Ms. Elsie’s Caribbean Bed & Breakfast Website

This September 6, 2007 screenshot shows the official website for Ms. Elsie’s Caribbean Bed & Breakfast, located at 334 N. Sharon Amity Road in Charlotte, North Carolina. The business is owned by Cheryl Watkins, granddaughter of Ms. Elsie, and promotes itself as a Caribbean-inspired retreat in Southeast Charlotte. The site highlights offerings such as a private getaway, Caribbean breakfast, and a non-smoking environment.

The website uses ocean imagery, tropical graphics, soft blue tones, and a simple left-hand navigation menu to visually reinforce its Caribbean identity. The layout is straightforward and static, with centered text blocks, small photo galleries, and clearly listed contact information. It reflects how small hospitality businesses in the mid-2000s treated websites primarily as informational brochures rather than interactive booking platforms.

From a graphic design history perspective, this site represents an early phase of small business web design. It shows how regional businesses adapted basic HTML layouts, decorative imagery, and simple navigation structures to communicate brand identity online. The design relies heavily on visual symbolism, such as palm trees and sunsets, to establish mood and place. As a digital artifact, it contributes to the history of graphic design by documenting how local businesses participated in the early internet era, using limited technical tools to translate physical spaces and cultural identity into web form.

This archived website was found using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine