Rehoboth’s Henlopen Hotel was the place to be and be seen
Story Location:
Rehoboth Beach Museum
511 Rehoboth Avenue
Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971
United States
Nearly 60 years after working at the Henlopen Hotel in Rehoboth Beach, former bellboy John Witmer said the hotel was like a big family. Similar to what it’s like today at Funland, he said.
Speaking to a full room April 8 at the Rehoboth Beach Museum, Witmer presented his visual program called, “The Henlopen Hotel: A Special Time, A Special Place.” Witmer was employed as a house boy in the 1960s at the hotel.
Witmer said he and his family would travel to Rehoboth Beach every summer with his family from Lancaster, Pa.
“On the last day of school, my dad would say, ‘Get home as quick as you can,’” said Witmer. “Then we’d return home on Labor Day.”
When Witmer worked at the hotel, it was owned by brothers Michael and Francis Fabrizio. “Look at how smartly they’re dressed,” said Witmer of the brothers in a photo taken soon after they purchased the hotel in the 1950s.
Witmer said he ended up at the Henlopen Hotel at the age of 16 because he needed a summer job.
One time, Witmer said, he was asked to deliver a package to someone, and when he got there, the woman was disappointed to see a teenager. She was looking for a sharp dressed man, not a 16-year-old boy, so he left, he said.
With guests going back and forth from the hotel to auctions at neighbor Stuart-Kingston, Witmer called the Henlopen Hotel the epicenter of the north end of the Boardwalk.
“It was the place to see and be seen,” said Witmer.
Witmer recalled memories of bandleader Sammy Ferro, whose orchestra played at the hotel for years.
In addition to his personal recounting, Witmer added contextual history of the hotel. He included a clipping from July 6, 1883, that appeared in The Daily Republican, a Wilmington-based newspaper. The clip reads, “The Hotel Henlopen, just completed, will be opened Thursday, July 5, 1883, located 4 1/2 miles south of Cape Henlopen Lighthouse, on the Atlantic Ocean, within 100 yards of the breakers; uninterrupted ocean view, finest surf bathing, pure water, gas, steam laundry, music, billiards; furniture and outfit all new. No bar. Accommodates 200 persons. Terms, $2.50 to $3 per day; $15 to $17 per week.”
The museum’s next scheduled event is a reshowing of the 2007 movie by Michael Oates called, “The ’62 Storm: Delaware’s Shared Response.” The documentary features a number of lifelong locals, retired state officials and meteorologists who talk about what it was like during and in the immediate aftermath of the storm. This event takes place at 1:30 p.m., Saturday, April 23. To register, email program@rehobothbeachmuseum.org.
For more information on the Rehoboth Beach Museum, 511 Rehoboth Ave., go to rehobothbeachmuseum.org, call 302-227-7310 or email info@rehobothbeachmuseum.org.
Chris Flood has been working for the Cape Gazette since early 2014. He currently covers Rehoboth Beach and Henlopen Acres, but has also covered Dewey Beach and the state government. He covers environmental stories, business stories and random stories on subjects he finds interesting, and he also writes a column called Choppin’ Wood that runs every other week. Additionally, Flood moonlights as the company’s circulation manager, which primarily means fixing boxes that are jammed with coins during daylight hours, but sometimes means delivering papers in the middle of the night. He’s a graduate of the University of Maine and the Landing School of Boat Building & Design.
