The Quill List! Featuring: The Lighthouse Cottage in Cape May, New Jersey

Nov 30, 2023

Welcome to the latest Quill List feature!

For this feature, we find ourselves in Cape May, New Jersey at the charming Lighthouse Cottage. Hosts Leslie and Jake have poured their hearts and souls into renovating this lovely cottage and the results speak for themselves. I am more than a little impressed with their stellar DIY skills and Leslie's devotion to a design plan.

Dive into this fantastic read to find out all about their exciting journey into the STR world...

Leslie, tell us a bit about yourself.

Hi, I'm Leslie. My husband, Jake, and I are college sweethearts who have been together for 19 years, married for 12. We call northern New Jersey home with our two kids, Aria (10) and Lincoln (4).

I work full-time in product and software development, while Jake is a partner at a startup accelerator. I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, and Jake grew up right here in New Jersey.

How did your short-term rental journey begin?

I've always loved real estate and design. I’m fascinated by different styles of homes and their unique qualities, and I love how design can complement the soul of a house.

If my TV was on, it was almost always tuned to some kind of HGTV or real estate show. I loved the idea of buying and renovating a house on our own. In 2020, we were on vacation in our favorite beach town (Cape May), walking through town and daydreaming about how much we’d love to own a house there one day. Those conversations became more frequent, and I knew my husband (the data guy) would require some spreadsheets to be convinced.

So, I started listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast to learn about real estate and really started falling in love with the prospect of what could be. Living on the East Coast, where annual beach week vacations were the norm, I knew that renting the home would also be a smart move to make it easier to afford. That’s when I went to work to educate myself on short-term rentals. I read “The Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (or Low) Money Down” by Brandon Turner, then “Short Term Rental, Long Term Wealth” by Avery Carl, and finally “Optimize your Airbnb” by Daniel Rusteen before I ever went to look at a property.

Eventually, I realized I could study forever or set a goal of when to invest and work towards it. I started visiting properties and practicing evaluating their potential income. During this time, I also began listening to two podcasts that truly changed the trajectory of my journey.

The first was Behind The Stays, which tells the stories of short-term rental owners and their path to where they are now. Some were people who seemed just like me, regular people who had other jobs and originally started by just wanting a way to afford the vacation house or because they’d always wanted to renovate a house. And then, all the way up to sophisticated investors who have built whole collections of unique stays (tree houses or container homes, etc.). It was so inspiring to me to hear their stories and all at once be able to relate to them while also being in awe of their ingenuity and stick-to-itiveness to create a true business out of a pipe dream.

My other binge-worthy podcast was Thanks for Visiting. It taught me all things about running and hosting a short-term rental and, most of all, the framework and mindset of hospitality.

Honestly, I have to credit so much of my hosting success to TFV. They not only taught the practical things like revenue management or safety but also the importance of treating hosting like a business and your guests with gratitude by going above and beyond for them.

In March 2022, Jake and I set a goal of buying our first investment property within one year. In May 2022, what would eventually become “The Lighthouse Cottage” went on the market, and we fell in love.

What was your design process for The Lighthouse Cottage?

The house we bought, even though it needed work, already felt pretty magical. That’s what drew me to it, and when I saw it in person for the first time, I just knew it was a truly special place. We purchased it from the family that had owned the house since 1948! In 102 years, there had only been two owners before us (plus lots of summer renters), and I loved thinking about the history that had taken place there—the century of sunny days and sandy feet, the millions of vacation moments, the hundreds of people who have some of their favorite memories of summer at that very place. The house really and truly had a palpable soul.

Our approach to the restoration, renovation, and design was to honor that history while breathing in some new life so that the next century of future guests can continue to create memories there. That philosophy drove all of our decisions. Primarily, I tried to blend the old with the new, but never compromise the beautiful, quaint, interesting little quirks of an older home. And since it’s an oceanfront beach cottage, I leaned into the feeling and coloring of the coast, without going too nautical.

We kept the original wood shiplap in the living room but painted it white. We installed a brand new kitchen, but we tried to pick fixtures that would lend to the 1920s home, like choosing pendants that were not quite modern but not quite vintage. The interior doors are the original solid wood five-panel doors that I love, but the doorknobs had all been replaced at different times over the years and none matched. When we chose new knobs, we spent the extra on brass long plate mortise doorknobs that are new but fit the time period of the doors. We also uncovered some original aspects of the home during the demo that we decided to keep exposed, like the original exterior siding in the mudroom (another addition) and the chimney from the old coal-burning furnace that we left as exposed brick.

