration.

They made their presentation to some 95 members gathered at Rio Station for the luncheon meeting.

The official anniversary of Hudson’s offshore stop is Aug. 28.

The city, he said, held a celebration 50 years ago, on the 350th anniversary of Hudson’s discovery.

“I would say that was probably the biggest parade Cape May ever saw,” stated Elwell in an earlier story.

He said the parade featured many bands and floats from a variety of places.
The 400th anniversary parade will be held July 25, 2009.

“We hope it will be as big as it was 50 years ago,” said Elwell.

Storytellers from the Mid Atlantic Center for the Arts will appear in the 300 block of the Washington Street Mall and take the roles of persons important to Cape May’s history, he said.

The Netherlands consulate has been contacted to see if a Dutch naval vessel that will be visiting New York could stop at the Coast Guard Base in Cape May, he said.

(Reporter Jack Fichter contributed parts of this in an earlier story.)

www.capemaycountyherald.com

Bon voyage!

The Cape May-Lewes Ferry offers convenient, round-trip foot passenger service to exciting destinations in Delaware and New Jersey.

It’s so easy-just park in our free, well-lit and security patrolled lots. Then purchase a round-trip foot passenger/shuttle service combo ticket, and we’ll transport you to many of the places you want to be.

www.capemaylewesferry.com/

Source: The New York Times
Written By: Donald Janson

LONG a visual feast for admirers of period houses, this southernmost New Jersey city has taken the lead nationally in the conversion of Victorian homes to bed and breakfast inns.

The conversions are continuing, both for new inns and for second buildings as expansions for established inns.

Pat Hardy, editor of the Professional Association of Innkeepers’ monthly newsletter, said by telephone from Santa Barbara, Calif., that Cape May was now the national leader in numbers of Victorian bed and breakfast inns. Her assessment was seconded by Sarah W. Sonke, director of the American Bed and Breakfast Association, based in Crofton, Md.

Cape May, in large part a confection of lacy gingerbread, has some 600 Victorian buildings, most of them houses. For the last 17 years, particularly in the early 1980’s, would-be innkeepers have been selecting from this inventory, buying and then restoring in authentic Victorian style.

There are now about 40 restored Victorian bed and breakfast inns, some spectacularly furnished throughout with Victorian antiques. The Chamber of Commerce puts the number at 65, but includes surrounding areas.

The total swells to well beyond 65 when restored Victorian guesthouses that do not serve breakfast are included. Large houses restored as hotels with public dining rooms add further to this small city’s concentration of Victorian hostelries built in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Much of the Victorian stock came about as a result of an 1878 fire that destroyed everything within a 30-acre area in the center of town. Cape May rebuilt with the ornate frame houses that have become prize plums for refurbishing as inns.

Private homeowners, many inspired by the example of the inns, have joined in a citywide sprucing up that has left Cape May with a rainbow of Victorian colors and a checkerboard of flower gardens, many of them Victorian in style.

Adding to the aura, the city authorized gas lamps on the streets where many of the small inns are concentrated, and the Department of the Interior placed the entire city of 4,800 residents, the country’s oldest seashore resort, on the National Register of Historic Places.

Tom and Sue Carroll began Cape May’s bed and breakfast movement, converting an elegant former private gambling house to the Mainstay Inn in 1972. They have since doubled their capacity to 12 guest rooms by converting an adjoining house to its former Victorian splendor.

With the addition of such events as Victorian Week in October and Christmas feasting and decorating in December, the season for bed and breakfast inns has expanded from two months to nine or 10. Some are now open the year round. Many inns are so popular that they can require a minimum stay, at least in summer, of three or four nights.

Mr. Carroll said numbers of new openings had slowed because the city was now enforcing a regulation that required off-street parking for guests of new inns. But he said growth in the city’s bed and breakfast business was continuing at a rate of 5 to 10 percent annually.

”People take 16,000 brochures a year from our front-door basket,” he said. ”Cape May has become a yuppie resort, with lots of quality places to stay, excellent restaurants, appealing history and frequent tours of the best Victorian public buildings, private houses and bed and breakfast inns.”

Ms. Sonke said, ”Interest in staying at Victorian bed and breakfast inns is a real trend with the upscale market.”

The best of the nonbreakfast guesthouses here offer the same Victorian furnishings and decor, but bed and breakfast innkeepers report that the feature of their operations that many vacationers prize most is the communal breakfast. This is sometimes a feast of major proportions, and it affords an opportunity to get acquainted with fellow guests and the inn’s owners.

www.nytimes.com

Baby Bongo at the Zoo

Zoo goers will see a new, baby bongo this summer at the Cape May County Zoo.

Mountain bongo antelopes are native to Africa. The baby bongo was born at the Zoo in February 11.

The zoo named him “Abe” because he was born near President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

Meanwhile, another bongo, Abe’s older sister Maura, is now in Kenya as part of the reintroduction to the wild program.

www.capemaycountyzoo.org/