Congress Hall is a historic hotel in

Cape May Cape May consists of a peninsula and barrier island system in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is roughly coterminous with Cape May County and runs southwards from the New Jersey mainland, separating Delaware Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The so ...

, Cape May County, New Jersey, United States, occupying a city block bordered on the south by Beach Avenue and on the east by Washington Street Mall. It is a contributing building in the

National Historic District. Congress Hall was first constructed in 1816 as a wooden boarding house for guests to 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."Congress Hall, Cape May, New Jersey
"History."
Accessed 2011-06-29. In 1828, when Hughes was elected to the House of Representatives, he changed the name of the hotel to Congress Hall. It 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 Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia–a grandson of the ninth pr ...

vacationed at Congress Hall, and Harrison made Congress Hall his official

Summer White House Listed below are the private residences of the various presidents of the United States. For a list of official residences, see President of the United States § Residence. Private homes of the presidents This is a list of homes where ...

. It thus became the center of state business for several months each year.

John Philip Sousa John Philip Sousa ( ; November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known primarily for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to dis ...

regularly visited Congress Hall with the U.S. Marine Band and composed the "Congress Hall March", which he conducted on its 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 Carl Curtis McIntire, Jr. (May 17, 1906 – March 19, 2002), known as Carl McIntire, was a founder and minister in the Bible Presbyterian Church, founder and long-time president of the International Council of Christian Churches and the Amer ...

and became part of his Cape May Bible Conference. McIntire's possession of the property preserved the hotel during a period in which 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. The property was partially restored under the guidance of Curtis Bashaw, McIntire's grandson, a restoration begun in 1995 and completed in 2002. Today, Congress Hall is a fully functioning, high-end resort hotel and part of the Cape Resorts family of hotels. File:Cape May Congress Hotel from the sea.JPG, Congress Hotel from the sea File:Congress Hall, Cape May, N.J, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.png, Congress Hall in 1870

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