Avalon’s First Family of Hospitality: The Wolfingtons Made Whitebrier Hotel Guests Feel Like Family
The Avalon that exists today is the result of tens of thousands of people. They’ve each made a lasting impact over the past 120-plus years. Some governed. Some invested in businesses. Others simply made this end of the Seven Mile Beach their ultimate home away from home. Regardless of their role, they’ve each contributed to the DNA of today’s Avalon. Some families have established deep roots and are into their sixth or seventh generation on the island, while others left decades ago. Regardless of the timing, we think that it is important to occasionally acknowledge some of these people and their contributions.
This is one of those stories.
The Wolfington family is a longstanding well-known name in the Philadelphia region. Recognized as philanthropic and civic-minded, the Wolfingtons are probably best known for their family businesses, the first of which started in 1876, specializing in horse-driven carriages. Today they have expanded into other areas of transportation and real estate. Certainly impressive, but perhaps unbeknownst to many, the Wolfingtons were among the pioneers of the hospitality industry on the Seven Mile Beach.
For decades, Avalon’s earliest hotels played a large role in hosting potential homeowners. The “original four” hotels were The Avalon, The Peermont, The Leaming House and The Princeton. Not far behind the original four was The Puritan Hotel. Located on the beachfront between 20th & 21st street, it was most likely constructed around 1915. It is believed that it was built by Rev. Charles H. Bond, one of Avalon’s earliest visionaries, corporate secretary of the Seven Mile Beach Company – the original development company on the island – and perhaps most importantly, the man who gave Avalon its name.
The Puritan stood about three blocks from the Avalon Casino – built around the same time by Bond – which was Avalon’s first community activity center. The Avalon Casino was a massive multipurpose structure at 17th Street on Avalon’s boardwalk. Given the difficulty of obtaining building materials and contractors at the time, it is conceivable that Bond took advantage of the materials and the construction crews to build The Puritan at the same time. With only a railroad bridge, most construction materials were brought to the island by barge.
Most of Avalon’s few hotels operated seasonally. The Puritan, for many years, was open all 12 months. When other hotels were shuttered in the winter months, the Puritan would often play host to service-club meetings and local award and recognition dinners. Despite what otherwise was a favorable reputation, the Puritan seemed to be besieged with financial woes for many of its earliest years.
It was just such a time on June 16, 1944, when J. Eustace Wolfington Sr. and his friend Joseph Mullray purchased the property out of bankruptcy from Mabel Brown for $5,500. The Wolfington-Mullray partnership would bring new life to the property – no doubt a challenging task with World War II raging, in some cases just hundreds of yards off the coast, and less than a month after the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944.
The partnership would operate the hotel until Mullray offered to buy out his partner. Mullray’s mother already owned The Princeton hotel in town. But instead of selling his share, Wolfington bought out Mullray.
It all began with a fundamental principle: If you treat people well, the way you would like to be treated, they will treat you with the same kindness in return. Under this guiding principle, the Wolfingtons made the operation of the hotel a family affair. Literally.
“All nine of our siblings were involved in the operation of the hotel,” says one of his daughters, Martie Gillin. “We all had our designated jobs, but if anything else needed to be done, we were expected to step in. No one ever said, ‘That is not my job.’ Ever!”
Wolfington set out to build a family-oriented, family-operated business that focused on service to others and the experience of the guest, first and foremost. That was his philosophy.
A mantra of customer service is professed by many in today’s world, but in the late-1940s and early-1950s, although often practiced in theory – teaching it as a foundation of your business to your staff set Wolfington far ahead of his time. They were lessons well-learned. “We were taught to anticipate the needs and requests of our guests. He believed that if we did this, the guests would be appreciative and responsive,” his children still remember to this day, nearly 70 years later.
Wolfington’s entrepreneurial vision and philosophy went far beyond customer service. His children say that he was “very disciplined.”
Every staff member was fully trained before being put to work. And attire was important: Bermuda shorts, white shirt and tie, knee socks and a blazer. Although it was a friendly family operation, guests understood that the business was taken very seriously.
“The fact that we were a family-run business became quite an attraction,” adds Eustace Wolfington Jr. “People enjoyed the fact that we were a family enterprise and for that reason many of our guests felt that they were part of the family. The energy and enthusiasm to serve our guests was amazing!”
