Plaza Manor Hotel

Plaza Manor Hotel was listed in the Green Book as “Plaza Manor Hotel, Tel. 4-3074, located on 511 Martin St. Advertised as “5 minutes to bus and railroad terminals, hot and cold water, steam heat, meals served.” Rates listed as $2.00 & $2.50 single and $4.00 for a double.” under “Hotels” in Greensboro in 1951. In 1952, it was advertised as Plaza Manor Hotel, 35 rooms, Hot & Cold water in each room, rates: $2.50-$3.00 single per night, $4.50-$5.00 double per night, steam heat, 511 Martin Street. The hotel was listed as “Plaza Manor—511 Martin Street” under “Hotels” in Greensboro from 1953-1955 and as “Plaza Manor Hotel—511 Martin St.” in Greensboro from 1956-1957.¹

Donnie and Annie Lee Edwards built the Plaza Manor Hotel on a plot of land purchased in 1949. The large hotel at 511 Martin Street, which opened in 1950, had 35 rooms, a shared bath with shower stalls, a small shared kitchen, and a laundry service. Rooms featured hot and cold water (from a sink), Beautyrest mattresses, and steam heat. Daily and weekly rates were offered. Guests were sometimes treated to a meal at the couple’s home, but, for more famous lodgers (such as Fats Domino and Louis Armstrong), the couple catered food to the hotel. (Food, alcoholic beverages, and pets were otherwise prohibited.) The hotel was advertised in local publications and in national publications like The Pittsburgh Courier.²

In addition to celebrities, the Plaza Manor catered to the parents of college and boarding school students. The hotel was located in the same neighborhood as Bennett College and NC A&T and was a short drive from Palmer Memorial in Sedalia.³

Donnie Edwards was born in Cumnock, a small community in Lee County, North Carolina. He had a varied work history before opening the hotel, which included stints as an elevator operator, taxi driver, smoke shop owner, waiter, and salesman. He married Annie Lee Haywood in 1942. The couple opened the hotel together, and, with the help of her family, Annie continued to run it after Donnie’s death in 1966. Annie remarried, to Charles Hill, and lived with him at the hotel until his death in 1975. It was after Charles’ death that Annie decided to move out and turn over management to Rosa Smalls, who had lived and worked at the hotel since she was a college student in the 1950s.⁴

Annie Hill maintained ownership of the hotel until 1985, when she sold the property to James Siebert. Rosa Smalls stayed on as building manager. By the 1980s the hotel primarily served as a home for lodgers rather than a hotel. Annie Lee Hill died in 1986.⁵

Essay by Brandie K. Ragghianti, 2024

Notes

1.  Victor Green, 1951 Green Book, 53; Victor Green, 1952 Green Book, 53; Victor Green, 1953 Green Book, 53; Green, 1954 Green Book, 53; Green, 1955 Green Book, 53; Victor Green, 1956 Green Book, 46; Green, 1957 Green Book, 46; Green, 1959 Green Book, 51; Green, 1960 Green Book, 73; Green, 1961 Green Book, 68; Green, 1962 Green Book, 74; Green, 1963-1964 Green Book, 58; Green, 1966-1967 Green Book, 58. 
2. Anita Steele, interview with Lisa R. Withers, June 7, 2019, OH047, audio recording, NC Green Book Project; “Property Deed, Annie Lee Edwards/Annie Lee Hill (Grantor) to James E. Sibert & JoAnn H. Sibert (Grantee),” Guilford County Register of Deeds, 1984, Deed Book 3357, Page 959, http://rdlxweb.guilfordcountync.gov/view_image.php?file=0&type=pdf&sess…;  “511 Martin Street Deed Card,” Guilford County Real Property Data, Guilford County Tax Department, http://taxcama.guilfordcountync.gov/camapwa/PropertySummary.aspx?PARCEL…;  Coscolluela, Nicole, Malorey Henderson, and Claire Kempa, “North Carolina Green Books Historic Preservation Study Report: Beaufort, Bertie, Caldwell, Davidson, Edgecombe, Forsyth, Guilford, Iredell, Nash, Pasquotank, Pitt, Rowan, and Wilson Counties,” HI 587: Cultural Resource Management, North Carolina State University, Spring 2016, 46; “Plaza Manor Hotel” (advertisement), New Pittsburgh Courier, June 24, 1950, p. 18, accessed from www.newspapers.com; Hill’s Greensboro City Directory, 1949-1957); Flontina Miller, “Off-the-path hotel sought out in its heyday before integration,” The News and Record (Greensboro, NC), January 21, 1984, pp. 1, 6, accessed from www.newspapers.com. 
3.  Flontina Miller, “Off-the-path hotel sought out in its heyday before integration,” The News and Record (Greensboro, NC), January 21, 1984, pp. 1, 6, accessed from www.newspapers.com; Anita Steele, interview with Lisa R. Withers, June 7, 2019, OH047, audio recording, NC Green Book Project; Palmerite (yearbook), 1966, Palmer Memorial Institute, accessed from https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/34501; “Hotels, Parks for Race Use in NC Listed,” The Carolinian, August 18, 1951, Page 5.
4. “Marriage Certificate for Donnie Edwards and Annie Lee Haywood,” private collection of Anita Steele, NC Green Book Project; Hill’s Greensboro City Directory, 1913-1917, 1920-1963;  Flontina Miller, “Off-the-path hotel sought out in its heyday before integration,” The News and Record (Greensboro, NC), January 21, 1984, pp. 1, 6, accessed from www.newspapers.com; Anita Steele, interview with Lisa R. Withers, June 7, 2019, OH047, audio recording, NC Green Book Project; “Donnie Edwards” (obituary), The News and Record, May 25, 1966, p. 11, accessed from www.newspapers.com. 
5.  Flontina Miller, “Off-the-path hotel sought out in its heyday before integration,” The News and Record (Greensboro, NC), January 21, 1984, pp. 1, 6, accessed from www.newspapers.com; Anita Steele, interview with Lisa R. Withers, June 7, 2019, OH047, audio recording, NC Green Book Project.

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