It’s 9 o’clock on a Saturday morning in Durham when the last pair of guests descends the mahogany staircase of Morehead Manor Bed and Breakfast, their steps sinking into the emerald-green carpet that matches the foyer walls. Morning light slips through the front door and catches the crystal chandelier, scattering flecks of brightness into the adjoining dining room, where light and the scent of breakfast mingle in the air.

As the couple settles at a table beneath enormous leaded-glass windows, Monica Edwards seems to materialize out of nowhere.

“Good morning!” she chirps, placing a carafe of fresh coffee on the sideboard. “How did you sleep?”

In the morning, guests descend the mahogany staircase to the dining room. photograph by Alex Boerner

They’re from Raleigh, lingering overnight after a show at the nearby Durham Performing Arts Center. Monica remembers to ask about that, too. They join another pair of guests, from Pittsburgh, in the cozy dining room. Monica serves zucchini-pecan waffles with fresh fruit — some with sausage, some without, because she knows each guest’s preferences and dietary restrictions. Her husband and co-owner, Daniel, appears in the dining room, and once the guests are settled into their meals, they pull out chairs to join the conversations.

Monica and Daniel prepared for this moment long before anyone else stirred. Their alarm went off at 6, in the quiet part of the day when the house still held its breath. They walked down to the main floor — across ornate rugs and past walls lined with art, ignoring comfortable furniture that beckoned them to sit. In the office off the living room, they reviewed the day’s arrivals and departures before moving to the kitchen to warm the waffle iron for the day’s first diners, who would take their seats at 7.

Daniel, who has a background in interior design, chose the home’s decor, including the dining room. photograph by Alex Boerner

For nearly 30 years, the Edwardses have welcomed travelers into their home, a bed and breakfast in the heart of Durham. Running the inn is constant work — cooking, cleaning, hosting events, tending the grounds, maintaining the 8,000-square-foot historic house — but the labor isn’t just physical. It’s emotional, too: making guests feel at home, serving as ambassadors to Durham, and, sometimes, carrying the weight of being the first Black family to host someone.

What sustains them is the community they’ve built — the strangers turned friends who return time after time, the connections that stretch long past breakfast.

• • •

It all started with a surprise.

In 1995, Monica had just been laid off from her job in accounting and human resources management at a biotech company when Daniel’s coworkers gifted the couple a night at a Durham bed and breakfast. Daniel didn’t tell his new bride. Instead, he blindfolded her and drove her around for an hour before finally stopping in a driveway, where she heard the crunch of gravel and the music of wind chimes.

“Then a door creaks open,” Monica remembers, “and a woman comes out and says, ‘Welcome to Virginia, Monica.’”

Daniel and Monica Edwards photograph by Alex Boerner

When Daniel untied the blindfold, she realized they were still in Durham — at the now-shuttered Blooming Garden Inn. Inside, lace curtains swayed in the windows, a canopy bed awaited, and a bucket of champagne chilled. Monica cried from the joy of it all.

She had a revelation the next morning: “This is the best thing since sliced bread! Ever since we’ve been together,” she told Daniel, “we’ve been hosting and entertaining other people in our home. We can do this and get paid!”

For a year, the couple visited inns whenever they could, studying what worked. Monica took a new job at Central Carolina Bank and Trust Company; Daniel continued to work as a police officer and did interior design as a hobby. They thought opening their own inn was decades away — a retirement dream.

But Daniel had noticed a stately 1910 mansion on the corner of Morehead and Vickers avenues. Built by a tobacco executive in one of Durham’s earliest neighborhoods, the painted-brick home featured a circular driveway, carriage house, and manicured hedges. It wasn’t for sale, but he wanted it to be their inn.

The Edwardses keep the butler’s pantry — featuring a vintage six-door icebox refrigerator — stocked with soda, water, and homemade sweet treats for guests. photograph by Alex Boerner

Later that year, it was. Daniel had started volunteering for a veteran interior designer, whom he asked to introduce him to the homeowners. When the aging owners heard of Monica and Daniel’s interest, they took the opportunity to downsize.

In 1997, the Edwardses opened Morehead Manor Bed and Breakfast, welcoming guests through its Federal-style doors. Inside, the home’s original fireplaces, heart pine floors, and six-door icebox refrigerator endure, blending old Southern formality with the warmth that the couple has added through rich colors, lively jazz music drifting through the first floor, and the feeling that anyone is welcome, any time.

