August 29th 2023

MSN Travel recently listed the oldest working hotels in each U.S. state.  The oldest in New Jersey?  That would be the famous Congress Hall!  

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Congress Hall was the first ever seaside resort in the USA, built in 1816 on the glorious Cape May beach. Its facilities are well and truly up to date, though, with a gorgeous pool courtyard, modern en suites and numerous food and drink outlets serving everything from hearty seafood mains to freshly baked cookies and coffee. Plenty of bedrooms have sea views too. In fact, Congress Hall was the nation's first seaside resort!

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."^[2] 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.