Huma House: Where Curiosity Finds Community

The Idea

Not a collection of businesses. One integrated community.

Most retail asks you to buy and leave. Huma House is built the opposite way, as a place to sip, learn, shop, work, and gather in a single, flowing experience.

The tea house draws people in and gives them a reason to stay. The lab teaches them what's actually in the products they use. The retail floor turns that knowledge into discovery. The suites turn discovery into service. And the community commons turns customers into neighbors. Each part increases the value of the others.

The result is a destination with daily foot traffic, recurring reasons to return, and a mission that reaches far beyond any single transaction.

The Huma House Loop

How curiosity turns into community, and everything ties together.

Discover→ Sip→ Learn→ Shop→ Gather→ Belong

From the tea wall to the lab bench. The same botanicals steeped in the tea house show up in the formulation lab: chamomile, hibiscus, rosemary. A cup of tea becomes a lesson in ingredients.

From the shelf to the chair. Learn your scalp and skin on the retail floor, then walk into a suite and have a professional put that knowledge to work.

From a visit to a network. A panel in the commons introduces you to the founder working two tables over in the coworking space. The loop compounds.

What's Inside

Five experiences, designed to work as one

Each space stands on its own, and strengthens every other. Together they form the complete Huma House.

Huma Café · Tea House

The Gathering Anchor

A street-facing botanical tea house with custom herbal blends, coffee, and light food. It sets the daily rhythm, and its herb wall doubles as a living ingredient library: the same botanicals you sip are the ones you'll formulate with in the lab.

Huma Labs

The Core Differentiator

Hands-on cosmetic formulation workshops, beauty-science classes, ingredient literacy, and youth STEM sessions, where a curiosity about what's in your products becomes real skills. The experience no online store can copy, and the heart of the mission.

Huma Supply

The Retail Engine

Specialty beauty and science-forward retail: curated products, PPE, tools, formulation kits, and local brands. Plus a different kind of experience: learn about your own scalp and skin right on the retail floor, the kind of education a typical beauty supply store never offers.

Huma Suites

The Service Layer

Small service rooms and stations for beauty professionals, consultations, and portfolio-building. Recurring service income tied directly to retail and education, and a pathway for rising talent, including future partnerships with Baltimore cosmetology students.

The Community Commons

The Mission Multiplier

An open, flexible heart of the house: coworking by day, panels, networking, discussions, celebrations, and community programming by night. This is where GeniuSiS programming comes to life, financial literacy workshops for kids, gatherings that celebrate Black women in STEM, and shows featuring local Baltimore artists. It's where Huma House pours back into people, and it's what turns a business into a neighborhood institution.

The Experience

A day at Huma House

One space that changes with the hour, giving every kind of visitor a reason to walk in.

Morning

Sip & settle in

The tea house opens to neighborhood regulars and early shoppers. Botanical blends, coffee, and light food set the daily rhythm while the commons fills with remote workers and founders.

Midday

Shop & be served

The retail floor hums with discovery, scalp and skin education included. Professionals see clients in the suites. The tea house keeps people lingering, cross-shopping, and coming back.

Evening

Learn & gather

Formulation workshops fire up in the lab. Panels, networking nights, discussions, and celebrations fill the commons, turning curiosity into skills and visitors into a community.

Mission & Impact

Built to strengthen a neighborhood, not just serve it

Huma House is designed as an engine for education, entrepreneurship, and economic opportunity in Baltimore, and a model that can travel.

5

Integrated experiences under one roof at opening

STEM

Beauty-science & workforce exposure for youth & adults

100%

Walk Score in Federal Hill, a true public destination

1st

Flagship of a replicable national model

Education & STEM access

Cosmetic formulation and beauty-science workshops make hands-on STEM tangible and welcoming: ingredient literacy, scalp and skin science, and career pathways that start with curiosity.

Student & workforce pathways

Huma House is pursuing partnerships with Baltimore public school cosmetology programs, giving students real retail, service, and science experience inside a working business.

Economic activation

Daily tea house and retail traffic, evening programming, and events bring sustained foot traffic and vibrancy to a historic Federal Hill landmark, supporting neighboring businesses too.

Access & belonging

An inclusive, welcoming environment for beauty consumers, students, creators, and residents. A genuine "third place" designed around dignity and discovery.

GeniuSiS programming

Home base for GeniuSiS events: financial literacy workshops for kids, gatherings that celebrate and connect Black women in STEM, and shows featuring local Baltimore artists.

Community partnerships

School, youth, and institutional partnerships extend Huma House beyond its walls, aligning the concept with civic priorities and non-dilutive program funding.

The Place

A landmark worthy of the idea

Huma House is planned for 37 W Cross Street, the historic Union Brothers Building in Baltimore's Federal Hill: a restored early-20th-century industrial landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Once home to the Union Brothers Furniture Company, the building's exposed brick, oversized historic canopy windows, and authentic industrial character give Huma House exactly the warmth and craft its brand is built on. Luxury that comes from intention, not extravagance.

Set one block from the newly renovated Cross Street Market and steps from the Inner Harbor, it sits inside one of Baltimore's most walkable, most-visited neighborhoods: the ideal stage for a public-facing community hub.

