Dec. 10--CAPE MAY, N.J.--Like an elegant dowager, she had good bones. 

But her insides -- the ancient electrical wiring and pipes, cracked wooden joists, and crumbling foundations that propped up the Congress Hall hotel -- were another story. 

In more of a head-to-toe remake than a simple face-lift, owners are spending $22 million on the circa 1878 landmark while trying to be true to its original detail and design. 
 

"We want people to walk in here when it's done and look around and ask: `Gee, what did you really do here? What took so long?' " said Curtis Bashaw, a principal in Cape Advisors Inc., the hotel's owner, who is overseeing the painstaking two-year renovation. The hotel is scheduled to reopen in the spring.  "We want to retain the original feel and patina of the building so that the new blends seamlessly with the old. Congress Hall is a building of clean lines and simple elegance, and our goal is to let it breathe again," Bashaw said of the place once called the "summer home of presidents" because so many of the

The rehabilitation of Congress Hall is  due for completion in April of 2002.  Much more than a facelift, the project is  a major head-to-toe renovation of one  of the nation�s most valued  historic hotels.

When the previous owner, Christian Beacon Press, went bankrupt in 1990, Bashaw put together a group to purchase Congress Hall and another historic Cape May hotel, the Christian Admiral. 

In 1995, Congress Hall was purchased for $1 million. It had ceased to operate as a hotel in 1990 but continued to offer retail and restaurant space until just before the renovation. 

The remake has been as extensive as it has been detailed. 

More than 70 tons of structural steel had to be "slithered into the bones" of the building over the wooden beams that had supported the huge structure for 123 years. 

Workers spent months hand-cutting 18,604 slate shingles from stone quarried in Pennsylvania to replace the original shingles on the mansard roof. 

Another crew spent just as much time cleaning and reinstalling 158,231 bricks that had been removed from the foundation and walls. About 650,000 nails have been used. 

The hotel's original columns, pediments and balconies, which prominently feature stars in the Victorian "gingerbread" design, have been cleaned and repaired. A local craftsman, Mark Hestan of Cape Ornamental, was hired to re-carve and refit any missing pieces. 

Another local woodworker, John Hassay of Cape Island Woodwork, is hand-restoring the several hundred original windows, including old window weights and chains. 

And 11 miles of plumbing pipe and 47 miles of wiring had to be added alongside wiring and porcelain connectors that had been installed in the 1920s during Congress Hall's last major renovation. 

Beauty is skin deep, so 2,400 gallons of paint will be used on the interior and exterior of the L-shaped brick hotel, returning the outside to the full creamy yellow that its walls had had since the late 19th century. 

To keep the finished hotel as true to its roots as possible, many elements -- including floorboards, intricate moldings, light fixtures, doors and doorknobs, bathroom tile, and the hotel's antique tubs, sinks and toilets -- will be refurbished. 

Bashaw and his sister, Colleen Bohuny, an interior designer, researched tiny details, such as what the carpets in the hotel's guest rooms once looked like, to make sure the gentility of the 1800s and early 20th century is restored. 

To experiment with various interior looks, Bashaw and Bohuny set up a model room on the second floor amid the frenzy of construction. 

In the room -- which provides a stunning view of the sea, as do many of the rooms -- the walls are painted light blue while the bed coverings are a crisp white. Some of the furnishings are original and have been repainted a creamy white. The bathrooms, each with antique soaking tubs and separate shower stalls, will likely be painted a bright coral. 

Not everything is original, however: Each room will also have air conditioning, a television, a DVD player, and a computer hook-up. 

The most striking areas inside the hotel may be the public spaces, such as the lobby, where guests will enter through the original 12-foot doors into an airy room of yellow plaster walls and white trim. The original black-and-white marble floor has been restored. Guests can settle into the hotel's original black wicker furniture cushioned in white with black piping. Mirrors, palms, fans, and ocean breezes pumping into the room through the huge windows will bring the space to life. 

The ballroom is painted Tiffany-box blue and will be lit by original crystal chandeliers. Each original piece of the room's wooden floor was removed, refurbished and replaced, and the floor was painted into a checkerboard of large black-and-white squares. 

An upscale nightclub called the Boiler Room is being constructed in the basement of the annex where the hotel's boiler room was once located. The old boiler's large front plate will create a focal point for the dance floor, Bashaw said. 

Upstairs in the annex, a series of small stores will be featured. Another grouping of shops, including a day spa, will merge off the other end of the main lobby. 

"Throughout the hotel, we are going to place artifacts and pieces of the original hotel that have been saved but not reincorporated into the new design so that people can walk through and really get a sense of the history of the place," Bashaw said. 

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(c) 2001, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.