‘One Night In Miami' Spotlights Brownsville, Restored Segregation-Era Hotel

On Feb. 25, 1964, 22-year-old Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston at the Miami Beach Convention Center and became boxing’s heavyweight champion. After the fight in racially segregated South Florida, Clay went to his hotel, the Hampton House, where he celebrated with activist Malcolm X, football star Jim Brown and singer Sam Cooke. In the ensuing days, the fighter announced he would change his name to Cassius X, then Muhammad Ali.

Decades later, author Kemp Powers imagined what the four stars had talked about at their hotel and in 2013 developed a play, One Night In Miami, which was made into a movie that is now streaming on Amazon Prime and garnering Oscar buzz while spotlighting the Hampton House and the working-class, predominantly Black neighborhood of Brownsville in unincorporated Miami-Dade County.

Segregation kept Black people from staying on Miami Beach, but travelers found the Hampton House largely from the Green Book, a guide to Black-friendly establishments around the country. The Hampton House was developed with 50 rooms in 1961 by a Jewish couple, Harry and Florence Markowitz. It was 8 miles from Miami Beach but had a pool, air conditioning and a jazz club.

Nat King Cole, Martin Luther King Jr., Althea Gibson and Sammy Davis Jr. were just a few of the hotel’s famous visitors.

“I sneaked in when I was 14 to see Jackie Wilson,” said Jacqui Colyer, chairperson of the board of trustees for the Historic Hampton House Community Trust, a nonprofit group that operates the property today. “He sang ‘Lonely Teardrops’ just for me.”

She recalled friends taking swimming lessons there at a time when Black people weren't allowed in other local pools.

As the years passed, highways brought blight to Miami’s urban neighborhoods, and integration gave Black customers more options for places to stay. In the 1970s, the Hampton House closed. It was briefly converted to a church. By 2000, Colyer said, “Literally, it was dilapidated. They were going to demolish the building.”

Neighborhood leaders fought to save the property, and after a 15-year, $6M fundraising campaign, it was remodeled as a museum and cultural center in 2015. Many of the hotel rooms were converted to raw, open space, but visitors can still tour the rooms where King and Ali stayed. The nonprofit developed a business plan to become self-sufficient, largely by holding events, and it planned to add recording and dance studios.

The county still owns the building, valued at $2.8M. The nonprofit has a 99-year lease for $1 per year, Colyer said. Tax filings from 2017, the most recent year available, show that revenue came from $62K in rents, $147K in donations and $1M in government grants. By 2019, the Hampton House generated $480K in revenue, Colyer said. But last year, hard times struck.

“The pandemic took away everything from us," she said. "We had deposits for events. We had to give back $70K.”

The venue has reopened, but only at partial capacity. The space hosted a premiere of One Night In Miami but could only seat 60 people where it normally would have fit 210.

Plans to open a dance studio are on hold indefinitely, Colyer said, but the nonprofit is moving ahead with designs for a high-end recording studio that could draw modern artists. Her team has been reaching out to people like poet Amanda Gorman and Atlanta musicians to explore partnerships and generate buzz. She said she is hopeful a studio could be built by 2023.

One Night in Miami was largely filmed on a replica set in Louisiana, but Colyer hopes it will inspire more visitors to the real historic hotel and more politicians to help secure grant money for continued operations and realization of the dance studio. 

As the Hampton House has been resuscitated, its surroundings have gained appeal. In 2003, a master plan for Brownsville, the 2.5-square-mile neighborhood surrounding Hampton House with a population of more than 17,000, called for transit-oriented development and an entertainment and business district. In 2012, a five-building, 490-unit affordable housing complex called Brownsville Transit Village opened next to the Brownsville Metrorail station.

In 2017, Brownsville was designated an opportunity zone. An 84-unit apartment complex that traded for $2.9M in 2012 sold for $7.56M, or $90K per unit, in 2019.

Jenny May, senior vice president with Melnick Real Estate Advisors, pointed to the 221-unit Lincoln Gardens affordable housing project under development by Related Urban Development Group in Brownsville and another proposed by Atlantic Pacific Communities as highlights of a county push for affordable product, especially around transit corridors. She cited CoStar data showing that last year, a warehouse sold for $102 per SF, and a preschool slated for multifamily redevelopment sold for $412 per SF. 

"With all that growth should come an ability to open opportunities for more commercial and charter schools," May said. 

Gentrification in Brownsville is different than in other predominantly Black neighborhoods like Overtown, Wynwood and Liberty City, Colyer said.

“The neighborhood association used to be very, very strong and committed, and as a result, they were able to keep the developers at bay," she said. "The encroachment of gentrification now is coming from Hialeah. Residents are moving east because homes in Brownsville are absolutely beautiful. It’s one of the few remaining enclaves with nice little middle-class homes. ... It’s like this perfect little place.”

Kenneth M. Kilpatrick, president of the Brownsville Civic Neighborhood Association Inc., told Bisnow that while the community would want to keep its single-family areas undisturbed and have input on planning, an entertainment district around the Hampton House, as imagined in the 2003 design charettes, would be welcome.

"We'd love to see more economic development, commercial retail development along our corridor," he said. "... Restaurants, shops, grocery stores, things like that."  

He pointed out the neighborhood is on high ground and near Wynwood. It is adjacent to a highway that easily connects commuters with the airport and beaches. 

Kilpatrick has also been in talks with the National Park Service to determine the feasibility of creating a historic circuit around the famous hotel and other landmark sites in Brownsville, like the 1940s Black meeting house Georgette's Tea Room, a cemetery where Black pioneers are buried and a home where Ali once lived.  

"It’s a really rich history that the neighborhood has," he said.