Building the Hotel Cape May. Click to enlarge.
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Cape May Magazine‘s June 2007 issue, under the title “The Admiral Hotel: A Star-crossed Venture.”
From the beginning, the Hotel Cape May was doomed. From the fantasy of a “new Newport” by a group of early 20th-century capitalists to the day it finally crashed into dust and rubble on its beachfront lot, the majestic building symbolized many things that Cape May is not.
The Hotel Cape May opened in 1908, several years behind schedule and 100 percent over budget – its final cost of $1 million was nearly unimaginable in those days. The flagship of a development envisioned by a consortium calling itself the Cape May Real Estate Company, the structure was supposed to be a luxury accommodation for the wealthy visitors, even yachtsmen, who would come to this pretty little town, bringing money never seen here before and spending it on mansions, lengthy hotel stays, and the sort of lively social life typical of coastal resorts like Newport, Rhode Island, and the Hamptons on eastern Long Island.
Hotel Cape May in 1913. Click to enlarge.
Instead, it was the albatross largely responsible for dragging the venture to its end. Labor disputes, construction problems and pilfering delayed the work. The city refused to pay for a major portion of required infrastructure improvements. The architect was forced to sue for his fee (he won). A harbor dredge sank. Six months after opening, the building was briefly closed for repairs.
The consortium spent $700,000 on marshland at the eastern edge of Cape May, millions more (including Federal funds) dredging the shallow mud from a creek that became Cape May Harbor, dumping the dredge on the marshland, building a grid of streets named for big cities and states, and presumably advertising all this to prospective buyers. But fewer than 100 of the planned 700-plus houses were ever built. Eventually the company went bankrupt, and the land was sold off for $200,000. Peter Shields, the first president of the company, could not save the project, nor could his successor, Nelson Z. Graves. Both men managed to build the sort of houses they expected to see here, though, and both remain: the Peter Shields Inn, and the Mission Inn, whose Spanish style was Mrs. Graves’ favorite architecture.
1910 Postcard of the Hotel Cape May. Click to enlarge.
The Hotel Cape May remained mostly unused until World War I, when the nearby U.S. Navy base used it for a hospital. It served as the U.S. Navy officers’ administrative headquarters during World War II.
The Admiral Hotel Company bought the building during that period, renamed it and tried to run a hotel. That failed, and the City of Cape May took it over in 1940 for back taxes – $900. Then it was sold to a Philadelphia real estate company who pondered opening a senior citizens home, but didn’t. After the war, the Pennsylvania Company bought it as a hotel, and again, the venture failed. In 1957, the Masefield Corporation bought the building and instantly declared bankruptcy. Then it became the property of First Pennsylvania Bank and Trust Company in another back-taxes venture – this time the price was $66,000.
Swimming pool at the Hotel Cape May in 1932. Photo by Fred Hess and son. Image courtesy Don Pocher. Click to enlarge.
Finally, in 1963, the Rev. Carl McIntire bought the building as part of his work to create a Christian college housed in several buildings he’d bought and moved to the eastern end of the beach. He paid $300,000 for it.
During all those years, up and down, good times and bad, the building became an institution, spawning the kinds of experiences and memories you might associate with a more romantic and exotic locale.
Apparently, it WAS romantic. Who cared if management was in financial straits? It was more than a nice place to sleep. From the eighth floor open terrace you could see the world! The lobby, sunlit through a huge stained glass dome, spoke of elegance and luxury. The formal dining room gave unbroken views of the ocean. There was a dance floor, a swimming pool and a bowling alley. What’s not to love?
The Hotel Cape May dining room in 1908. Photo courtesy Don Pocher. Click to enlarge.
And fall in love they did. Locals, summer visitors and cottagers treated the Admiral Hotel as the social center of summer life at the shore. It was a source of income for locals who made summer money setting pins in the bowling alley, waitressed or bartended, bussed tables, cleaned the guestrooms and worked the front desk.
“When I was 16, I was hired as a cigarette girl in the bar,” recalls a Cape May native who, perhaps understandably, wishes to keep her identity a secret. “I went home and said to my mother, ‘Guess what I’m doing this summer!’ ” To which Mother replied, “Oh no, you’re NOT.” She was underage, of course.
