Cape May is known across the country for its tastefully done and highly maintained bed & breakfast inns. CapeMay.com thought it would be insightful to get the answers to some basic questions from every innkeeper in town. The eight inns represented here are the second group to be interviewed.
The Albert Stevens Inn
127 Myrtle Avenue
West Cape May
How long have you been innkeepers?
Jim:We’re just starting our sixth year.
What did you do before?
My wife and I were both veterans of the casino industry. I worked in that field for 24 years and my wife 22 years.
Why did you become innkeepers?
Actually I didn’t intend to be an innkeeper. Lenanne and I never thought we could afford a property in Cape May. We thought they were already priced out of our reach. We were looking to buy a motel in Wildwood. Then I saw this property while doing an internet search. My wife was never enthralled with Wildwood or the prospect of owning a motel. When we saw this property, that changed everything. It was serendipitous. If you keep your nose to the grindstone, something will happen. We’d been looking for a property for four years.
Why did you pick Cape May?
We always came to Cape May. We loved the charm of it. It had the best restaurants and the ambiance that we loved. When we were at the casinos, I’d always read about the renovations taking place here when Dane Wells and Tom Carroll first started (redoing the Mainstay Inn and the Queen Victoria) but we couldn’t afford it. We were just starting out. We had no money. We had young children.
What do you like best about Cape May?
The small town atmosphere and the chance to work for ourselves. My wife grew up in the small Victorian town of Bridgeton in Cumberland County. She wanted to live in a small
town atmosphere. We like the coziness of it and the fact that Cape May personifies all the best parts of the Jersey Shore. It has the restaurants, the proximity to the beach but we don’t have the huge crowds you see in Ocean City or Atlantic City.
Windward House
24 Jackson Street
Sandy and Owen Miller, innkeepers
How long have you been innkeepers?
Sandy: 30 years. My husband Owen and I bought the property from Tom and Sue Carroll. This was the original Mainstay Inn. We ran it part-time for nine years then moved here permanently in 1985. My husband died in 1991. I run the inn now with my son, Owen.
What did you do before?
I was a school teacher in Bucks County and my husband worked for what was then Philadelphia National Bank, now Wachovia Bank.
Why did you become innkeepers?
We were looking for a small retirement house. A sailing friend of my husband’s, who was also a realtor, showed us the property at 24 Jackson. We love it so much, we bought it and rented rooms in the summer. In order to earn enough money to make the repairs on it, we kept our jobs for nine years and my husband commuted back and forth. We never thought it would become a full time thing.
Why did you pick Cape May?
I spent my summers here as a child out at Cape may Point. My family often stayed at the Carroll Villa Hotel.
What do you like best about Cape May?
The small town feeling which I hope and pray we don’t lose.
Joe & JoAnne Tornambe of the Woodleigh House
808 Washington Street
How long have you been innkeepers?
Joe: 13 years. We owned another B&B, (the Trellis Inn at 822 Washington Street) for seven years and we are in our sixth year at Woodleigh House.
What did you do before?
I was and still am a hairstylist in Audubon, Pa. I still go up there two or three days a week. JoAnne was an educator.
Why did you become innkeepers?
We love Cape May and it was our means to stay here.
Why did you pick Cape May?
We had a summer house in Avalon but we found Cape May to be a more year-round community and we liked the camaraderie of it.
What do you like best about Cape May?
The closeness of it. The closeness of the community and its geographic closeness to everything.
Archie and Stephanie Kirk of The Linda Lee
725 Columbia Ave. and
The Bedford Inn
805 Stockton Ave.
How long have you been innkeepers?
Archie:Not quite two years at The Linda Lee and we just bought The Bedford in May. We moved our residence from The Linda Lee to the Bedford and we have an innkeeper at The Linda Lee.
What did you do before?
I was a mortgage banker and owned a mortgage company in Mt. Laurel, NJ.
Why did you become innkeepers?
We’d been coming to Cape May since 1990 and staying at different B&Bs. Basically, we were staying at The Fairthorne and the innkeepers there told us about a property for sale two years ago. The Linda Lee became our primary residence. I still commuted back and forth to Mt. laurel until about a year ago when my partner bought me out. At that point one inn wasn’t enough of an income, so we bought the Bedford and moved over there.
Why did you pick Cape May?
Stephanie had been researching towns with B&Bs on the internet. The minute we came down here, we fell in love. We saw people walking around in Victorian clothes and we loved it.
What do you like best about Cape May?
Everything. I guess to me, it’s the most relaxing, most romantic place we’ve ever been to. It’s magical. There’s no place like it in the world.
Susan Babineau-Roberts and Raymond Robert of
The Mission Inn
117 New Jersey Avenue
How long have you been innkeepers?
Four years in June.
What did you do before?
I was a nanny and Raymond still owns an architectural engineering firm in Connecticut. He commutes. During the week I run the inn myself and he joins me here on the weekends.
Why did you become innkeepers?
We started staying at B&Bs when the kids were 10 and 12. We all loved it and we felt we were putting in so many hours for someone else. Also, with Raymond’s business, we were always entertaining. We had a nice big house in Connecticut.
Why did you pick Cape May?
We discovered Cape May by accident. We were returning from a wedding in the Carolinas and decided to take the back roads. We ended up on Rt. 113 which led us to the Lewis Ferry and we said, ‘We wonder where this goes?’ We stayed over in Lewes that night and it happened to be the night of the tree lighting ceremony. The next day we took the ferry over to Cape May. It reminded me of the village I’m from in Connecticut. We’d been looking at B&Bs to buy from Florida to Maine and we put in bids for properties but nothing came if it. Once we found Cape May, Raymond and I would come here every weekend, arriving in time to walk the boardwalk and meet the realtor at 9:30 a.m. look at properties all day then drive back to Connecticut. We did that every weekend until we found the Mission Inn.
What do you like best about Cape May?
The outpouring of warmth. People just showered us with warmth when we moved into the Mission Inn. This is truly home to us now. We looked at lot of towns to open up a B&B but none had the same feeling of warmth. Cape May is a wonderfully well-kept secret.
Bart & Sally Denithorne
of The Primrose Inn
1102 Lafayette Street
How long have you been innkeepers?
Sally:It’ll be 10 years June 1st.
What did you do before?
My husband was a welder and pipe fitter. He also worked on race cars for AJ Foyte, then he became truck driver and I was an insurance adjuster in Buck County, Pa.
Why did you become innkeepers?
My family owned a restaurant and it [hospitality] was in my blood. My husband came home one day and said I can’t do this much longer the road rage is terrible. And I said well my job is a young person’s job and I’m not a yojng person anymore. He was leaving for another trip and I said why don’t we both write down what it is that we do want to do and see how we compare. When he returned we looked at our lists and they were very similar. He wanted to work with his hands and he be with people. I wanted to stay at home. So, I saud, ‘Looks like it’s the B&B business for us.
Why did you pick Cape May?
We searched the eastern seaboard. We both had elderly parents and we wanted to be close to our families and Cape May was the hottest spot.
What do you like best about Cape May?
The beach and the ocean. Taking walks along the beach. And the sunsets. But mostly it’s the small town feel. That’s what it’s really all about. It’s like going home to grandma’s.
