Old Car Dealership Lives Anew as Office

CAPE MAY — The building with the tin roof and old-fashioned garage doors, near the intersection of West Perry Street and Park Boulevard, in the 1930’s and early 1940s housed a Buick showroom.
Soon, it will house offices and a renovated warehouse for Curtis Bashaw and partner’s Cape May Resorts.
When Bashaw purchased the building one year ago, and Perry Street Video suddenly closed, residents wondered what plans the hotelier-developer had for the historic building.
Sandy Montano, project manager for Bashaw’s projects ranging from Congress Hall to the Coachman Inn-Beach House reconstruction, gave the Herald a tour of the Perry Street building.
The Perry Street Video store section of the building remains untouched. DVDs are still stacked on shelves.
Montano said the movies would be sold off at a weekend sale in the near future.
Behind the video store is a warehouse that Cape May Resorts has leased for the last eight years. It may house the city’s largest collection of antique chairs ranging from rockers to dining room chairs.
The warehouse shelters a fascinating collection of items ranging from railings, brass beds, plates and light fixtures from the Christian Admiral Hotel, 1920s-era dressers, lights, and wicker furniture from Congress Hall and even items from Rev. Carl McIntire’s Collingswood property, said Montano. McIntire was Bashaw’s grandfather.
Giant wooden soldiers seen decorating the side of Congress Hall during the Christmas season slumber in the warehouse the rest of the year.
“People don’t really grasp the volume of need of storage and turnover space for these big buildings that we manage, the Virginia (Hotel), the Star, and Congress Hall and we’ll add Coachman’s to that and Jackson Street properties, so we are bursting at the seams for storage and office space,” said Montano.
The inside of the building retains its tin ceiling. It isn’t hard to imagine uniformed mechanics with a rag hanging from their back pocket servicing Buick 8 Coupes and Roadmasters in the warehouse section of the building.
Cape May Miniatures once built dollhouses and tiny furniture in one section of the building. R.E. White Plumbing occupied the structure from the mid 1950s to 1972, according to Montano.
She said she hopes work on the building will begin Oct. 1, after a visit to the city’s Historic Preservation Commission.
A laundry area will be created to take overflow from the company’s properties. Montano said they found it difficult to keep up with the demand for sheets and towels.
She said the resorts use very high end, thick linens, which are “handed out like candy.”
Along with storing furniture, the warehouse will stockpile light bulbs, filters and other supplies. Montano said the building is approved for about 6,000 square feet of retail/office space, which can be rearranged as needed. The building totals 8,500 square feet.
Montano said the company has outgrown its offices, some of which is in the basement of the Star Inn. The Perry Street building will house accounting, marketing, administration and reservations.
If Cape May Resort had not purchased the Perry Street building, it would have relocated its offices to Lower Township, she said.
“We want to keep our businesses planted in town because we feel they feed off each other,” said Montano. “None of us wanted to go off the island.”
She said the building is run down and will receive new windows and siding.