Before the final demolition began in 1995, the new owners of the Christian Admiral, headed by Curtis Bashaw, Rev. McIntire’s grandson, held a spectacular yard sale which people treated as a social event that would yield them a memory. When the doors opened that morning, people filed slowly in and began to wander among piles of restaurant china, painted wardrobes clustered in the center of the chilly room, and hundreds of chairs, some assembled as for a meeting, other folded and leaning against the wall near stacks of disassembled brass beds, worn and rusted, but intact. Some of those people are gone – they’ve moved from Cape May, or they’ve died. Some only vacationed here, but they returned for this event, then disappeared again to their home towns.
Click to enlarge.
“They were fun times,” recalled Jack Powell of Cape May. He was among several who were happy to share memories with others wandering through the crowd, looking for stories and for a few souvenirs of their own. “It was the social spot of the city. We’d get dressed up, dance to live music. It was nice.”
Ann and John Violand used to dance and drink there. “It was party time in the late 1940s,” they said.
“I’m looking for a desk for my daughter,” explained Pat Loranger of Cape May, as she stood outside. No doubt she found one; there were probably 20 lined up near the wardrobes.
But most people wanted one last look at the old place and one souvenir of the building that had a place in their lives.
Photograph by Vincent Marchese. Click to enlarge.
“I always dreamed that if I won the lottery I’d buy the place,” said Colette Smith of Atco, who said she’d take home “anything cheap I can find.” Libby Toner, a lifelong Cape May resident, was more specific. She wanted a dish bearing the CA logo. They were plentiful, if not as “cheap” as the unlabeled dishes. But anyone unwilling to pay for the plates could buy silver-plated serving pieces still in good enough condition to use.
“Oh, look! This brings back memories,” someone would say, and they’d begin to poke among the dishes or pictures. Sadness mixed with the joy of recollection.
“How’s this?” said Helenclare Leary, poised next to some bowling pins and searching for her best memory. “Standing in my bare feet, in a bathing suit, in the downstairs bar, drinking cocktails out of old ginger ale bottles.”
Photograph by Vincent Marchese. Click to enlarge.
“That must have been before 1962,” said a passerby, “because after that . . .” When Dr. McIntire bought the building, alcohol was banned.
The bowling pins and accompanying balls lined up on their racks were a favorite attraction, sparking some of the liveliest talk. But crouching quietly in the crowd, Peter Baldwin carefully searched for a couple of the best. They were, he said, in memory of his dad, “who was a pinsetter here.”
Outside, Anita Beck reminded the crowd that Cape May’s tallest building was a landmark for every fisherman. There is a legendary fishing ground just off the Admiral’s beach. “It’s called the Hotel Sluice – pronounced ‘slew’ – she clarified for landlubbers, “and it’s not on the charts.” People coming in from a day’s fishing, commercial or recreational, knew where they were and how long until they were home, when the building came in sight.
Photograph by Vincent Marchese. Click to enlarge.
Some people remembered the view from the big bridge over the canal. It was a long road trip to the shore in the days before Route 55 and the Garden State Parkway, and restless children watched for the big building to cut across the flat view of the ocean. “There it is,” they’d murmer, and knew the ride was over.
Audrey Conant’s father, U. S. Navy Captain Edward C. Kline, Sr., was a section base commander during World War II, long enough for her to attend 9th grade here, in the building that is now City Hall. Her cousin’s family had a summer place in Cape May Point, next to St. Mary-by-the-Sea, and she remembers her cousin as a teenager riding his bike all the way to the Admiral to his job as a pinsetter – for 25 cents a week. At the yard sale, she bought a room key, and a fork and spoon as a memory for him.
Her brother, Dan Kline, was 10 or 11 during the war, and used to play ball in the Admiral hallways with a chief petty officer while their father worked. “He used to say, ‘If my son gets in trouble, I’m after you.’ ” Kline laughs. It was “mostly Navy” in there, with the lower two or three floors taken up with personnel offices. Above that was still a hotel, with some guests. But the building was never fully booked.
Photograph by Laura Keen. Click to enlarge.
The pool was the star attraction, “because the beach wasn’t much then,” Kline recalls. In the 1950s Cape May “almost native” Cindy Schmucker and her brother begged their father for a seasonal family membership that gave them unlimited use of the pool. It cost $100, not insignificant on her father’s school teacher salary, but apparently worth it. “We were always on the beach [until then], so the pool was different,” she remembers. Every morning they would ride their bikes from their summer home on South Lafayette Street, spend the morning swimming and playing with the “gang” of their young teen friends, go home for lunch, then return for the entire afternoon.