The Wolfingtons operated the hotel from Memorial Day weekend until two weeks after Labor Day.
To drive home the importance of customer service to his staff, Wolfington made a card out of a poem by Edgar A. Guest and displayed it in the lobby. Guest was the poet laureate of the state of Michigan, a radio broadcaster and journalist. Many of his poems were motivational and his “Good Business” became the mantra for the operation of the hotel – so much so that the staff was expected to memorize it and recite it each day before work.
Any inexperience that the family lacked in the field of hospitality would certainly be filled by their experienced general manager Robert Bennett. A graduate of Cornell’s School of Hotel Management, Bennett was renowned in Philadelphia for his operation of the Bellevue Stratford and the Ben Franklin hotels. Bennett brought his five-star experience to the sleepy beachfront hotel. With the purchase of the hotel, the Wolfingtons also acquired the culinary expertise of Rose Watson, known throughout Cape May County for her cooking skills
Wolfington decided that a thorough redecoration and set of renovations were in order as the hotel approached nearly a half-century of service. And that process would begin with a new name.
It’s said that the name The Whitebrier was derived in this way: The Wolfingtons had just vacationed at the famous Greenbriar in Sulphur Springs, W.Va. So … W was for Wolfington; H for Hayden, Mrs. Wolfington’s maiden name; Brier for the sweetbriar that grew wildly around the island; the W and H worked perfectly with White for the white sandy beaches of Avalon. Thus, they had The Whitebrier.
When complete, the goal was for the “new” Whitebrier to be one of the “most modern and delightful” hotels along the Jersey coast. The renovations included: new oceanfront rooms with tile bath, shower and tub, an amenity that set the Whitebrier apart from its competitors in town; jalousie windows and doors to permit cool ocean breezes to whisk through each room; a special Disney-themed children’s dining room; private sun decks; a new dining room and kitchen facility including the new ocean-view Tropical Room; tennis courts; porte-cochere drive-through entrance; shuffleboard, lawn croquet, ping-pong, private television room and quoit (horseshoes) and clam shell courts. The clam shell courts drew teams from up and down the coast for weekly competitions and commenced a competition that is continued today by the Avalon Historical Society each July. Its amenities set The Whitebrier apart from its competition as a complete resort destination.
Newly decorated rooms completed the renovation. The Whitebrier became a magnet in Avalon, often drawing guests from throughout Atlantic and Cape May counties. Especially for evening meals. Eventually the hotel discarded its American Plan (providing three meals in the room cost) as the popularity of their restaurant grew. It would not be unheard of for the staff to serve 400 dinners on a Saturday evening. The locally sourced fish and seafood was always an attraction. The Whitebrier became the place to see and be seen. It was also the place where people would stay while exploring the real estate opportunities available on the Seven Mile Beach. For example, it was Ed McMahon’s home base while he arranged to build his 19th Street home. It is impossible to estimate how many new summer homes in town resulted from a visit to the Whitebrier – but suffice it to say that it was many.
Sadly, J. Eustace Wolfington Sr. passed away very young, in 1955 at the age of 48. With lessons learned from their father, the family pressed on until 1964 when the hotel was sold to a group of local businessmen. “It became very difficult,” says Eustace Jr. “For example, I was operating the hotel while still operating my auto business. Eventually, it just became impossible. But it also was not easy to part with what had become a part of our family’s life.” The memories of hard work, fun and love and working together as a group of young kids in a family business have lived on in their hearts forever.
The Whitebrier would change hands several times until the property was converted into condominiums and the restaurant’s name was moved to another facility on 21st Street.
Although it has been nearly seven decades since J. Eustace Wolfington Sr. roamed the sands of Avalon, his footprints are forever present through his extended family. Lessons well learned by his children. It helped them go on to lead successful lives. More recently, the hospitality legacy has been passed to his grandson Eustace Mita, who operates the ICONA Avalon and Windrift hotels in town. And many of Wolfington’s great-grandchildren own homes in Avalon, keeping their love for Avalon as well as their legacy of fun, love and family alive to this day.
Today, the Wolfington family is known for many things. But thanks to J. Eustace Wolfington Sr., one of their legacies will always be as Avalon’s first family of hospitality.