Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainOne of Cape May County's oldest surviving structures — an 1772 farmhouse where the last Hildreth descendant died in 1948 — now operates as a year-round Christmas shop whose staff report a familiar spirit called 'Hestor' flickering lights, moving objects, and making footsteps overhead.
3108 Route 9 S, Rio Grande, NJ 08242
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to enter the shop. A working retail gift store; no admission charged.
Access
Limited Access
18th-century farmhouse with uneven floors, low doorframes, and stairs to upper floors. Not fully wheelchair accessible.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1772 · One of Cape May County's Oldest Surviving Structures (1772) · 175+ Years of Hildreth Family Occupancy · Example of 18th-Century New Jersey Vernacular Farmhouse Architecture
The Hildreth House was built in 1772, a decade before the American Revolution ended, and represents some of the earliest surviving domestic architecture in Cape May County. The Hildreth family, an established Cape May County line, held the property through the 18th and 19th centuries. The farmhouse retains its original core structure: wide plank floors, hand-hewn beam ceilings, multiple fireplaces, and the low doorframes typical of 18th-century New Jersey vernacular construction.
By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Hildreth family at this property had narrowed to a line of unmarried women. The pattern — sisters or cousins maintaining the family home across generations — was not unusual in rural Cape May County during this period, and it has given the Hildreth House a specific social history. Hester Hildreth, identified in local accounts as the last member of the family to live in the house, died in 1948. With her death, the family's direct occupancy of the property ended after more than 175 years.
The building was eventually sold and passed through several hands before becoming Winterwood, a year-round Christmas and gift shop that has been a Route 9 fixture in Rio Grande for years. The shop operates throughout the historic rooms of the farmhouse, with Christmas ornaments, gifts, and seasonal decorations filling the same spaces where the Hildreth family lived. Cape May Magazine documented the shop's history and its resident ghost tradition in a feature article that remains one of the primary accounts of the Hildreth House's oral history.
Sources
The spirit associated with the Hildreth House goes by 'Hestor' among the Winterwood staff, a name that derives from Hester Hildreth, who died in the house in 1948 as the last of the family line. The ghost has been framed as female and connected specifically to the unmarried Hildreth women who occupied the property in its final generations of family ownership — women who, in local telling, devoted their lives to maintaining the house and are understood to remain attached to it.
The reported phenomena at Winterwood are characteristic of what paranormal researchers categorize as poltergeist-adjacent activity: lights flickering or switching off in specific rooms, merchandise found moved from where it had been placed, footsteps audible on the floor above when no one is upstairs. A local radio station documented a customer who reported seeing a shape in a doorway that resolved briefly into the outline of a woman before disappearing. Cape May Magazine documented the tradition in detail, interviewing staff who described the activity as routine and non-threatening — Hestor as a presence that has been part of the shop's working environment for years.
The tone of the Winterwood ghost tradition is notably warm rather than frightening. Staff treat Hestor as an occupant rather than an intruder, a distinction that shapes how customers receive the accounts. The combination of an 18th-century farmhouse, a Christmas shop aesthetic, and a persistent friendly haunting has made the building a distinct stop on Cape May County's paranormal tourism circuit.
Notable Entities
Winterwood operates as a functioning year-round Christmas and gift shop inside the 1772 Hildreth House. Customers browse multiple rooms of the historic farmhouse while staff cheerfully discuss Hestor, the resident spirit. The building's colonial-era construction details — wide plank floors, hand-hewn beams, original fireplace surrounds — are intact throughout.
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