Emlen Physick Estate — Attraction in Cape May

Last Saturday, our crew scheduled a dose of spooky history goodness to break up the winery-related debauchery of the weekend. The initial purchase included a tour of the estate (which, based on other reviews and a website description, was supposed to be about 45 minutes in duration), followed by a trolley tour of the historic areas of Cape May right around sundown. Unfortunately, the trolley part was cancelled I think about a day or so before we were set to go over there due to lack of conductor (driver? not sure what you call them) availability, so we had to settle for just the house tour. It wasn't terrible, but we definitely left feeling vaguely unsatisfied - the lack of the trolley loomed large.

The atmosphere was top-notch. We coincidentally ended up over there during some gail/tornado warnings in the area, so the sky looked super ominous and actually opened up about 30 seconds after we left the building. We met up with the group outside on the porch, and the tour started shortly thereafter, breaking the pack up into two (about 10 people in each) so we could easily navigate around the first and second floors without too much congestion.

The house itself is awesome. I grew up in homes that were built between 1770 and 1860, so I can appreciate the attention to detail and overall character that you just don't get from an 80s bi-level. I'm not an expert on Victorian architecture, but the interior of the house seemed very well-preserved and respected. Some of it looked a little stagey (I have trouble believing, for instance, that the original inhabitants carefully propped their Ouija board on a chair when they weren't using it) but I think that's pretty par for the course and not something I would take points off for. We were also fortunate that it was a little nippy (early April) so the lack of ventilation that you often encounter with these types of homes wasn't a factor.

The tour guide was nice but seemed a little unprepared. For instance, at one point I believe in the context of a child passing away in the house, she mentioned that the specific percentage of infant mortality was high and then paused - she didn't remember the number and excused it by saying, "I haven't done this tour in a while," admitting that she hadn't given the tour since last year and couldn't remember all of her notes. Isn't that enough of a reason for a refresher prior to actually handling the tour? Beyond that, I wasn't crazy about the heavy emphasis placed on discussing a ghost hunter that the house hired to look around the premises a few years ago. Regardless of how strongly you believe or don't believe in the paranormal, I'd like to hear more confirmed facts about the history of the house and its inhabitants, not unfounded speculation from a guy who was paid to roam around and locate spirits. I wouldn't have minded just some anecdotal observations from him, but to devote almost half the tour to it seemed excessive.

The tour itself literally lasted maybe 25 minutes, so I didn't feel like we really got our money's worth (about $15 or so, taking into account the trolley refund), especially since the only reason it technically expanded to 30 minutes was because the host opened the floor up to the group to share ghostly anecdotes. I wasn't anti the anecdotes - in fact, we were all enormously impressed by an adolescent girl who figured out a way to not only drag her dad and sister to Cape May for the sole purpose of ghost hunting, but also got them to get up in the middle of the night with some glowy cat ball things to perform some recon in her hotel ballroom - but I think they should have been a bonus add-on, not officially a way to bloat the tour to a still meager 30 minutes.

In hindsight, I wouldn't recommend proceeding with the tour unless the trolley is involved, or the adolescent girl is hired as the guide. I feel like the most important fact I learned on the tour was that cat toys are used to...

We pulled into park and were slightly early so went into the gift shop(once we figured out where it was) That's where we learned that the trolly light tour doesn't pick you up at the Estate but rather downtown where parking is like finding a needle in a haystack.

I assumed based on it stating the tour is only 30 minutes and assuming we departed out of here, we'd be fine on time, although it was probably a tight timeframe. We had a 5:30-6pm Estate tour and a 6:30-7pm Light Trolly Ride.

The estate tour was somewhat disappointing but I guess it's maybe because it wasn't what we thought. Estate was nicely decorated with lights & there was a decent size parking lot.

We were told to wait outside in front of the building 15 minutes before but weren't really told what to do so everyone kind of just clustered up.

It was a HUGE group. Seemed like staff were unprepared for the number of people and ended up splitting the group into two.

There wasn't really much direction given and it was more of a drawn out re enactment as opposed to giving factual information about the estate. We only got through the first 2 rooms in a half hour, the amount of time they say the tour is. We had a trolly booked for 6:30 so we didn't stay longer.

We would have liked to hear some factual background on the house, the way they lived, etc. I hate being "nit-picky" but unfortunately this was slightly different compared to tours we normally do.

*Also, we only made it through 1 room in 30 minutes so expect this to be an hour or 2 tour.

It is impressive how restored the estate is though and...

Finally did a proper house tour after going to Cape May annually for the last 18 years.

The house is beautifully staged and it's clear that the preservationists have maintained the estate with great integrity. We learned a lot, not just about the house and the family, but also about Cape May in general. It's fascinating to me that the beauty that we take for granted in Cape May was only one legislative decision away from possibly being bulldozed and commercialized.

This was not a ghost tour, but we had the added bonus that while the tour guide made a small joke teasing some of the silly old fashioned customs that the Physick family would have practiced - we all jumped out of our skin when it sounded as though someone kicked the wall right behind us at full force. 👻

Definitely will encourage me to do more Cape May estate tours...