I’m a big believer in creating “a moment” in every room. Sometimes homes will come with the moment, like a really extraordinary window with a great view or pitched ceilings with beautiful beams, but sometimes you have to create the moment. Some moments that I created in the house were a blue shiplap ceiling, a feature wall at the end of a hallway that was actually wallpaper created out of a photo of people swimming in the ocean (a collaboration between photographer, Gray Malin, and designer Mitchell Black), or choosing to do two full walls of a small kitchen with marble mermaid tail tiles with light green sparkly grout.

On the other hand, one of the best “moments” in the cottage came with it: it’s an exterior window that connects the living room to the sunroom on the interior of the house. It’s the original 6-foot paned glass window that was there before the previous owners added the addition of the sunroom, and instead of closing it off, they made the amazing decision to leave it. Now it provides so much interest and charm; it’s my favorite part of the house and one of the things that made me fall in love with it.

Some programs I found helpful were Room Planner for spatial planning and furniture placement, Cedreo for the exterior planning, and Canva for mood boards.

I know you guys did almost ALL of the work yourselves! Tell us a bit about the renovations.

Yes! Jake has always been very handy, and I have always been excited by DIY. When we bought the house, we had allocated a certain amount of money towards the renovations, as we originally thought most of the updates would be aesthetic (aside from the kitchen, which we knew was going to be a total gut).

This was the first time we took on a project of this scale, so our naive plan of “take down the vinyl paneling and the drop ceiling” turned into quite literally taking down nearly every wall and (very literally) every ceiling. Under the wall paneling and the drop ceiling hid a lot of water damage and more surprises. Now we were on both a tight fiscal budget and an even tighter timeline, as we were working against vacationers planning their next summer vacation. So, our complete house DIY renovation was more of an accident than thoroughly planned!

How did we learn? Yes, mostly just by finding great resources we could trust (some on YouTube for sure!) and lots and lots of research! I’d classify both Jake and I as “Type A,” so we’re planners and doers. It was really fun to learn new skills and prove to ourselves that we could do things like drywall, tiling, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, (even masonry!).

I say all of this with a caveat that this time in our lives, as fulfilling and enjoyable as the actual work was, it came with stress. The old adage about “double your timeline and double your budget” became very true. For the seven months it took to renovate the house, we lived traveling back and forth the 2.5 hours from the cottage to our primary home. Basically, one of us was always down at the house working, and the other was home with the kids, and we would just switch off. It was incredibly challenging for our whole family.

On the other hand, seeing how we worked together (even if it was often over FaceTime trying to problem-solve together!) was really enriching for us as a couple. We had to really trust each other and work as a team, and that was honestly one of my favorite parts of this whole thing. I love that our kids saw us work really hard for something and achieve a beautiful outcome that we’re all proud of.

Are there any fun stories along the way to setting up your rental?

One story that always makes me laugh (and says a lot about our naivety) is that we started demo on a Saturday in October and had ordered all of the brand-new kitchen cabinets to be delivered that Monday! Like, we had thought we could clean out the entire house (it was sold furnished but everything had to go for various reasons), demo the kitchen (which included removing a non-weight-bearing wall!), clean up the demo, put up new drywall, and be ready to install new kitchen cabinets all in three days. I realize how insane that sounds now, but it goes to show you we had no idea what we were getting into!

We had so many obstacles to overcome in this project I could go on forever! But one really fun aspect of the house that made us fall in love is the cupola on the roof. When we saw the house, we said, “It looks like a lighthouse!” and that created our vision of turning it into a working lighthouse. The little cottage with the cupola was so unique, and it felt like a missed opportunity to not make that part of its story!

But the cupola was not in good shape; it needed to be restored, and it had been leaking down into the ceiling of the living room for a long time but unseen due to the drop ceiling. We thought we had fixed the leak but not good enough, and found that out the hard way when one day during a rainstorm, we suddenly heard rain INSIDE the house.

We restored the lighthouse (we hired professional roofers here as we needed new flashing and new siding), ran electrical up there through the attic, and have been able to do some fun stuff with it! During the holidays last year, we had a little Christmas tree up that was set on a timer to come on at night. That was really fun and unexpected, so we got a lot of compliments from locals who were just delighted to see the house coming alive.

Shortly after the holidays, we installed a rotating light so it’s truly a little lighthouse each night :) It’s how we got our name, The Lighthouse Cottage, and just another detail that surprises our guests and makes the cottage a magical little place to be!

