Wedding DJ at The Inn of Cape May in Cape May, NJ

The Space

Second Empire architecture, the layered rooflines and ornament typical of America’s grand nineteenth-century beach hotels, shapes the building the local Church Brothers put up between 1894 and 1895 as The Colonial boarding house. Two hexagonal towers frame the main entrance, each topped with a spire roof clad in diamond-shaped shingles, a detail that still marks the building from the street and from the beach.

The New Jersey State Historic Preservation Office has identified it as one of the last remaining resort hotels of its kind still standing, and it carries listings on both the New Jersey and National Register of Historic Places. Where many timber-framed hotels from that period were lost to fire over the decades, this one survived and was most recently renovated in 2022, work managed by Cape May Contracting, so the historic exterior now houses updated interiors.

Capacity & Layout

The building rises five stories at its highest point and wraps around a large front lawn in an L-shaped plan, a footprint that dates to the original construction and still shapes how the property is laid out today. That L-shape gives the ballroom and porch areas a direct relationship to the lawn, so a couple’s ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception can move around that shared green space rather than being scattered across separate buildings.

Fifty-one guest rooms and suites fill out the property, each varying in shape, size, and view because they follow the historic building’s original footprint rather than a repeated modern floor plan. That variation matters for a wedding block: rooms will differ from each other more than in a purpose-built hotel, so couples reserving a block of rooms for guests should expect a range of layouts rather than identical accommodations.

Amenities

The newly renovated ballroom is the property’s main indoor event space, and it pairs with a wraparound porch that gives guests an outdoor seating option for dining or cocktails without leaving the building. An outdoor terrace adds a third gathering spot, and together the three spaces let a wedding reception move between indoor and outdoor settings over the course of an evening as the weather and the moment call for it.

Ocean 7, the property’s beachfront restaurant, comes with its own bar and lounge, and a separate on-site coffee shop covers the morning after. The seasonal outdoor pool, open from May 26 through September 5 and shared with the neighboring Avondale by the Sea, is available to guests booking within that window, and free self parking on site removes one more logistical question for a wedding weekend built around a historic building with limited street parking nearby.

Location & Getting There

The Inn sits steps from Cape May’s public beach in the town’s Historic District, which puts a wedding here within walking distance of the beach itself as well as the shops and restaurants that make up Cape May’s downtown. Atlantic City International Airport is the nearest airport, about 43 miles away, a reasonable drive for out-of-town guests flying in for a beachfront weekend.

The property runs year-round rather than closing for the off-season, which keeps a beachfront Victorian wedding available outside the peak summer months if a couple wants a quieter, cooler date. Inside, the ballroom’s renovated interior gives a DJ a contained indoor room to work with, while the wraparound porch and outdoor terrace offer softer, open-air alternatives for cocktail hour, so the sound setup for the night can shift from an enclosed room to open porch air depending on which space carries which part of the evening.