Cape May ยท Beachfront
Congress Hall
Rebuilt in brick in 1879 after the 1878 fire, on the site of Thomas Hughes's 1816 boarding house; Benjamin Harrison's summer White House.
- Built
- 1879Rebuilt in brick in 1879 after the 1878 fire; the hotel's history on the site goes back to Thomas Hughes's boarding house of 1816.
- Type
- Grand hotel
- Area
- Beachfront
- Credentials
- Inside a National Register historic district
The story
Thomas H. Hughes opened a wooden boarding house on the site in 1816 and renamed it Congress Hall in 1828, after he was elected to Congress. The Great Fire of 1878 destroyed it, and the owners rebuilt in brick within a year to reassure guests it was fireproof. Presidents Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Harrison vacationed here, and Harrison used it as his summer White House; John Philip Sousa conducted his “Congress Hall March” on the lawn in 1882. The hotel closed in 1992 and reopened after a $22 million restoration completed in 2002.
The ghost story
Ghost City Tours, which runs ghost walks in Cape May, relates that guests describe a woman in old-fashioned dress who walks away from them down the upstairs hallways and vanishes at a corner, and that staff report footsteps and voices from empty rooms and floors.
Source: ghostcitytours.com
Good to know
- Breakfast: available
- Parking: on-site free
- Address: 200 Congress Place, Cape May, NJ 08204
Sources (2)
Last verified October 2026. Details change; confirm with the inn before you book.