I met you through Instagram. How do you feel sharing your renovations and home on Instagram has helped with bookings?

I have so much fun using Instagram for our business. I started the Instagram account as soon as we closed on the house, and I tried to document the renovations as best I could. I love making reels of the before & after of the different spaces and footage of us renovating along the way, which always get the most views and I believe is central to how we’ve grown our audience.

It’s also been an amazing tool to connect to other small business owners in town and with other hosts. Of course, I’ve been so humbled that you wanted to feature the cottage, and I’ve had people in town after saying, “I own a cottage in Cape May Point,” reply with, “Are you the Lighthouse Cottage?! I follow you on Instagram!” which is always so surprising and surreal but that’s a testament to the power of social media, and has been both incredibly unexpected, but incredibly rewarding and humbling.

Do I think it helps with bookings? Yes, I think any type of notoriety creates credibility or “social proof,” and people feel more confident in what you are offering. We have a few for 2024 that I know came from Instagram. We’ve had one influencer stay with us, and that was incredibly effective in gaining followers and emails. We booked so quickly last year that by the time she stayed with us on day 12 of being open, we were already completely booked for the summer and fall, so we created a waitlist form on our website which has collected dozens of emails and hundreds of new followers from that one campaign.

How do you feel having a well-designed rental property contributes to your success as a host, especially given the increased competition in the rental market lately?

I honestly think it’s the greatest catalyst to our success.

We felt strongly going into this project that we were going to create a beautiful home that was well-designed, well-thought-out, and provided a high-quality stay from start to finish. As our project costs got bigger and bigger, it would have been easy to start to compromise on our vision but we knew who our target audience was and the type of home we wanted to put our name on and just kept reminding ourselves that it would pay itself back. And it has!

Aside from hearing over and over from guests that they booked our home because they thought it was beautiful, I also got several requests to do interior design from people who happened to see our house posted to Facebook groups, and since having guests stay with us, two of them have actually asked me to come design their own primary home. I am doing the interior design right now for a past guest in their primary home.

I could never have imagined all of the unexpected and amazing things that have come out of this journey (this interview being one of them!) and I believe having a well-designed home is how the whole cycle began. Of course, once they book, following through on the other expectations like great communication, cleanliness, anticipating and providing everything they need, etc is how you exceed their expectations all the way around. That’s always my goal.

What is something special and unique about your properties or the experience you offer your guests that makes you stand apart from the rest of the short-term rental marketplace?

What has become really central to our business is the type of hosting we provide. We truly want to create a beautiful, comfortable, effortless experience from start to finish for every single guest. We have a high standard for our hosting and the cottage, and to me, that includes being thoughtful and detail-oriented.

We have someone on our team whose job is to inspect the house before every check-in to make sure it’s absolutely perfect and ready for the next guest (this is separate from the cleaners). This includes big things like checking that the cleaning was done thoroughly, and also what other people might think are small things but I believe are important.

These include things like arranging the plates and cups on the open shelving exactly the same way every time, arranging the throw pillows the way we like them, restocking all of the supplies we offer, refilling the coffee pods and tea bags, stocking our “In case you forgot” bin under the sink, making sure the beds are made the way we prefer, arranging the chairs on the deck neatly around the table, and so much more. She goes through a whole checklist each time. This inspector role is something I learned about on the Thanks for Visiting podcast!

Our goal is to make each guest feel like they are the first person to ever step into this cottage and every detail has been taken care of. Honestly, I would never operate without someone in this role! She has really helped us to provide a beautiful experience every single time for our guests.

We leave a canvas tote with our logo on it for every guest as well as homemade cookies, which is just a fun way to be greeted when you enter. I do also spend a lot of time thinking about the guests- why they’re coming, who’s coming and what little “extra” thing I can do that will make this more than just a weekend trip or another beach week but something that’s truly surprising that makes them feel special and appreciated – because they are. Sometimes it’s making a dinner reservation for them, sometimes it’s a little gift- whatever it is I try to make it specific to them. I know this choice cuts into my revenue but I think it’s worth it and pays itself back in so many ways. That guest is more likely to be surprised and delighted, and come back again!

I think the bottom line is when people feel cared for, they care back. They treat our home beautifully, they communicate kindly, they leave the most incredible & thoughtful reviews, text messages, and guestbook entries that bring me so much joy and fulfillment. I’ve had guests still text me months after their stay with a photo of their babies or reminiscing about their stay and just wanting to say hello. It’s truly so rewarding.

