Gingerbread-by-the-Sea

The pull of nostalgia has turned more than one American town into a tourist-hungry theme park of ersatz 19th century facades. When I set out one day last summer to visit the Jersey shore towns of my childhood, I was afraid of what I would find in Cape May. It had turned itself into a model Victorian village, a place whose quaintness and civility defined its charm. It looked pretty on the Internet, but I feared it had gone commercial.

Crossing the bridge on the road to town, I was relieved to see the funky fishing harbor unchanged. But a few blocks farther in the village, everything had changed. And most of it looked for the better.

“Renaissance” would not be too strong a word here. I remember this as a shabby, sleepy town, literally the last stop on the Jersey shore, a place that once was grand and no longer even had pretensions. Now it is a national treasure, a seaside resort of impeccably restored century-old buildings and a thriving year-round vacation destination.

Yes, with this rebirth come more people and more traffic, but even in the summer high season it didn’t feel crowded. The trade-off for Cape May is that more visitors bring more money, and that means another old house restored, another bit of history preserved, another spot beautified. Popularity doesn’t always shoot itself in the foot, I guess.

Cape May is the flat, sandy southern tip of New Jersey, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Delaware Bay on the other. It began attracting well-to-do people from Philadelphia, 90 miles away, in the early 1800s, and in 1853 claimed to have the world’s largest resort hotel. A fire 25 years later leveled much of the town, and the mass rebuilding in the styles popular in the 1880s and ‘90s is what gave Cape May the look for which it’s celebrated today. But it took another disaster to make the renaissance possible: A storm in 1962 did tremendous damage to the town, which was by then down at the heels. The rebuilders’ impulse naturally was to go modern (and a few modern buildings were put up), but the history lovers prevailed and in 1976 got the whole town designated a National Historic Landmark. If not for that, it would look like Wildwood, a boisterous beach town a few miles up the road, which I much preferred as a teenager.

Cape May is still a family kind of resort, where lazing on the beach is the main summer occupation. But the architecture of the Historic District is the big attraction.

The town boasts more than 600 certifiably historic buildings, and half of them take in guests. The exteriors are eye-popping in their variety of colors and elaborately carved trim. Several open their lavish interiors to tours.

But many of the antiques-filled B&Bs; discourage children. One welcomes only “well-behaved children over 12”; another warns that “children find us tiresome.”

My wife, Wendy, and I wanted to spend a few days in Cape May on a visit to family in northern New Jersey. Searching the Internet for the right place to stay gave me a headache. It was easy to eliminate the modern hotels and condos. But which of the dozens of B&Bs; to choose? We studied them until they all looked the same, then turned to the larger inns, such as the fanciful Angel of the Sea or the stately Southern Inn, whose lawn takes up a full city block, or the elegant Mainstay. Which would offer the most comfortable Victorian experience? Photo upon photo, one glowing review beside another, made it impossible to choose. Time was running out. To retain sanity I abandoned the Victorian approach altogether.

Most of the Victorian “painted ladies” are a few streets in from the beach. Why not something seaside? Not a motel, mind you, but something that wouldn’t remind me of all the other places I wasn’t staying in. It was then, getting toward the bottom of the listings, that I clicked on a cute name: Rhythm of the Sea. It was in the Craftsman style, a repudiation of fussy Victorian, and it promised the sound of waves rolling in at bedtime.

A month later, under a sky deep gray from an early summer rain, we pulled up to the inn. My eyes went right to the tiny private balcony on the top floor, and I smiled, knowing it was all ours.

Inside, we were won over by the inn’s unofficial greeter, a dog named Abi, and by the flower-filled lobby and main room, where breakfast was served.

The furnishings were inspired by the early 20th century Arts and Crafts movement. How non-Victorian could we go with the clean, unadorned lines of L. & J. G. Stickley furniture? I appreciated the irony. It was like visiting Hawaii and sleeping in an igloo.

Our room was $210 per night, average for summer. But this is a year-round resort, and prices don’t decline dramatically in winter; in fact, the decorations around Christmas are a huge draw. In summer many places require at least two nights’ stay. (One caution: Summer on the Jersey shore can be sultry, and not all lodgings have air-conditioning.)

Room No. 1, comfy though it was, was much smaller than the Web site shots had led me to believe. (I saw a few of the inn’s other six rooms, and they were larger.) Still, we’d chosen No. 1 not for the square footage but for its full-on view of the sea and that very neat balcony. The big test came when I plopped down on the soft bed. Yes! I could still see the ocean.

When the preservationists succeeded in keeping Cape May from becoming just another beach town, not only architecture was affected. People of taste expect more than pizza and a beer, and fine cuisine suitable to fine decor is now the norm (although the pizza and beer are good too).

On Friday night, we dressed up--jacket for me, dress for Wendy--for dinner at the Washington Inn, a sprawling hotel dating back to the 1840s, with five dining rooms and a 10,000-bottle wine list. It was just a few blocks’ walk from our inn, another plus.

We started our feast with sublime Cape May crab cakes prepared in a creamy pepper sauce. I couldn’t resist the shrimp and lobster bisque, and I helped Wendy with her Shrimp Caprese, made with fresh mozzarella and Jersey tomatoes. (The Garden State may be famous for giving the world Bruce Springsteen, but I say the tomato is still its best product.) On to our main courses--Cajun Dusted Tuna over fettuccine with roasted corn salsa, and Flounder Jefferson with Crab Imperial.

Our after-dinner walk took us past the Washington Street mall, the tourist gathering spot for shopping and catching guided tours. The shops were already closing, as befits this early-to-bed town, and we kept walking.

