Two downtown institutions celebrate a century this fall.
written by christy perry tuohey
It’s 1925 in Morgantown. Great news! You’ve been invited to the grand opening gala of the Hotel Morgan, the event of the year. Your best evening wear needs some alterations, but you know what to do: You drive your Model T motorcar down to Pleasant Street and take your fancy duds to that new tailor, Massullo’s Tailoring.
After a century of serving everyone from partygoers to politicians, these two Morgantown institutions are alive and well and open for business.
Early in the Roaring Twenties, a group of northern West Virginia businessmen decided it was high time Morgantown had its own luxury hotel. When the Hotel Morgan opened in 1925, it boasted crystal ballroom chandeliers, red satin upholstered furniture, and 152 guest rooms.
Over the years, the hotel often accommodated famous guests. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt stayed there in the 1930s while overseeing the country’s first New Deal homestead community in nearby Arthurdale. Harry Truman visited the Hotel Morgan in the mid-1950s, shortly after his presidential term ended. Then-Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts made a 1960 presidential campaign stop at the hotel to give a speech on the future of coal-fueled electricity.
By the 1990s, the Hotel Morgan needed a makeover. Historic hotel rehabilitation expert R. Ted Brant stepped up and purchased the hotel in 1994 with his business partners. “They finished renovations in ’99,” says Brant’s son, Dr. Richard Brant, a pediatrician at WVU Medicine Children’s Hospital. “That’s when it reopened as a Choice Hotel under the Clarion flag.”
Brant was a medical student when his father suddenly passed away in June 2000. He suspended his residency training to oversee hotel operations and didn’t return to medicine until eight years later. He recalls some of the improvements made under his family’s ownership. The Montmartre Restaurant was moved from the hotel basement to a rooftop penthouse with scenic views. Pinnacle Club Banquets and Catering was also added as an events venue. “The renovation that was finished in ’99, the ballroom was just beautiful,” he says. “All of that original woodwork, and windows were opened back up. It was really a neat place to be.”
The Brants sold the hotel to the Thrash Group in 2019. A hundred years after its opening, it is now part of the Wyndham Hotel group.
Walk just three blocks up High Street from the hotel and you’ll arrive at Massullo’s Cleaners, where owner Linda Cerone manages the business her grandfather first opened on Pleasant Street. Domenico Massullo arrived in Morgantown after sailing from Italy in search of a new life in America. He opened his tailor shop in 1925, and Massullo’s has been managed by family members ever since.
The machine that built the business still sits in the dry-cleaning store’s basement. “We have my grandfather’s original sewing machine, a Singer,” Cerone says. She met her late husband, Tony Cerone, when they both worked at J. Biafora Menswear on High Street. He had emigrated to the U.S. from Abruzzo, the Italian region her grandfather was from. He didn’t speak English at first, so he relied on the elder Massullo for conversation. “He would come over and talk to my grandfather,” Cerone remembers, “and my grandfather always said, ‘He’s the guy for you, Linda, you should marry him.’” She eventually took Grandpa’s advice.
In time, Cerone’s father and uncle, Carl and Ralph Massullo, took over the tailoring business and added cleaning services. In the 1970s, Tony and Linda Cerone and Linda’s brother Carl Massullo Jr. bought Massullo’s, which had moved to its current location at 447 High Street.
Like the Hotel Morgan, Massullo’s has seen its fair share of famous faces come through the glass front doors. Local customer H. Jarvis “Jarvie” Eldred once brought in his lifelong friend, comedic legend and Morgantown native Don Knotts, who needed to have something mended. Recently retired Senator Joe Manchin would stop by back when he was governor. Former West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner has been a regular.
In 2012, both Tony Cerone and Carl Massullo Jr. passed away, and Linda Cerone has been the sole owner since then, working hard to live up to the legacy her family built. “My grandfather, my husband, they were great tailors. I mean, you couldn’t beat ’em.”
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