The Hirsch family in the late 1980s: Miriam, Joe, Evan, Jonathan, Harry, Larry

The Hirsch family’s hospitality adventures began six decades ago. It was 1965 and a large empty residential lot on Beach Avenue was going up for auction. Sid Hess told his friend Harry Hirsch in Sid’s bar (now Carney’s) that the city was rumored to be making future plans to allow commercial development on that same spot. Which would greatly enhance the land’s value.
Sid urged his friend to take the plunge. So Harry and Sophie Hirsch, Holocaust survivors who left Poland for a new life in America, made a risky decision. Neither of them knew much about real estate, but they bought the land for $12,200, with the intention of flipping it once the zoning restrictions changed. 
Sure enough, about four months later, the zoning law was amended, just as their friend Sid had predicted. After a builder offered Harry and Sophie four times their investment, they sought advice from a motel operator in Wildwood. “There must be a reason someone would offer you such an outrageous price,” he said, adding that if Harry and Sophie ever decided to open a motel on the lot, he would help.

It all started with a hush-hush tip in a Cape May bar.

Sophie and Harry Hirsch raise the flag at the opening of the Montreal in 1965. 
The couple promptly shut up shop at Harry’s Provisions, which sold produce to Shore restaurants, and pivoted to the hospitality business. On Memorial Day Weekend of 1966, the Montreal Motel — named for Cape May’s annual influx of Canadian visitors — opened the doors to its 27 rooms, each of them awash in deep greens, golds and reds. In time, the torch was passed to the couple’s sons, Larry and Joe. And in 2009, a third generation became involved, when Larry’s youngest son Jonathan took over the Montreal’s restaurant after cutting his hospitality teeth in Boston and Atlantic City.
In 2015, the Hirsch family purchased Cape Winds motel on Lafayette Street. After a complete reimagining, by award-winning Philadelphia architects DAS, the Boarding House opened in 2019, with managing partner Jonathan Hirsch at the helm.
In 2022, the family sold the Montreal Inn, though its restaurant, Harry’s, still bears the name of the family patriarch.

Sophie and Harry Hirsch raise the flag at the opening of the Montreal in 1965.

The Montreal in the early 1970s - it made its debut in 1966.

Harry Hirsch with his beloved truck Betsy, with which he had many adventures, including getting stuck on the beach opposite the Montreal.