One reason for the popularity of the pool was the condition of Cape May’s beaches. Erosion had taken a great toll, and only a few places were accessible. Dan Kline went up to Decatur Street along with most of the town, because it was the first place where there was enough beach. Poverty Beach held no attraction either because it had an unpleasant “coarse and shell-y” surface.
Lobby. Photograph by Laura Keen. Click to enlarge.
Cindy Schmucker and her family used to go to Howard Street where there was a good beach and a swing set. It was convenient from her aunt and uncle’s house, but they still had to climb – or jump – about 12 feet down from the macadam boardwalk. Under that paving were big boulders like those on the jetties. Those boulders were on the ocean side of the boardwalk (they didn’t call it a promenade then) and the water came right up to the rocks at high tide.
“When I was a child it was kind of an elegant place, so when they offered memberships, it was neat,” but even then the Admiral Hotel building was “very run down,” says Cindy, and she never went inside. But she knew people who did: many young summer workers were paid so little that they could not afford to rent a place to live. Somehow word got around that they could get into the fourth floor of the Admiral and “just flop somewhere.”
Stained glass dome. Photograph by Laura Keen. Click to enlarge
By the time she was in her late teens, when earning summer money became more important than hanging with friends all day, she heard that “kids were down there messing around, getting into trouble; it was very run down.” It was during that period that the story – apparently true – circulated that a woman had fallen into an elevator shaft and been decapitated. “They locked up the building better after that.” (Some say that the woman’s ghost haunted the Admiral’s hallways.)
Even after it became a Christian college and unsavory practices like drinking and smoking were banned, the Admiral remained THE place to hang out, even for secularists. The top-floor terrace had been enclosed to become another dining room, and McIntire added an auditorium, Gardener Hall, onto the east wing to hold religion classes and rallies. It became a community center, hosting antique shows and other public events. When no Shelton College officials were looking, drinking continued and the happy party atmosphere prevailed alongside McIntire’s evangelical messages broadcast regularly from the hotel and later from a boat anchored several miles offshore.
The drive leading to the Admiral. Photograph by Laura Keen. Click to enlarge.
Sue Carroll, along with Lorraine Schmidt and several other women, organized and hosted a “really elegant” dinner in the first-floor dining room as part of Victorian Week. “We were sneaking wine bottles in and all kinds of devious stuff,” recalls Tom Carroll. After dinner, while the live band played, everyone would wait for the McIntires to go upstairs to bed so the dancing could begin. McIntire banned dancing and smoking. Music was okay – it was just the dancing that was naughty.
The first concerts of the Cape May Music Festival were in a grand presentation room off the lobby opposite the dining room, recalls Tom Carroll. Concertgoers could listen to the music and look right out through picture windows behind the musicians and see the ocean. “It was an elegant setting,” he remembers.
Photograph by Laura Keen. Click to enlarge.
Like the others before him, McIntire could not keep the aging building afloat. Plagued by accreditation problems at Shelton College and controversy over his radio broadcasts, he moved his ministry to Florida, and once again, the monument stood empty, now in the hands of the McIntire grandchildren. The construction problems inherent in the original project were now taking their toll as parts of the building literally began to fall apart and were judged hopeless by more than one civil engineer.
Dining room. Photograph by Laura Keen. Click to enlarge.
On top of everything else, the seaside climate was doing its work on the structure: its steel supporting columns were rusting and disintegrating inside their decorative brick enclosures. The city and its residents fought for the Admiral’s survival in the face of fact after fact detailing not only the progressive damage, but the cost to halt and repair it. Numbers like $20 million were bandied about, with no promises that the fixes would hold. Tom Carroll had conversations with several engineers, including one who was a member of the New Jersey Historic Trust. The engineer inspected the rafters and concluded that the entire roof needed to be completely removed and rebuilt. “He said we would be looking at $60 or $70 million before even starting to think about the rest of the building.”
It was inevitable and a little ironic when a deal was finally struck to demolish the condemned building, sell the land for development, and use the income to restore what had become the Admiral’s sister property, Congress Hall Hotel. East Cape May had come full circle.
