Wells'Built Hotel

Ray Charles, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington, B.B. King, Illinois Jacquet, Cab Calloway, Memphis Slim, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong: this list just scratches the surface of the influential Black Americans who lodged at the Wells’Built Hotel. And the roster of famous lodgers goes beyond musicians; Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and baseball star Jackie Robinson also visited the Wells’Built. During the Jim Crow era of legalized segregation, it was one of the only places in the region they could safely stay. 

From 1936 to 1966, Black travelers relied on The Negro Motorist Green Book, a publication that listed restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and other establishments that served African Americans. The Wells’Built Hotel, a two-story brick building opened by one of Orlando’s first African American physicians, was the only lodging listed in Orlando. The neighboring South Street Casino—an entertainment venue and community event center—gave guests a place to perform and/or socialize.

The hotel is now a museum of African American history and culture, and the building is still standing today thanks in part to Trust for Public Land. Opened by its namesake, Dr. William Monroe Wells, in 1929, the Wells’Built Hotel is located in the Holden–Parramore Historic District, what some term Orlando’s Harlem, and it almost wasn’t saved at all.  

“It was a bit of a stretch,” says Will Abberger, an Orlando native and director of TPL’s conservation finance program. “The building was in horrible shape, dilapidated; the roof was falling in. It’s a wonder it didn’t burn down.” (In fact, the casino was damaged by a fire and demolished in 1987.)

But former Florida Representative Alzo J. Reddick and current Florida State Senator Geraldine Thompson had a vision for the hotel—and they knew TPL could help see it through. Reddick connected Abberger with Thompson, who is also founder of the Association to Preserve African American Society, History and Tradition (PAST), the nonprofit that runs the Wells’Built Museum. 

“I learned about Dr. Wells and how important both of those structures were in terms of the history of Central Florida,” she says. So she wrote a grant proposal to acquire the hotel, but there wasn’t much time: it was slated for demolition. In 1994, Trust for Public Land purchased the building. Meanwhile, PAST raised funds to cover the cost plus repairs. (TPL and PAST later received various grants to fund renovations and acquire exhibits.) 

After being abandoned for 25 years, the Wells’Built Museum—which displays memorabilia of Orlando’s African American community and the civil rights movement as well as African art and artifacts—opened in February 2001, in celebration of Black History Month. “There are so many stories that have been obscured and omitted,” says Thompson, “and they need to be brought to the forefront.”