Partner Profile

Paula Murray has been a strong partner of Cape May MAC (Museums+Arts+Culture) since she and her brother, Marc Jacoby, a music professor at West Chester University, and her sister-in-law, Marc’s wife Roxanne Went, purchased The Bedford Inn in April 2019. The Bedford Inn, 805 Stockton Ave., is one of Cape May’s lovely Victorian bed & breakfast inns with 10 rooms that accommodate guests from spring through the New Year. The inn serves guests homemade cookies in the afternoon, breakfast in the morning and coffee and tea are always available.

This year will be their fourth season operating the inn. Paula is the on-site owner/innkeeper and has loved every busy minute of it.

“During the season I lose weight,” she said, with a laugh. “There are days I am going up and down those stairs 40 times.”

As a Cape May MAC business partner, Paula and her brother and sister-in-law have become outstanding allies and friends to Cape May MAC. The Bedford Inn opened its doors for every Christmas house tour Cape May MAC offered in 2021 — every single one — bringing joy and hospitality to visitors that is a natural part of being both an innkeeper and a Cape May MAC partner.

“We always do Sherlock Holmes Weekend and we volunteered to do every Christmas tour this year,” Paula said. “All Holiday Inn Tours, Lamplighter Christmas House Tours and Christmas Candlelight House Tours.”

“There were 600-700 people for Candlelight,” Paula said. “The other tours did well, too. There were buses that came through. There were 200-300 people for each of the other tours.”

The benefit that flows to Cape May MAC is clear — each guest on a house tour pays Cape May MAC an admission fee — but the benefit flows the other way, too. Paula said the inn benefits from the sheer number of people who have the chance to step across the threshold and be wowed by the inn’s ambiance and amenities, who she feels one day will return for their own getaway, or recommend the inn to friends.

Paula muses on the idea of being partners.

“The idea that we are partners is that, what we do affects what you do, and what you do affects what we do,” she said. “That communication is important.”

The historic Bedford Inn was built in 1883 by Joseph French Page, a wealthy stockbroker, in Victorian Italianate style, a symmetrical building covered by a nearly flat roof, a low-pitched center gable with an oculus (round) window, and large double brackets supporting a deep overhanging cornice. He built the property for his children as a “mother-daughter” house, then sold it in 1922. The property changed hands a number of times through the 20th Century until the Schmuckers purchased it in the 1970s and converted it to an inn. In May 2005, Archie Kirk purchased the inn. The Kirk family did an extensive amount of work on the inn with new paint, wallpaper, chandeliers and beautiful murals on the dining room walls and ceilings that are so popular with guests and the inn’s hallmark.

In April 2019, when Paula, Marc and Roxanne purchased the inn from the Kirk family, they made significant changes at once. They updated the cooling and heating in each room, added new landscaping and made general design changes, and the updates continue.

“Every winter we do a great project,” she said. “We recently put in a garden — sustainability is important to us — and so we also have fruits and vegetables that we use from our garden in our cooking.”

This winter, they are installing new hardwood flooring in the upstairs rooms, as well as giving the rooms a beautiful new paint refresh. Upgrades also include new bedding, new rugs, a new bathroom in Room 1 to complete the 10 bathroom upgrades this year, and plans to install a railing along the center of the entryway stairs to the porch. They even consider amenities and additions their guests might have suggested. ”You know there are little things like that that are going to help enhance the guest experience,” she said.

Paula also hired a full-time innkeeper for the first time this year who will start March 1. The new innkeeper, Becky, has been doing much of the decorating for the inn, so she knows the Bedford very well and she lives just three blocks away.

“It will be great to have somebody else … to be able to do that is amazing,” Paula said. “It’s thanks to our guests. … I think it will allow me to go to the beach every once in a while!”

Paula’s housekeeper will now be focusing entirely on The Bedford this season, and Paula calls her “amazing,” along with the rest of her staff, all of whom are well-known by guests, she said.

“I feel like we have a great staff that guests can see year after year. I’m very, very lucky to have the staff that we have.”

With COVID-19 always a concern, Paula said they have adjusted how food is served and offered to guests, giving them a choice of having breakfast with others or in a takeaway in their room.

“I am hoping this year things will get back to the way things were,” she said.

“We’re just still having fun,” she said. “We have fun with our guests.”

Photo by Susan Krysiak

Paula Murray at The Bedford Inn decorated for Christmas

-- SK