The winter of 1995-1996 was one of the longest and coldest in recent memory. By November icy winds were already blowing off the ocean. It was a wet, unpleasant season, but through those bleak months, well into March, day after day, Cape May locals bundled up and ventured down to the asphalt sea wall on the beach facing the Christian Admiral Hotel. They came to watch their beloved building disappear, a process that proceeded painfully beginning in December. Finally, on Monday morning, March 25, the last of the beacon and tower, landmark to locals, longtime summer visitors, even fishermen, came down.
Photograph by Laura Keen. Click to enlarge.
The usual crowd was on the seawall, in the street, or in their cars. These people, perhaps a couple of hundred, had been there almost every morning starting around 8 a.m. through the bitter winter to watch the process, share their stories, and mourn the building’s passing.
On the site, on this last day, thick steel cables were wrapped through the building’s window frames, as they had been on so many days before. One long cable looped around the rear east corner where an elaborately decorated column housed a metal chimney. After coping with several of those stubborn columns around the building, project manager Skip Bushby of Winzinger, Inc., the demolition contractor, declared his determination that this last one would fall with the rest of the building.
“Three pulls,” went the word through the crowd. By now, everyone knew what that meant – they had seen it several times already. The cables were hooked onto a powerful tractor, nicknamed “Big Yellow,” that would move slowly and gradually forward, pulling the cables taut. It would keep moving until its force pulled the cabled section down.
Photograph by Hope Gaines. Click to enlarge.
So it would all be over today. Until time for the pull, there was the endless, now familiar, flow of bulldozers and men, sorting, dumping, tossing, cleaning wood and metal from the ever-higher piles of brick and plaster rubble – the remains of the eight-story monument to history, elegance and, finally, failure.
It was foreman Alex DePalma’s last day. Would he miss us? He shook his head.
“I won’t miss that ride every morning, I can tell you,” he said, looking forward to a new assignment closer to his Bricktown home. “And this is the windiest city I’ve ever been in.”
While they waited for the pull, people talked about what they would do when they no longer felt compelled to show up here every morning. Most laughed about getting their lives back, cleaning their houses, getting to work on time.
Photograph by Hope Gaines. Click to enlarge.
At last, at about 10:30 a.m., the first pull came and part of the remaining corner fell. A rusty water tank blew out its burden of black sludge as it spun down and clanged onto the pile of rubble.
When the dust cleared, DePalma climbed up the pile and entered the narrow section of building that was still standing. Spectators watched him inch along an interior wall and up what remained of a staircase, inspecting a cable that seemed to be buried in the dust. He leaned out a window, adjusted the cable, then crept cautiously back down along the wall and out onto the rubble, now nearly three stories high.
Photograph by Hope Gaines. Click to enlarge.
The crew cleared the area for the second pull. That one took away the staircase DePalma had just climbed, some fluorescent orange-painted windows, and the last of a series of bathtubs that had appeared as each layer of rooms was exposed after a pull.
Then word passed that there would be a wait. Winzinger’s top project manager was on his way. He had just called from his car phone at the red light at Exit 10, and was expected momentarily. The crowd was restless; it was later than any of the pulls before.
When he arrived, the manager climbed a pile of rubble and focused a camera. DePalma stood at the foot of the pile, shouldering a video camera. The cable around the last, rear corner was moved, adjusted, maneuvered, first by men, then by machines. The last, slim section of the Hotel Cape May faced the ocean, white interior walls exposed, blue sky shining through vacant window frames.
Photograph by Hope Gaines. Click to enlarge.
Big Yellow puffed black smoke that rose over the rubble. The cables slowly tightened until they were taut. Nothing happened. The machine moved forward a little, then back, tightening the cable again. Some tiles fell from the roof.
Another forward-back motion, a hard jerk, and the structure shook. Someone yelled, “Look! The chimney!” as the top section of the corner tower broke off and flew over the rooftop.
Photograph by Hope Gaines. Click to enlarge.
Another pull. The broad face of the structure shook, then twisted, turning its west wall inward. Then it fell, toppling forward. And it was gone.
The blue sky seemed to be a gaping hole, a rip where a solid surface had been. It was a shock to look up and see – nothing.
