Avalon Bed & Breakfast to close, but the building will remain (2024)

AVALON — After 10 summers running the Sealark bed and breakfast inn at 30th Street and First Avenue, Barbara Natale has decided she has had enough.

She plans to close the business, with the intent to use it as her home.

She and her husband, Ed, decided to buy the property as a retirement project. He had always had investment properties and wanted to run his own business.

“We had a duplex in Stone Harbor. He would ride his bike up and down the island and he happened to come by here and saw it was for sale. He came back all excited,” she said. “We were both retired at that point. I said, “Do you really want to do this?’”

After a career as an electrician at the Sunoco refinery in Philadelphia, Ed Natale believed he had the skills to look after the building, and he did not like being retired very much. The business’ website puts the building as dating from 1901. A historic marker near the front door says 1903.

Since the couple bought the inn, Ed Natale handled the gardening and much of the maintenance.

“He was very handy. YouTube was his best friend,” Barbara Natale said. He would look up tutorials for plumbing projects and other repairs for which he did not have experience. They soon learned to double the time estimate for the repairs.

Barbara Natale did the cooking for each morning’s breakfast, turning out breakfast casseroles, pancakes, quiches and more for the summertime guests, while Ed Natale handled the baking. He got to be a very good baker, she said. YouTube helped there, too.

Ed Natale died in 2023, over Memorial Day weekend, after a brief illness. He was 77.

“That was rough. But I kept on, because I had reservations and I had no choice,” Barbara Natale said. “I really had to think long and hard, ‘What am I going to do now?’ I was totally out of my league with this.”

She wanted to keep the business open to honor the reservations already made, and has kept the Sealark open again for 2024, but decided to shut down at the end of this summer.

“I think I’m ready,” she said. “A lot of my regulars were shocked and upset.”

Barbara Natale, 72, grew up in Philadelphia and worked as a home daycare provider. The couple’s two sons are grown, with kids of their own. One was visiting the inn when Natale talked about its history. She has had a busy summer, but did not rent rooms for that week in August to allow more time with family.

The inn has been a success, she said. There was already a loyal group of regulars when the purchased the seven-room Sealark, and they maintained those relationships. Natale said many have become close friends over the years.

“It’s so profitable that we wound up paying off the mortgage a few years ago,” she said. But she is not interested in hiring someone to run the business, saying she does not want the responsibility.

When they purchased the property for $1.36 million a decade ago, a Press of Atlantic City article pointed out how unusual it was the building would remain, even though most of the assessed value of the property was in the land, not the building. Property values in Avalon have climbed sharply since then, with a big jump in shore values since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Demolitions of homes was already commonplace in Avalon when they bought the inn, as new owners put up modern structures to maximize the value of the expensive real estate. That has not changed.

“Most plots of land are assessed at $1 million-plus in Avalon. Land is in such high demand, the value of the improvements may be low to negligible,” said Scott Wahl, Avalon’s business administrator.

A typical year will see 90 to100 building permits issued, most for properties that already have a structure, he said.

There are a few older buildings left, but the numbers are dwindling. On the same block as the Sealark, there is a single-story bungalow from the 1950s and an older home that appears to date from about the same era as the Sealark, but most houses in the borough are much more recent.

“In the ‘40s, it was what they called a guest house,” she said. “I’m not sure when it became a B&B.”

She believes it is the last bed and breakfast inn on the barrier island. Called Seven Mile Beach, the island includes Stone Harbor and Avalon.

Wahl said there has never been very many bed and breakfast inns in Avalon, as far as he knows. The accommodations are common in Cape May, but Avalon sees far more rentals of whole houses or condominiums.

Natale does not want to see the building demolished.

“I’m going to keep it. I want to keep it as my home and as a vacation place for my family,” said Natale, who lives year-round at the property. “For now, anyway. A few years down the road, who knows? But for now, I don’t’ want to sell it. The thought of what would probably happen to it if I sell it is hard.”

She feels certain the building would quickly come down with a new buyer.

“I’d be willing to bet on it,” she said in a recent interview. “I know it’s inevitable. I’m not going to be here forever. But I’m not ready to see it go yet.”

Before the business closes, Natale said, the former owner asked to hold an event for many of the former employees, offering a chance to say goodbye. She said she may someday be ready to invite some of the inn’s regulars for a weekend visit, but for now, she’s looking forward to a much quieter summer next year.

“It’s going to be much simpler, no doubt about that. And a lot less laundry,” Natale said.