Congress Hall is a historic hotel in Cape May, New Jersey occupying a city block bordered on the south by Beach Avenue and on the east by Washington Street Mall.
Congress Hall was constructed in 1816 as a boarding house for guests at the new seaside resort of Cape May; and the proprietor, Thomas H. Hughes, called it "The Big House." Locals, thinking it too big to be successful, called it "Tommy's Folly." In 1828, when Hughes was elected to the House of Representatives, he changed the name of his hotel to Congress Hall. Congress Hall burned to the ground in Cape May's Great Fire of 1878, but within a year, its owners had rebuilt the hotel in brick.
While serving as President of the United States, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Harrison vacationed at Congress Hall, and Harrison made Congress Hall his official Summer White House. It thus became the center of state business for several months each year. John Phillip Sousa regularly visited Congress Hall with the U.S. Marine Band and composed the "Congress Hall March," which he conducted on the lawn in the summer of 1882.
During the 20th century the Cape May seafront deteriorated. In 1968 Congress Hall was purchased by the Rev. Carl McIntire and became part of his Cape May Bible Conference. McIntire's possession of the property preserved Congress Hall when many Victorian-era beachfront hotels were demolished for the value of their land.
With the decline of the Bible Conference, Congress Hall fell into a state of disrepair. Restoration was begun in 1995, and today, Congress Hall is again a fully functioning resort hotel.
Famous quotes containing the words congress and/or hall:
“We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Having children can smooth the relationship, too. Mother and daughter are now equals. That is hard to imagine, even harder to accept, for among other things, it means realizing that your own mother felt this way, too—unsure of herself, weak in the knees, terrified about what in the world to do with you. It means accepting that she was tired, inept, sometimes stupid; that she, too, sat in the dark at 2:00 A.M. with a child shrieking across the hall and no clue to the child’s trouble.”
—Anna Quindlen (20th century)