The Henry Hotel

The take

In segregated Ocean City, Black performers could headline the Pier Ballroom but couldn't stay near it — so Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and a young James Brown stayed here, at the hotel Charles and Louisa Henry ran from 1926. Pearl Bonner kept it going from 1964 to 2003, and it's the last of OC's segregation-era 'colored hotels' still standing. A 2024 Maryland preservation grant is funding its restoration — this modest building holds more history than anything else on the block.

Heritage context

• Henry Hotel Foundation

  Active today

  The nonprofit restoring the Henry Hotel at Baltimore Avenue and S. Division Street — the last surviving hotel that served Black visitors during Ocean City's segregation era — as a museum and learning center. Incorporated in Ocean City as Henry Hotel Inc., a 501(c)(3) run by a volunteer board; a 2024 Maryland preservation grant of $250,000 is funding the restoration work. Still active.

  Every other organization in this guide is one we write about in the past tense. This one is the reason the Henry is still standing to be written about at all.

  henryhotel.org

  • Henry Hotel — African American Heritage in Worcester County Maryland (video)Visit Maryland's Coast / Worcester County Tourism, on YouTube