To this day, many people insist that the building could have been saved. They don’t believe the extent of the hidden damage or the figures quoted to repair it or they don’t believe the money couldn’t have been raised somehow. They look at the mansions erected along the site with disapproval and sadness, even as they celebrate the restoration of Congress Hall. They want both; they want their Admiral back. They want the pool, and the parties, the eighth-floor view and an elegant place to dine in full formal dress.
***
Want more on the Christian Admiral? Read “Watching History Go Away.”
What a sad, beautiful hotel that was.
My parents spent their honeymoon at the Admiral and as a young girl, my parents would take us to Admiral (even though we stayed in another hotel) to have the annual picture taking in front of the hotel. Fortunately, my parents did get one last night stay there the last year, when they had several rooms available. They had such fond memories, as do I. I always felt the Admiral was Cape May's Titanic. Sad it is gone…. Thanks for the story!
Cape May's Titanic…well said.
My first visit to Cape May was back in 1999, which is three years after the hotel was demolished. After the demolition, they subdivided the site to that private houses can be built.
I went to college there in 1969. My dad sent me there so I would not become a Hippie. I marched with the colege in Washington D.C. We went on a bus from Cape May and my sign said-Win the War then Peace. I was interviewed because I was from Oklahoma. My dad thought this was Okay because I went with a Christian College. I left the college in Nov. 1969 to come back to Oklahoma to get married. I had not seen the ocean before. It was a great view. I remember having a mouse in my bed one night. I have not liked mice since then.
We likely know a lot of people in common — students and faculty of Shelton College, Bible Presbyterian Church — all from that time. We moved to Cape May in 1969 when my dad joined the faculty and left in 1971 when Shelton College moved to Florida. I lived in the Admiral Aug-Dec., 1969 on the 4th floor in fact. You likely resided on the either the 1st or 2nd floor, which served as girls dorms and the clinic – or at Morning/Evening Star Villas — or possibly at Pilgrim Place and Liberty Lodge (now known as the "Angel of the Sea" currently for sale for a mere $10MM!) I was a teenager but remember participating in a March in Trenton, NJ in July 1969, countermarching the 2nd Moratorium Againt the War in Vietnam on November 15, 1969, attending the "Ky-less" breakfast in Washington DC, and participating in 3 Marches for Victory in Vietnam on May 4, 1970, October 3, 1970, and May 8, 1971.
I transferred all my family's Kodachrome slides to digital and have some marvelous shots of the inside and the grounds of the Christain Admiral from that time — and those Marches too. Even dedication of the then new Shelton College building in May, 1970 and the Double decker busses. In the ensuing years, I have also obtained yearbooks, hotel plate service pieces, promotional items and rare postcards from the Hotel Cape May, US Army Hospital No. 11, the Admiral, and Christian Admiral, and even a "Victory" sweatshirt and a slice of the carpet bearing the Christian Admiral logo from the George Washington Room. I passed up a chance to own the original room key box which sat behind the desk on the wall behind which was "Peggy's snitch-board" — i.e., the telephone exchange. I think I may have the sole remaining post card that featured the painting which hung in the staircase going down to the lower level — where "Chuck the baker"'s sugar cube model of the Admiral resided. The painitng was entitled "Morning Tide in Cape May."
I am looking at the original key and fob to Room 322 hanging in my office desk even as I write this. The sad thing to realize is that the vote to save the hotel was lost by only 1 vote on Council. The ocean air had pounded the ocean facing brick mortar almost to dust due to failure to maintain it for years, fire codes would have required an enclosure of all staircases and the plumbing for sprinklers was declared substandard. The locals would not allow a Marriott to step in and re-furbish the place, like they'd done successfully for places like the famous Wentworth in NH or Copley Plaza in Boston.
And so the "Titanic" of hotels with its long history of openings, closings, and reopenings came to an end in 1996. I wouldn't necessarily sing the praises of MacIntyre's nephew, – whose estate sits dead center in the middle of the McMansions that occupy that property now. His dad was MacIntyre's "business manager" with an inside track on all property transactions. The son was as much of a real estate investor as was his uncle Carl — he sudivided the lot the Christian Admiral sat on — one building site is still empty (NJ Ave side). He made out quite well in the end – has that dome from the Admiral laying around over at Congress Hall, at last I heard. Congress Hall, which also ownes had served as the boys' dorms for Shelton College. In fact at least one of the marble staircases from the Admiral was salvaged and retro-fitted into Congress Hall bar when he renovated it.
