Davonne Reaves & Jessica Myers

In January 2021, Davonne Reaves and Jessica Myers closed their acquisition of a Hampton Inn in Greenville, South Carolina, becoming the first Black women to co-own a Hilton property in the United States. The timing was significant: they closed during a pandemic that had reduced hotel occupancy rates to historic lows and made acquisition financing more difficult to structure. They structured it anyway.

Davonne Reaves had a background in hospitality and hotel operations, working for years in hotel management before identifying ownership as the next step. Jessica Myers brought experience in finance and deal structuring. Together they built a partnership that could navigate both sides of the acquisition: the operational due diligence and the financing architecture. The deal required navigating the institutional barriers that commercial real estate places in front of all first-time acquirers — barriers that are structurally more difficult for Black women to overcome.

What Made It Possible

The acquisition was made possible in part by mission-driven capital — investors and lenders specifically oriented toward Black hospitality entrepreneurs and community development. Community Development Financial Institutions and mission-aligned equity partners exist specifically because the private market's structural exclusion of Black borrowers requires a parallel system designed to fill that gap. Reaves and Myers built the financing structure that worked within that alternative infrastructure.

Their story is one of a generation of Black women in hospitality ownership who are building the equivalent of the Valerie Daniels-Carter franchise model — not through a single brand, but through acquisition of existing properties. The barriers are similar: location steering, lending discrimination, brand approval hurdles, and the institutional skepticism that faces any first-time owner who does not fit the investor pattern model. Reaves and Myers moved through all of them.

The full details of their financing structure and any subsequent acquisitions are not documented in sources reviewed for this profile. This spotlight is based on publicly available coverage from January 2021.

Reaves and Myers closed their Hampton Inn acquisition in January 2021 — during the COVID-19 pandemic, when hotel occupancy rates were at historic lows and hotel acquisition financing was extremely difficult to structure. Lenders who would normally underwrite hotel acquisitions based on trailing revenue were looking at properties with near-zero occupancy. The structural constraint was that the pandemic had simultaneously created a buyer's market (lower prices) and eliminated the financing assumptions (trailing revenue) that made acquisitions possible in normal markets. Reaves and Myers structured a deal that worked under those conditions.

A second structural constraint: the commercial real estate and hospitality financing markets are built on relationship networks that have historically excluded Black women entrepreneurs. Building the financing relationships required for a hotel acquisition — lenders, franchise approvals, equity partners — required navigating networks that were not built around their participation.

Reaves and Myers became the first Black women to co-own a Hilton-branded property in the United States, with their Hampton Inn in Greenville, South Carolina, closing in January 2021. Coverage from the initial announcement (Black Enterprise, Essence, Business Insider, NBC News) documented the milestone. Their subsequent business activities and portfolio expansion, if any, have not been documented in sources reviewed for this platform as of this writing. This profile presents the documented 2021 achievement.