The Hecht Hotel was less than one block from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company Depot and was created by Isaac Hecht (1864-1913) in 1890 who had hired Eli S. Sentman, a well-known contractor from Cecil County, to build it for his family. Born in Philadelphia to Leibman Hecht and Hannah Simon Hecht, Isaac had previously run a wholesale liquor store (Isaac Hecht & Bros.) on Washington Street, “below the railroad” (south of Pennington Avenue). Beginning in 1894, guests stayed in this elegant and popular hotel and stored their horses and carriages in the livery that Isaac added behind the hotel. In June 1887, Isaac Hecht married Elizabeth “Lizzie” Weiss (1859-1928) and the couple had two children, Lee Isaac Hecht (1888-1957) and Lawrence W. Hecht (1899-1947), who grew up in this house. In 1900, Hecht’s Hotel was one of the first buildings in town to be wired for electricity.

Although by 1903 Isaac Hecht wanted to retire from the hotel business, bids for it were insufficient to him and it took until 1911 for him to sell the business (but not the property) to John C. Blizzard of Delaware. On May 24, 1913, people were shocked to learn that Isaac Hecht, by then President of the Havre de Grace Banking and Trust Company, had committed suicide in a garage of his taxi company; the coroner later ruled it to be due to temporary insanity (his health was said to have been “impaired for some time” before that). The Baltimore Sun reported that hundreds of people paid respect by witnessing his body being carried from the house and attending his funeral. Many friends, family members, and business associates served as active and honorary pallbearers as he was buried in Hebrew Friendship Cemetery in Baltimore.

In 1925, advertisements for the hotel and restaurant appeared locally showing John Theys as the proprietor. The Hotel is shown on the 1894 through 1921 Sanborn Insurance Maps; in 1921 the former livery is marked as a “Garage” on the Map; in 1930 the property is shown as “Vacant”; and the 1955 Map shows it as “Apartments.” The former livery/garage ran west to east behind the Green Street houses. When the widowed Elizabeth Weiss Hecht died in 1928, she owned numerous properties in the city, all of which were distributed to her two sons, Lee Isaac Hecht and Lawrence W. Hecht.

A lawyer, and interested in banking, Lee Isaac Hecht was elected President of the Havre de Grace Banking & Trust Company and served until 1956. He also practiced law throughout his career, served as City Attorney for several years, was a member of the Baltimore Hecht & Hecht firm, and also was a member of Baltimore’s Appeal Tax Court for 20 years. Lawrence Hecht also was a lawyer and served in 1941 as City Attorney for Havre de Grace. When his mother died, Lawrence inherited the Hecht Hotel building and in 1947 when he died unexpectedly in California, his wife, Florence Hecht, inherited it. The Jewish Museum of Maryland houses “The Straus-Hecht Family Collection,” containing objects, printed materials, and photographs of the family, some of which is restricted.

The widowed Florence Hecht married Judge Frederick Lee Cobourn (1885-1962) in 1950 and sold this property in 1962. Lawrence and Florence Hecht had a daughter, Elizabeth Hecht Goodman, who graduated from Havre de Grace High School in 1948 and lived in Baltimore in 2017. Elizabeth said in a letter in 2017 that she was the only remaining Hecht, her mother having died in 1982. She added, however, that Emanuel Hecht (1866-1951), a cousin of hers and brother of Isaac Hecht, had also lived on Green Street and owned and ran the Hecht Hardware store at 205-207 North Washington Street.

The owners of the old hotel for the next 40 years were William and Virginia V. Adams (1927-2015), for whom this was an investment property, as it was for Richard K. Schmidt beginning in 2004. The 2013 new owner of the former Hecht Hotel building, John Fillmore of Cape May Properties, LLC, spent about 18 months renovating the building and now rents apartments or rooms to numerous tenants.

County Records
Built 1900. 5,754 square feet, 5 baths, 2.5 stories with basement, 6,000 sq ft lot.