And that haunting smell everyone remembers is the residual of the mustiness left over from the 1962 flood, which filled much of the entire lower level. McIntyre bought the hotel at a fire sale price, when everyone thought Cape May might not come back from the damage. If you remember the bowling alleys (lanes 4, 5, and 6) you'll recall how warped they were. This was the reason why. Before the new library was built for Shelton College out behind the Christian Admiral, the library was in the lower level next to the student dining quarters. The book stacks also retained much of the mustiness, since the building for all its years after the flood never really fully dried out.
I am headed to Cape May on Saturday as my company regularly holds its annual "board meeting" there. I'll be staying within eye sight of the old Christian Admiral property.
Back in the 60's we listened to the Rev. McIntire on the radio along with lots of other conservative radio commentators. Coming from an extemely liberal Christian and political tradition we listened mostly for the entertainment value . But he could certainly turn a phrase, he had cadence, rhythm and was a great preacher even if we considered his views way out in the ozone. Years later in the early 90's my wife and I were walking past the Christian Admiral and walked through the lobby. It was completely empty except for the silent young woman behind the desk. It was old, it was worn, it was gray, an icon of the past just barely holding on, a peculiar union of decaying architecture and stagnant dogma. But, there was an opulence in the stained stone floor, the dusty columns, the leaded glass dome, that said "I was once a jewel, I was once the center of this world, I was once the place to be." There was a sad silence to that lobby, a shadowy shroud hung in the air that seemed to suck the smile off your face. Then a crowd of smiling, laughing young people came pouring out of an enormous double door, Rev. McIntire had just concluded what may have been his last lecture in the Christian Admiral. I missed it, my one chance to have heard him live, but i did get to see the edifice, not as it once was but you can always imagine it in its prime. The monstrous homes that now sit on the site, used no more than 7 or 8 weeks a year, are a truely obscene homage to the excesses and waste of our present Newport fantasy. I would rather have the gray old lady, at least my last view of it was filled with smiles and laughter.
Rev. McIntire was a powerful minister. He certainly had passion, which so many lack today. I would spend time in Cape May back in the 70s and 80s, and always wanted to see the Christian Admiral from the inside, but I never got the chance. Now, all that's left are photos and words. There is a good deal of information written about it in Jack Wright's book, Tommy's Folly.
Rev. McIntire's nephew should be very proud of his uncle. The good reverend McIntire left an interesting legacy, not only because of his ministry, but he valued free speech. Wright covers that generously in Tommy’s Folly.
I'm sure the reverend looks down at his nephew, admiring what he has made of Congress Hall.
I remember going to the admiral every summer as a kid with my family for a week of christian conferences. Not the greatest vacation for a kid but I do remember going off the high dive for the first time and playing around the bases of the huge marble pillars in the lobby while my parents talked to friends. I also remember the old building smell mixed with ocean air for some reason. To this day if I smell something similar it takes me right back there. It is sad that it is no longer there. My wife and I are going to take a drive down to Cape May while vacationing in Atlantic City next week. It will be the first time back since my childhood and I'm sure it won't be the same.
I know what you mean about the smell of something taking you back. Music also has a way of transporting me to some moment in my personal history.
I have very many of the same memories that you do. Our family went there every summer for vacation, and we also went to the Christian Conferences. I remember jumping of the high dive when I was a kid. I also remember playing in those big pillars when I was little. I remember how the elevator was kind of scary and one time me & my friend thought we were stuck on it for awhile. The lobby was amazing. As we got older, our parents would allow us to bring a friend with us. I have many memories and pictures. It is so said that it is now gone.
My family took our vacations at the Admiral for the first 10 – 12 years or so of my life. It was a magnificent place. My brother and I would play in the clusters of big marble pillars. I have fond memories of many things there including the old fashioned ice cream shop, the bowling alley where you had to set your own pins, the old claw foot bathtubs, the George Washington Restaurant on the top floor and the views of the ocean from there, the high dive at the pool, the double decker buses that ran from the old Congress Hall and the Christian Admiral Hotel, the high back chairs and the crystal china in the main dining room and many many more things. My brother even got stuck for hours in one of the elevators there once (he would press all of the buttons at once). My dad used to go night fishing for bluefish and bring the fish back to the hotel and they would put it on the menu as a special for that night. The big porch was a favorite of many and was an attraction in and of itself. People would sit on the old rocking chairs for hours and listen to and watch the waves crash on the rock wall across the street. What a grand place it was!!!! The demolition made way for the city to make alot of money in taxes and the city seemed to not want the hotel around. The people who were involved in the city government back then should all hang their head in disgrace that they pushed to demolish such a place rather than find investors to rehab it to it's former beauty.