Union Bros. Furniture Co., 1919 to 1972 · Restored 2019

The Union Brothers Building

Address37 W Cross Street, Baltimore, MD 21230
NeighborhoodFederal Hill, Baltimore, MD
SettingOne block from Cross Street Market; steps from the Inner Harbor
CharacterHistoric exposed brick, canopy windows, industrial craft
RecognitionNational Register of Historic Places (2018)
Walkability100 / 100 Walk Score, a true public destination

Paris McKenzie · Founder

Paris McKenzie holding an anatomical brain model, reflecting her neurotechnology manufacturing background

R&D & neurotechnology manufacturing

Accepting an entrepreneurship award

The Founder

Paris McKenzie

Founder & Visionary

Paris McKenzie is a Baltimore-based entrepreneur, medtech manufacturing professional and R&D contributor, community builder, and STEM advocate whose work sits at the intersection of healthcare innovation, manufacturing, entrepreneurship, beauty, education, and economic development.

Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in a Jamaican family, Paris opened her first beauty supply store at sixteen. She became the youngest person ever to do so, and the story reached a national audience, plus her Entrepreneurship Award pictured above. She later returned to teach an economics class at her own alma mater, the High School for Health Professions and Human Services, passing that same drive on to the next group of students.

As Seen In

Tamron Hall ShowBlack EnterpriseNBCNew York PostNike

At seventeen, Paris moved to Maryland on her own and went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Interdisciplinary Health and Human Science from Morgan State University, an HBCU, in 2025. Today she works at Longevity Neuro Solutions, a Baltimore-based neurotechnology company specializing in cranial implants, with hands-on experience across medical device manufacturing, biotechnology support, quality-focused production, process improvement, sterile packaging, and custom implant production, all while contributing to research and development.

She is also a co-founder of GeniuSiS, a DMV-based collective for Black women in STEM, through which she helps host events on financial literacy for kids, gatherings that celebrate Black women in STEM, and showcases of local Baltimore artists, work that will live inside the Huma House Community Commons.

This founder-market fit is the point. Huma House isn't a generic multi-use space. It's built from lived experience across beauty retail, hands-on service, regulated scientific manufacturing, teaching, and years of showing up for schools and community programs she remains passionate about. That same hands-on ownership continues today across a family-run portfolio of three storefronts in Brooklyn, detailed below.

Founder, Paris Beauty Supplyz, age 16 B.S., Morgan State University '25 Longevity Neuro Solutions Co-Founder, GeniuSiS

"Curiosity is where everything starts. Huma House is where it finds a community to grow in."

The Track Record

Not Paris's first venture. The next chapter of a family's.

Before Huma House, there's a family-run portfolio already operating three storefronts on the same block in Brooklyn: real revenue, real customers, and real experience across retail, beauty services, and commercial real estate.

The Original Venture

Paris Beauty Supplyz

3205 Church Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11226. The specialty beauty retailer Paris opened at sixteen, becoming the youngest person ever to own a beauty supply store, and the same brand later featured nationally.

Family-Run

Paris Hair Studio

3203 Church Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11226. A full-service hair salon anchoring the block. Paris grew up working here alongside her mother, starting as a young girl and eventually learning to color hair and install wigs herself.

Commercial Real Estate

Paris Runway Boutique

3124 Church Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11226. A three-floor commercial building and fashion boutique that extends the family's footprint with suite and office rentals: hands-on experience in exactly the kind of flexible commercial space Huma House is built around.

Combined, the family's three Church Avenue storefronts generate an estimated $40,000 to $62,000 in monthly revenue, based on average performance across the three locations. Paris runs this alongside her mother and brother, with operating access across all three businesses.

"The same instincts that run three storefronts in Brooklyn are building Huma House in Baltimore."

The Roadmap

A complete concept, launched in phases

Huma House opens as a full experience, then deepens its programming and scales into a national model.

01

Phase One

Core Launch

The botanical tea house, cosmetic formulation lab, specialty retail floor, beauty suites, and the community commons: coworking, panels, networking, and events. The full identity from day one.

02

Phase Two

Program Growth

Baltimore school and cosmetology partnerships, recurring workshop series, vendor activations, GeniuSiS programming, memberships, sponsored events, and expanded creative studio capability.

03

Phase Three

Platform Scale

Expanded curriculum, institutional contracts, mobile workshops, and replication of the Huma House model in new markets across the country.

Partner With Us

Join us in building it

Huma House is actively assembling the partners, capital, and programs to open its Federal Hill flagship. There is a role here for everyone who believes in the idea.

Investors

A diversified, multi-revenue community hub with a defensible concept, an experienced founder, and a flagship-to-franchise vision. Full business plan and financial model available on request.

Request the investor package →

Grantmakers & Institutions

A mission-aligned engine for STEM access, workforce development, entrepreneurship, and economic activation, ready for program partnerships and non-dilutive funding.

Explore a partnership →

Community & Brands

Schools, collectives, local brands, and beauty professionals looking for space, programming, and a platform to grow alongside a neighborhood destination.

Start a conversation →

Contact

Let's build where curiosity lives

Whether you're an investor, a grantmaker, a partner, or a neighbor who wants to be part of it, we'd love to hear from you.

Email us at hello@humahouse.com

37 W Cross Street · Federal Hill, Baltimore, MD 21230

Online at humahouse.com

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Where curiosity finds community.