Lisa Brown Alexander didn’t have a hospitality background. She had something more useful: a lifetime of staying in luxury hotels that weren’t built for her.
Key Takeaways
- Lisa Brown Alexander, born in Canada to Jamaican parents, co-founded Wellspring Manor and Spa in Upper Marlboro, Maryland after two decades of traveling extensively and finding that luxury hospitality consistently failed Black guests.
- Wellspring holds one of the largest private collections of Black art in the Washington DC region, including works by Jamaican artists, and its barn gallery is free and open to the public.
- Alexander credits her Jamaican upbringing with shaping her core philosophy: that genuine welcome is something a guest feels before anyone says a word.
Luxury hospitality has a gap problem. The properties are beautiful. The service is often excellent. But for Black travelers, something is consistently missing: the feeling that the space was actually designed with them in mind.
Lisa Brown Alexander experienced that gap for two decades as a management consultant and frequent traveler. In 2018, she and her husband Kevin decided to close it themselves. The result is Wellspring Manor and Spa, a seven-acre luxury retreat in Upper Marlboro, Maryland that has become one of the most talked-about Black-owned hospitality destinations in the Washington DC region.
“The nicer they were, often the less welcoming they became. Especially for us as people of color.”
Alexander Credits Her Jamaican Roots With Shaping Her Definition of Welcome
Alexander was born in Canada to Jamaican parents, the last of five daughters. She describes the Caribbean household she grew up in as one where hospitality was never transactional. It was personal. The understanding that a home should make people feel genuinely glad they arrived was, for her, simply how things worked.
That sensibility followed her through a successful corporate career. She went on to lead a human resources management consulting firm as CEO and was named one of Washington DC’s Top 25 Minority Business Leaders by the Washington Business Journal in 2011.
“The elements are not solely Jamaican, but I do bring that perspective.”
Her husband Kevin, a Chester, Pennsylvania native educated at Fisk University and the founder of the Lake Arbor Jazz Festival, brought his own grounding in Black American culture to the project. Together they had traveled extensively for decades, accumulating a clear picture of what the luxury hospitality industry was consistently getting wrong.
Neither Owner Had Hospitality Experience Before Opening Wellspring
Alexander is direct about what she and Kevin brought to the project and what they did not.
Neither of them had worked a day in hospitality before Wellspring opened. She was running a consulting firm. Kevin had spent over 30 years as a managing director in commercial insurance before retiring to co-found the property. What they had instead was lived experience: the accumulated knowledge of two Black professionals who had spent years in rooms that were beautifully appointed and culturally empty.
They studied the industry carefully before building. One of their key references was Eddie Brown, investment management executive and owner of The Ivy Hotel in Baltimore, a top-flight boutique property. They visited, stayed, observed, and learned what unmatched hospitality service looked like from the inside before designing their own.
The Build Involved a Costly Pivot Before They Found the Right Property
The Alexanders did not land on the Upper Marlboro property immediately.
They first purchased raw land near Brandywine, Maryland with plans to develop from the ground up. When infrastructure costs made that approach unworkable, they pivoted. Searching Prince George’s County, they found a colonial-style manor house on more than seven acres that had previously belonged to members of the family of Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.
The property, built in 1953, sits inside a residential neighbourhood that had developed around it over decades, giving it a natural privacy that no new build could replicate. Wellspring Manor and Spa opened in 2018.
The Art Collection Is One of the Largest Private Collections of Black Art in the DC Region
The converted barn at Wellspring holds more than 40 artists, with every piece created by an artist of color.
The collection spans the African continent, the Caribbean, and the Americas. Jamaican artists are specifically represented, among them Donnette Cooper, Sharon Fox-Mould, and Nakazzi Hutchinson, whose hand-fired ceramic work is part of the permanent collection. Every piece is either one of a kind or a limited edition. The gallery is free and open to the public, not only to overnight guests.
Alexander has described the response the gallery produces in guests.
“We take them upstairs and they look around and see this amazing art collection. We get one of two responses. People standing and not moving, just kind of looking around. Or they’ll do that.”
“We’ve had people stop and just cry. Because they’ve not seen that kind of beauty in one space in a long time. Or ever.”
Alexander Runs Wellspring Around Three Principles: Safe, Seen, Celebrated
The philosophy behind Wellspring is not abstract. It is a direct response to a specific experience.
Alexander describes the gap that Wellspring is built to close as the distance between being technically welcome somewhere and feeling culturally seen. For Black travelers who have navigated that gap their entire professional lives, Wellspring is designed to eliminate it entirely.
“Rest. Affirmation. Belonging: that they came and saw that they belonged and were cared for.”
The Jamaican influence shows up concretely throughout the property. The kitchen operates in elevated, pork-free Southern American cooking but introduces Caribbean and West African flavors deliberately. Island seasonings appear on the menu without announcement. Kevin’s jazz festival background is embedded in the property’s music programming, with jazz played throughout the manor daily and live performances scheduled throughout the year.
Wellspring Is Open Year-Round With Five Suites and a Public Gallery
Wellspring Manor and Spa operates as an all-inclusive luxury retreat with five suites, a full spa, pool, waterfall terrace, and the barn art gallery.
The property is located in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, approximately 30 minutes from Washington DC. The barn gallery is open to the community regardless of whether visitors are staying as guests. The spa serves overnight guests.
“Why can’t we combine a high-end experience with one immersed in Black culture? That’s really where the idea began to germinate.”
For Alexander, the answer to that question is the property itself. A Jamaican understanding of welcome, built into seven acres of Maryland countryside, and open to anyone who finds the driveway.
Wellspring Manor and Spa: wellspringmanor.com | Instagram: @wellspringmanorandspa
Know a Caribbean-heritage founder building something significant outside the region? Tell us: hello@foundpreneur.co
Stephen Stanberry
