The Doctor’s Inn
Cape May Court House
2 North Main Street
(609-463-9330, doctorsinncmch.com)
Number of rooms: 10
Innkeeper Haley Hoenke slowly opens the door marked “O” on the first floor. It is the medical office of the original owner of the 156-year-old Doctor’s Inn, Dr. John Wiley.
These days it is filled, as are the rest of the guest rooms, with Victorian period pieces, complemented by an ultra-modern bath. Under the staircase is Cape May County’s first indoor bathroom, which Hoenke says Wiley had to keep hidden lest his patients fear it was a festering ground for disease.
The Doctor’s Inn is just across from the court house, as in Cape May Court House, the inland county seat, not to be confused with the fiesta of Victoriana-by-the-sea that is Cape May, ten miles down the Parkway. Most visitors choose the small-town surroundings of Doctor’s Inn as an alternative to the hustle of the nearby beach scene.
Still, they do head for the beach on warmer days, primarily to tony Stone Harbor, just over four miles away, for which the Inn provides beach badges starting Memorial Day. The free Cape May Zoo is a mile and a half down the road, a wonderful shore secret with 85 acres and 550 mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.
Gastronomes tend to migrate beachward to places like Green Cuisine, a salad-lover’s paradise in Stone Harbor, or north on U.S. Route 9 to Ocean View for the Southwestern fare of Red Sky Cafe.
Back at Doctor’s Inn, guests relax on the wide porch or enjoy the tended gardens separating the Inn from Main Street. For cooler spring nights, each room or suite has a fireplace. Afternoon tea is served, as well as full American breakfasts. Rates until Memorial Day weekend range from $110 to $200 and thereafter from $145 for the cozy Roger C. Wood room under the eaves of the third floor to $350 for the three-bedroom Crawford Suite with a double Jacuzzi and steam shower. A third consecutive night in any room comes at half price.