Cape May man makes birdhouses from scraps
CAPE MAY — It has been said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and in the case of 100-year-old shutters and wooden floorboards, that is true for Jack Riehl.
The Cape May resident is a self-taught carpenter who has crafted folk art birdhouses, having made just shy of 1,500.
“I started making birdhouses as a whim, with shutters that were being thrown away from The Chalfonte Hotel,” Riehl said, adding that at the time, he worked as a seasonal handyman at the hotel.
Every birdhouse is unique, particularly due to the age and grain of the wood. Riehl works exclusively with old wooden shutters and floorboards, reviving them for new life.
“Working with the flooring was an aberration from what I normally did with shutters,” Riehl said. “I took the flooring because none of the carpenters wanted it.”
The current series of birdhouses Riehl is crafting includes a special local touch.
“Recently I was asked by the Cape May Point Arts and Science Center [President] Bob Mullock to create some houses from the original boards of the 1889 structure,” Riehl said. “Amongst the boards were perhaps a dozen which had been painted green at some stage.”
The Cape May Point Arts and Science Center (CMPASC) is a nonprofit organization that opened in 2023 in the former St. Mary’s by the Sea building, which operated as a summer retreat for the Sisters of Saint Joseph.
Riehl is transforming the tongue-and-groove wood flooring from the building into a limited series of birdhouses, which can be purchased at the CMPASC. A portion of each sale goes to the center.
“Currently, I’m at birdhouse number 22 and I hope to make it to 50, but I may run out of boards before that number is reached,” Riehl said.
When Mullock first met Riehl, he joked that he saw feet sticking out of the dumpster.
“I was concerned it was some nutty old hotel guest. I was partly wrong,” Mullock said. “It was Jack Riehl, and in his hands were several old boards, a couple of glass knobs and assorted discarded metal parts such as hinges.”
Mullock added that he was suspicious, but Riehl let him in on the secret that he wanted to make birdhouses out of the detritus of the historic Chalfonte Hotel. Riehl promised Mullock the first one.
“Over almost the next 20 years, I have spied the occasional missing shutter,” Mullock said, adding he once saw a Chalfonte green shutter being walked down Columbia Avenue.
Over the years, Mullock and Riehl have become friends. He said Riehl has come to be known as an artist with a legacy of salvaging old parts of town and preserving them forever in beautiful birdhouses.
The process
When Riehl first brought home the wood floorboards from the CMPASC, he had to go through each one and mark the lengths. Not every board was the same, and some required gluing in areas where the wood had split.
Riehl does not work from a template, so each birdhouse is unique.
“To me, it’s art; you don’t buy somebody a painting,” he said. “Art is so personal and that’s how I see it.”
After gluing and cutting the pieces of wood, he decides which piece will be the front and back of the birdhouse before cutting the holes.
“I decide which board has the character I want it to have, because the front and back are different to me,” Riehl said. “Then I decide if I want to put the hole high or low — but the hole always has to be in the center.”
The wood flooring is primarily made from pine, a soft wood, thus making it easier to work with.
Once each house is assembled, Riehl decides what items he will use for a perch, depending on what he thinks will fit best. Sometimes he opts for brass pieces or old knobs.
In his workroom inside his garage, he has shelves full of carefully labeled jars, featuring all sorts of nails, brass pieces and even old hose spigots that his plumber son-in-law saves for him.
The crafting process can include a lot of learning throughout, Riehl explained.
“I save even the nails I find in the wood and will do a Google search [for information],” Riehl said.
Each birdhouse is numbered and dated on the bottom, and each one includes a sticker from the CMPASC and a vintage postcard.
“I enjoy the whole process,” Riehl said. “I’m not making them to keep them, that’s why I have so few.”
Riehl said he has kept about four of his birdhouses. He is always looking for old wooden shutters to use.
“I don’t like this stuff to languish and rot, [but rather] it lives again,” Riehl said. “It’s art and [local] history.”
Follow Riehl Birdhouses on Instagram @jack.riehl for more information and to inquire about birdhouse availability. Contact Cape May Point Arts and Science Center at capemaypointsciencecenter.org to purchase a CMPASC birdhouse.
By RACHEL SHUBIN/Special to the Star and Wave