What are your favorite resources for furniture and decor?

If I had to pick one particular brand that represented the look and feel that inspired me the most, it would be Serena & Lily. I love how their furnishings are beautiful and elevated but still comfortable and cozy. You will see a lot of their furniture, decor, wallpaper, pillows, fabrics, etc in the cottage.

The sunroom (the front room in the house that gets beautiful morning sunlight) was inspired by a breakfast nook I saw in a Serena & Lily store. When I couldn’t find the exact banquette, I used a photo and figured out how to build a custom banquette myself (my first piece of furniture I’ve ever built!), then I purchased the rest with that inspiration in mind. It’s my favorite room in the house and I hear that from a lot of guests as well.

The home is primarily furnished with Serena and Lily, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm, Crate & Barrel, CB2. We also shopped at some boutique online retailers like Pepper Home for custom fabrics (pillows and lampshades that are in the primary bedroom), Dear Keaton (stunning dinner and serveware that you find in our kitchen), and then fun brands like Local Beach for beach chairs and Business & Pleasure for the adorable vintage-looking patio umbrella.

I love to buy from local stores and support fellow local business owners. Some of my favorites are Quirk & Co for home decor and West End Garage (a collection of local businesses that have space here) which has everything from local foods to historic memorabilia (like vintage photos/paintings centered around the area). Cape May is known as the oldest seaside resort town in the country and I love learning about it and leaning into the history of the area. We have a poster framed on the living room wall of the cottage that’s an advertisement for Cape May Point from the 1920s and another painting of some of the designs of the beach tags over the years, amongst other things like books about the history for both kids and adults.

About halfway through the renovation, I discovered Minoan, which is an amazing (free!) resource for short-term rental owners that gives you huge discounts on major brands. It’s like a trade program but they’ve done the work of creating those trade discounts and you just sign in and get that trade benefit at hundreds of stores in one place.

I'm also not one to shy away from chasing down a great deal. I've been known to call outlet stores every day, relentlessly searching for that perfect item. On more than one occasion, I've impulsively rented a U-Haul and embarked on a cross-state journey to secure something I've set my heart on – and yes, this has actually happened multiple times!

If you could attribute your quick success and fully booked calendar to one thing, what would it be?

I’d say personally, it’s having perseverance. Whether it’s renovating or hosting or starting a business, just having the dedication to keep working, keep learning, keep going. There were times when the stress felt overwhelming and we doubted what the heck we had gotten ourselves into. Especially me, I felt incredibly responsible for this to be a success since this had all been my idea.

In those times you have to dig deep; deeper than last time and the time before that, to find more strength within you. And I think that quality never stops as an entrepreneur. You are constantly learning new things, overcoming new challenges, trying to solve new problems- and it’s all up to you. So now the perseverance comes through by being the best host to our guests, providing the highest quality stay, learning new ways to market the cottage, figuring out how to grow the business, and on and on.

Leslie, you are an inspiration! Any final thoughts that would be interesting to share?

I’d encourage people to take the risk and go for their passion. I had always dreamed of doing a project like this but it felt kind of like a pipe dream. I mean, I’m just a normal mom in the suburbs with a full-time job, a husband, and two kids. Who am I to think we could buy and renovate a home and turn it into a successful business? Sometimes you surprise yourself! At 40 years old I’ve found a whole new world opening up in front of me and the possibilities are exciting! Stay tuned, we’re looking at what’s next for us!

What a journey you've been on Leslie and thank you so much for sharing it with us! All your hard work has truly paid off and I'm sure your words will be an inspiration to those just starting out on their short-term rental design journey.

Thanks for sharing this stunning property with the world, and I can't wait to see what's next as you begin to take on your own design projects! The sky is the limit!

Until next time, happy hosting everyone!

To stay at Leslie's beautiful home, visit her Airbnb listing or website. And be sure to give The Lighthouse Cottage a follow on Instagram: @thelighthousecottage.

Professional photography by Marc Giacomi

Picking the Right Paint Colors for your Airbnb

There's no place like Target... Shopping for your Airbnb

The 5 Plants Your Airbnb Needs Right now THAT YOU WON'T KILL

Join the Quill Newsletter

Never miss an email from our team with our latest blogs, shopping guides, and newsletters full of design trends for the short term rental industry!

UNSUBSCRIBE AT ANY TIME. NO. SPAM. EVER.