On Jackson Street, the broad front porch of the Virginia Hotel seemed like the perfect spot to sip an after-dinner drink. The sound of music drew us inside, and we joined the small crowd gathered around Steve La Manna’s baby grand. He had everyone, tourists and locals alike, transfixed as he moved smoothly from Cole Porter to Andrew Lloyd Webber to the Beatles. It reminded me of a time many years before when my mother and I stood in the hallway of Cape May’s venerable Chalfonte Hotel listening to opera singers warm up before a show.

Returning to the Rhythm late that night, we crept up the stairs, past the shelves of books and games, and into our comfy room. A cool sea breeze was blowing steadily in, and with it the promise of soft dreams.

Beep, beep, beep . . . no, it couldn’t be morning already, and it wasn’t. The clock read 3, but outside, a tractor-drawn 60-foot rake was grooming the sand. So much for the soft ocean breeze. I slammed the window shut and turned on the air conditioner to buffer the noise.

I awoke to the sunny morning a bit grumpy, but all was forgiven after a breakfast of light cheese blintzes with raspberry preserves and peppery bacon.

Climbing the little wooden stairs that connect street to strand, I begrudgingly admired the work of that noisy machine; the beach looked impeccable.

The early summer water was uncharacteristically warm, so I broke my usual rule of not going into the chilly Atlantic until August. Stepping gingerly over the shells at the tide line, I waded in and felt the full rush of the salt water on my body and the sensory memory of summers long gone.

After a lazy hour or so, we went back to shower and gear up for a tour of the town.

There is no single method to exploring Cape May’s numerous attractions. The town will welcome you at your own speed. Free maps for self-guided walks are available in hotels, restaurants and kiosks. Audiotape self-tours can be rented. There are horse-and-carriage tours, bike and pedicab rentals and a variety of hosted trolley tours sponsored by MAC (Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts), the fount of the ongoing preservation efforts.

Sooner or later every visitor to Cape May ends up at the Washington Street Mall, a promenade lined with cafes and quaint shops selling everything from antiques to Tarot cards--and of course tourist T-shirts, lest someone go home without his latest vacation destination emblazoned on his chest.

My only purchase was in a Jersey Shore institution, Fralinger’s, the venerable saltwater taffy chain, where I went for two of my old favorites--green mint taffy and chocolate walnut fudge.

At the mall we boarded a trolley tour to the Emlen Physick Estate, the restored 1879 mansion regarded by many as the linchpin in Cape May’s revival.

Local lore has it that Physick was a wealthy country gentleman who became a physician only to meet the terms of a family inheritance. That done, he retired from medicine and moved to Cape May to build his 18-room dream home.

Today, maintained by MAC, it is a prime specimen of the decorative arts, both in design and in methods of painting, upholstery and so on. It’s filled with original furnishings, fixtures, clothing and accessories. The guide called the style “Romance Revival.” It struck me as heavy and dark almost to the point of gloom, not at all romantic.

When furniture and wallpaper begin to crowd, there’s always the great outdoors of Cape May. The most prominent attraction on that score is the 1859 lighthouse. For a small fee--$4 last year--you can climb its 199 stairs to the top, where the reward is a 360-degree panorama of South Jersey bay shore and ocean.

We labored up and scuttled down as the sun angled lower in the sky. I’d promised Wendy a Cape May diamond--quartz that has been washed many miles down the Delaware River. We dug into the wet sand of Sunset Beach and came up with a handful.

A small crowd had gathered at the beach flagpole for a tradition that hadn’t changed since my day: Two youngsters--Boy Scouts that day--lowered the American flag as “The Star-Spangled Banner” played over a loudspeaker. A little corny, perhaps, but there it felt just fine.

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GUIDEBOOK

Cape May Caper

Getting there: Philadelphia has the closest major airport. United and US Airways have nonstop service from Los Angeles. Restricted round-trip fares start at $388. Car rental agencies are at the airport. From there, the drive (U.S. 95 and 76 to Atlantic City Expressway to Garden State Parkway south) is at least two hours on summer weekends.

Getting around: The nonprofit Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts runs guided tours daily June 15 to Labor Day, weekends in spring and fall. Price: $4 to $12. MAC, 1048 Washington St., Cape May, NJ 08204; telephone (800) 275- 4278, Internet https://www.capemaymac.org.

This year’s Victorian Week festivities will be Oct. 6-15.

Where to stay: Rhythm of the Sea, 1123 Beach Drive, Cape May, NJ 08204; tel. (800) 498-6888, Internet https://www.rhythmofthesea.com. Summer room rates: $145 to $255, full breakfast included.

Angel of the Sea, 5 Trenton Ave., Cape May, NJ 08204; tel. (800) 848-3369, Internet https://www.angelofthesea.com. Summer rates: $155 to $285, with full breakfast.

Humphrey Hughes House, 29 Ocean Ave., Cape May, NJ 08204; tel. (800) 582-3634, Internet https://www.humphreyhugheshouse.com. Summer rates: $125 to $250.

Where to eat: Washington Inn, 801 Washington St.; tel. (609) 884-5697. We paid $130 for dinner for two, including wine and tip.

Water’s Edge, Beach Drive and Pittsburgh Avenue; tel. (609) 884-1717. Trendy food.

Lobster House, Fisherman’s Wharf; tel. (609) 884- 8296. A classic, with moderate prices.

For more information: New Jersey Office of Travel and Tourism, P.O. Box 826, Trenton, NJ 08625-0826; tel. (800) 537-7397, Internet https://www.state.nj.us/travel.

Other useful Web sites: https://www.capemay.com, https://www.capenet.com/capemay/index.html, https://www.capemaychamber.com.