My sister Sue and I and friend Louise worked at the Christian Admiral in the late 70s. I started as a maid when I was 14, then a waitress, then a prep-cook. I loved my time at the Admiral and the Pink House.
I could go on and on about the great times we all had working and living there during the summers. From bowling, to swimming parties, peanut butter ice cream, ping pong, trips to Wildwood and where we first saw Star Wars!!!
I am looking for our friends from that wonderful time in life. Maybe we can have a virtual reunion? Freda, Linda, Betty where are you guys?
Get in touch, Carole!!!!!
Is the Linda you are talking about Linda Blizzard? If so, she married Paul Freeman. I am her sister in law Becky. Let me know. I will give you her address, or you can look her up on Facebook.
When I was in Cape May back in 1999, they built private houses on the site of the Chirstian Admiral Hotel.
I worked as a waitress at the Admiral Hotel in 1949 for 10 weeks during my summer vacation while I was a junior at Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA. I was hired by Mr. Ellerman along with other college students and we all lived on one of the top floors. The boys were in one wing and the girls on the other side. Our favorite spot between each meal was the roof top where we laid out each day in the sun and acquired beautiful tans! At the time I worked there I did not know or appreciate the history of the the hotel. I certainly enjoy reading about it now! I did not know that at one time she was the “Grande Dame” of Cape May!!! It is sad that such a wonderful landmark no longer exists!!
Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It if truth be told was a leisure account it. Glance advanced to far delivered agreeable from you! However, how can we be in contact?
My grandfather, Dr. Charles Richter, was Assistant Pastor to Dr. Carl McIntire. I stayed at the Christian Admiral with them quite a few times when I was a young girl, and I have very fond memories of that magnificent building. It was spectacular!
I currently reside in Texas and have been here since I was 18. I wasn’t aware that the Christian Admiral had been demolished until I looked it up on the internet in the late 90’s. I was devastated and remain heartbroken to this day. I would have loved to attend the yard sale and be able to own a piece of the Christian Admiral’s history, my family’s history, and my childhood.
That said, I hope to come up that way sometime soon, and visit the current Cape May. In addition, I will seek out the spot where the Christian Admiral once stood.
I have a 1963 conference program from the Christian Admiral with Rev McIntyre’s picture on the back. Would you be interested in having it? It was in some stuff I acquired at an auction.
I was recently given a plate that my parents have had for at least 40 yrs, it appears to be a souviner plate from the hotel after it became the Christian Admiral, my father is not sure where it came from, he thinks his grandmother visited, and brought it home, I suspect my youngest uncle- he used to work for the Cape- May Lewes ferry when he was young, he might have bought it and given it to my father. The article was great, wish I had researched the plate earlier I might have gotten to see it, it sounds like it was a magnificient place.
Christian Admiral has long been one of my favorite places. As a child my mother would walk us from one end of Washington Street all the way there to go to the craft shows they held inside. I always felt as though we were entering a different, more grand time just stepping into the building. Even though it was starting to deteriorate badly by that point it remained beautiful and mysterious to me as a child, and I longed to be able to explore it further, though at the time it was not an option.
As a teenager we found a way in to the vacant building and would roam the halls looking for treasures and hunting for “ghosts” and just having adventures in general. Some of my best memories were in the building while it was in the process of closing (security and several staff still roamed around making sure people stayed out of the majority of the hotel) and after it had closed and one had to gain access in a less straightforward manner. Eventually security stopped patrolling and the building was completely vacant with the exception of squatters occupying some of the upper floors. We would roam around through the bowling alley, dining rooms, hallways and in and out of guest rooms hoping not to run into anyone else who was doing the same. Between 1992 and its final days I spent hours there each week and was devastated when it was torn down as so many portions of the building remained so beautiful and intact. I have many unusual treasures from the admiral and consider them to be my most prized possessions….a reminder of the city’s history and of my own youth and freedom. It was vey sad to see it go and be replaced by mansions that rarely get used.