• • •

Monica and Daniel live on the home’s third floor — a 1,200-square-foot space above the five guest suites — though it rarely feels separate.

“You’re always on,” Daniel says. “When our feet hit the floor, we need to be prepared and presentable, because you don’t know when you’re going to get back to your quarters.”

Monica shakes her head and smiles. “Even when we don’t have guests, if we come downstairs in our robes or whatever, inevitably, someone’s going to ring the doorbell.”

Running the inn has meant that their lives are often intertwined with those of their guests. One man from the West Coast stayed again and again while undergoing cancer treatments in Durham. When he died, the Edwardses grieved. “You can’t help but become connected and invested in the next human,” Daniel says.

Every Thursday night, the Edwardses play bocce with friends and family, like Bobby and Cherry Martin. Guests are always welcome to join. photograph by Alex Boerner

They learned that early on. Monica’s mother, known to guests as “Granny,” died just two years after the inn opened. Visitors who had come to love her sent cards and attended the funeral. The compassion they have for their guests is always returned to them.

Connections like these have carried the couple through almost three decades in an industry where innkeepers of color are still rare. When they opened, Monica says, there were fewer than 30 Black-owned inns in the nation; today, she believes that Morehead Manor is one of only three in North Carolina.

“In the early days,” Daniel recalls, “we had a white couple come. They were shocked. We could obviously see they were taken aback. ‘Yes, hi, I’m Black.’ When that happens, we just have to be professional and address the issues. … We’ve had some folks that just couldn’t stay.” He nods knowingly. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Instead of allowing those moments to weigh them down, they’ve come to see their work as bridge-building. “I feel as though we’re part of the world’s greatest social experiment,” Daniel continues. “And I always like surprising people, so it makes it fun for me.”

For the Edwardses, one of the most meaningful encounters was with a guest they call Mrs. Shepherd. In her 70s, she returned often from her home in New Jersey while visiting her brother-in-law. On her seventh stay, she stopped them in the foyer. “I must say to you: This has been enlightening for me,” she told them. She explained that she had never had Black friends, never shared intimacy across racial lines.

“She thanked us,” Daniel says, “and we were standing there snotting like 2-year-olds because it was powerful.”

“When you sit down and have conversations with people,” Monica adds, “you realize you have more in common than different.”

“We are Durham. We always refer to ourselves as ambassadors for the city.”

They welcome guests not only into their home and lives — but also to Durham itself, a city once characterized as rough and gritty, now steadily reinventing itself as a place for refined food and culture.

Monica grew up in Southern Pines; Daniel is from New Jersey. Yet after nearly three decades here, they pride themselves on showing guests another side of their chosen city.

“We are Durham,” Monica says. “We always refer to ourselves as ambassadors for the city. We are reflections of what Durham has to offer.”

As such, they also host public events, like wine tastings and a Jazz on the Lawn series. Once, an attendee of the latter told Daniel, “You made me fall in love with Durham all over again.”

• • •

The inn has remained a retirement plan for the Edwardses — just not in the way they’d imagined.

“Everything has to come to an end,” Daniel says matter-of-factly. In a few years, he and Monica will be in their mid-60s, and they plan to close the inn and turn the house into a “co-op” for family and friends.

“The Golden Girls knew what they were talking about. We’re social creatures — it actually extends your life,” Daniel says with a smile. “And if you fall, someone will find you before you’re dead.”

After the last of the breakfast dishes are cleared, the guests from Raleigh gather their bags to leave. Monica hugs them goodbye, and Daniel shakes their hands. They agree to keep in touch — the couple says they’ll likely return for another DPAC show, or for the wine tasting.

“One of the things we decided early on was that we would sit in the dining room with our guests and have conversation,” Monica says. Guests often choose to share tables with one another as they chat over zucchini-pecan waffles. photograph by Alex Boerner

Back in the dining room, Daniel sits and reflects: “Sometimes, you don’t know you’re going to connect with someone today. But when you do — oh, wow — those moments are amazing. … We get to live a life that many people can only imagine.”

But he can’t linger for long. There are rooms to be cleaned and laundry to be done and roses to be pruned and new guests to be greeted and the next breakfast to be planned. Monica has already disappeared.

By tomorrow morning, the scent of coffee and bacon will drift through the halls again, and the chandelier will catch the light once more — and Monica and Daniel will be up and ready, waiting to welcome the next guests.

Morehead Manor Bed and Breakfast
914 Vickers Avenue
Durham, NC 27701
(919) 687-4366
moreheadmanor.com