Rock Rest Inn in Kittery, Maine

Resting just a few miles off Route 1 in Kittery, Maine, Rock Rest appears at first glance as an unassuming, white clapboard two story dwelling lodged amidst rustic scenery. While the house appears ordinary, it occupies a special space in pre-Civil Rights American History. From the early 1940s to the late 1970s, Rock Rest was one of the most lauded and popular black-owned and operated businesses catering towards African Americans. Its story anchors a particular space in history: a time when financial freedom spelled out different meanings depending upon the color of your skin, and a space when African American entrepreneurs used that divide in order to forge a stronger community. Vacationing in the Pre-Civil Rights Era In the mid-1900s, the fight for civil rights permeated all aspects of African American life. For the first time in recent history, African Americans were able to work towards educations and careers that granted them middle-class status and upward mobility. But becoming a doctor or a lawyer didn’t guarantee that African Americans would have access to the same privileges as their white counterparts. While New England didn’t adhere to the same Jim Crow laws that governed the south, discrimination and segregation still applied. When it came to leisure activities and travel—a luxury afforded to the middle and upper classes—segregation existed in New England, though not always in as overt terms as seen in the Jim Crow regulated South. Popular tourist sites might allow African Americans to explore by day, but would be closed to them at night. An African American couple with a hotel reservation, for example, could still be denied service. Public beaches, meanwhile, made it explicitly clear that black people were not welcome. This racial discrimination led African Americans on vacation to seek out safe places to eat and sleep through an informal word-of-mouth network. African American historian Valerie Cunningham, who worked at Rock Rest and went on to establish one of New England’s most important cultural tributes to African Americans, the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail, explains how word-of-mouth in the African American community worked: “Black communities were segregated because they were the only place African Americans could live, not because they chose to live together…Maids lived next to doctors, lawyers, and preachers. They knew each other from church and their kids went to the same schools. So when the doctor’s wife said she wanted to go to Maine, the maid next door said she knew a nice place where they could be safe and comfortable. She’d heard about it while summering up there with her employers.” This “word-of-mouth” system would eventually find written form as the Green Book. But Rock Rest began before that, as the fixer-upper home of newlyweds Clayton and Hazel Sinclair. The couple met in New York during a summer in the mid-1930s, both working for different white families: Clayton as a chauffeur, and Hazel as a maid. Once married, they settled down in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and bought Rock Rest—then a dilapidated one story—as a project to which they could apply their respective talents as carpenter and homemaker. Clayton made repairs that allowed the couple to move into the home in 1940, and continued to make improvements throughout the years that included adding a second story, a front porch, and a back room. Hazel, meanwhile, utilized the skills she’d learned as a maid to transform Rock Rest into an inviting home, cooking meals with vegetables harvested from Clayton’s garden. The Growth and Popularity of Rock Rest It wasn’t long before travelers began appearing at Sinclair’s home: a common word-of-mouth practice among African Americans who sought vacation lodging when other guest houses in the area were full. Hazel’s homemaking skills—particularly her cooking—and the warm, loving atmosphere created by the couple quickly accelerated their number of guests. By 1948, Rock Rest was a full-time inn. Clayton continued to make improvements to the property. He replaced the garage with a freestanding building that housed automobiles on the bottom floor, with guest rooms on the second floor, and built a recreation room nearby. Hazel, meanwhile, expanded her culinary craft by becoming a caterer in the offseason, while still attracting guests from across the nation with her meals. Even after the Green Book’s publication and the expansion of other African American havens with closer proximity to the ocean, such as Oak Bluffs, Rock Rest remained as one of the most popular vacation spots for black travelers, relying the entire time solely on word-of-mouth that was fueled by Hazel’s cooking, and postcards that the Sinclairs produced. From the time it opened to its eventual closing, the inn hosted guests from 28 states. The majority of its guests were East coast dwellers, but some arrived from more far-flung destinations like Florida, Washington, and Oklahoma. Guests reserved space weeks or even months in advance to guarantee a spot in one of the seven bedrooms. Overall, the property could accommodate 16 guests at a time, with the average length of stay lasting one to two weeks. Particularly busy summers in the 1950s saw the Sinclairs housing as many as 50 parties a season. For $40 a week, guests received a room, plus breakfast and dinner. Visitors could spend their days exploring nearby York and Portsmouth, or entertaining themselves on the property with games of horseshoes, croquet, and badminton, or ping pong. Rock Rest acted as more than a resting place for visitors. The family-style meals shared each night allowed guests to swap stories about their day-to-day lives: an exchange that fed diners in more ways than one. Sinclair’s son, Clayton Sinclair Jr., recounts how listening to the stories and accomplishments of educated African-Americans encouraged him to pursue higher education. Had he not been exposed to individuals working against the trajectory society cut out for them, Sinclair Jr. may never have known to explore such a path as an option. For other African Americans, such as employee Valerie Cunningham, working at a black-owned business was an opportunity rarely afforded most African Americans, especially at a time when they competed with white people for service jobs. From the family to the employees to the visitors themselves, the bonds nurtured at Rock Rest held strong even once the season ended. People came back year after year, and the Sinclairs kept in touch with many of their guests during the offseason, occasionally paying them visits themselves. Rock Rest’s Historical Significance When Civil Rights laws prohibiting segregation passed in 1964, the Sinclairs recognized that this victory for the African American community also presented challenges to their business. With more options to now choose from, the African American community’s reliance upon businesses that exclusively served black clientele decreased. By 1977, the combination of decreased business and their older age led the Sinclairs to retire. Clayton passed away the following year, while Hazel lived on until 1995. In recent years, however, the role Rock Rest played in the pre-Civil Rights era life earning recognition as a National Historic Landmark. The Smithsonian now houses several items from the inn. Paintings from the main house, decorative objects with seacoast themes collected from the porch, Hazel’s cookbook and travel diary, and other ordinary objects that made the stay at Rock Rest special—such as croquet sets, cribbage boards, and fishing poles—all act stand as testaments to the 30+ years that the Sinclairs invested in cultivating a refuge that provided African Americans a pocket of leisure, a sanctuary for the community, and a piece of history that remains to this day.