This is a collection of hotels and motels that are in one way or another, novelty driven. Either in concept, design, or signage, they’re meant to be eye-grabbing and attention-seeking. From giant cowboys to pirate-themed structures, nothing was too gaudy to grab customers’ attention.
They’re certainly a product of their time, where the need to stand out was ever necessary by offering a sense of “new” and “exotic”. True, the “exotic” appeal of these lodgings was manufactured, sometimes with almost cartoony degrees. But such is their curious charm.
We start with our lede postcard, the Stateline Hotel in Wendover, NV.
Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas, NV.
Kon Tiki Hotel, Phoenix, AZ.
El Mirador Hilton, Palm Springs, CA.
The Castaways Hotel, Miami Beach, FL.
Motel Dunes, Bend, OR.
Hotel Sun Dancer, Phoenix, AZ.
Thunderbird Hotel, Las Vegas, NV.
Motel Des Nations, Montreal, Canada.
When I was a kid our family stayed at the Kon Tiki in Phoenix. It was so exotic and fun. Unfortunately the interstate by-passed the street it was on and the entire area went downhill. The Kon Tiki became a rendezvous spot for unsavory activities. How did the hotel staff know? There were an unusual number of phone calls on certain room phones. Who could guess? Anyway, eventually the Kon Tiki was razed and it is now a parking lot for Enterprise Truck rentals. An ignominious end to a fun hotel.
Located in NW Indiana, a Holiday Inn was transformed into the Holiday Star Plaza , featuring the Hotel, a gym, pool, waterfall in the lobby, two bars and a dinner theater featuring guest performers. LIBERACE, Steve and Edie, Phyllis Diller. Big names willingly came to entertain. Entrepreneur Bill Welman created all this fro beginning with on small restaurant. As tastes changed and most featured entertainers retired or past, The Star fell swiftly. Èventually totally destroyed and turned into a multiple use site. Another great Entertainment venue, GONE With the Wind!
The Thunderbird Hotel: do I see a Tbird in the parking lot?
Yes, 57.
Opps… 55 T
All that “action a go go” is blocking your view..
The Wildwoods were home to a lot of motels that looked like these. The Crest was my “August home” for over a decade from the 1980s into the mid-90s.
In 2004 or thereabouts, a “Doo Wop preservation league” was established to protect remaining such motels and inns from being replaced by franken-condos that by the early 2000s were starting to infiltrate the area where the vintage motels congregated.
Pulling into the El Mirador Hilton in Palm Springs, probably a Austin Healey 100-6 or early 3000 with paint scheme you don’t see any more. Also a pink Willy’s Jeep Gala ready to take toursists out for a ride.
If you lived in Utah and you had missed the narrow window to purchase alcohol within that state – you could cross halfway through the Great Salt Lake Desert on I-80 to meet your party needs at Stateline. Stateline was open when the entire state of Utah was closed.
It took decades for Utah to accommodate alcohol purchases. When I worked there and we went to dinner, you had to leave the restaurant part of the building, and go into another room where it was licenced to sell you the wine for your dinner. You then had to leave that room with your purchase in a bag and reenter the restaurant. When you entered, you then handed your wine bottle to the restaurant staff so that they can serve it to you during dinner.
I know that this sounds ridiculous today, but before 1919, America was still on an alcoholic bender where local breweries and the Mob ran the bar/brothels/banks in your neighborhoods. Your corner bar was were you took your paycheck, cashed it, then spent it getting booze and VD. You were served what the local mob provided in the way of liquor, often unlabeled, and you had really no idea how that booze was manufactured.
When Prohibition passed, those same mobs controlling your local bar, had to find new ways to get booze. The mobs always existed, but Prohibition made them deadlier and more desperate. Afterwards, those corner bar/brothels were cleaned up, the states regulated alcohol, sales of alcohol and bar, distribution and manufacturing. That is why there were 50 different approaches to alcohol. Remember, those legislators needed their cut into this multi-million dollar business too, right?
Some dry states like Maine, Kansas and Utah kept alcohol under tight control all the way through the 20th century. Thanks to those laws, places like Stateline existed and flourished for many decades, providing party beverages to wayward Mormons and their Gentile friends.
I had a work trip that took me to Salt Lake City for a week, and recall there was some sort of law there against having bars or restaurants that served alcohol; however, alcohol sales were allowed at private clubs if you were a member. Club members were allowed to “sponsor” a limited number of guests – 5 or 6 if I recall correctly, that could enter the club for the night. This resulted in numerous establishments that looked to all the world like a bar or pub, but in fact were technically and legally private clubs. In their advertising as well as the front entrance, it was always noted that these places were not bars but rather “a private club for our members”. If you wanted to go out for a drink and you weren’t a member, you had to find a sponsor who didn’t already have the max number of guests to let you in, but they had some sort of arrangement I can’t recall the details of that made these transactions easy. I don’t think it involved paying someone to sponsor you. “A private club for our members” became a catchphrase for the group I travelled with for the remaining years I worked with them.
Some counties in Texas are still “dry” as in no hard alcohol sales. I had an uncle in El Paso and remember crossing the border into Juarez just to buy vodka. His “bar” was a private club where you had a locker for your bottles.
Had this happen to me in Dallas in the early eighties at a Benny Hana restaurant. Some one at the table had to buy a “membership” in order for anyone at the table to order drinks!!
A buddy of mine volunteered to get the “membership” just to get the meal started.
Kitsch, but fun kitsch. I wouldn`t mind staying at one if I could go back in time with an age appropriate car of course!
It may only be a matter of time before VR/AI makes it possible. I wouldn’t mind driving up to the Flamingo in that ’56 Firedome. 🙂
“The Castaways” Motel in Miami Beach was shown in “God’s Own Junkyard”, the 1964 book photo-documenting so-called “bad taste” and “ugliness” in American architecture. The building (which the author Peter Blake hated, along with many other similar creations) only lasted until 1984.
https://miami.curbed.com/2014/8/1/10068062/tktktk
The night shot (I’m sure it’s a “retouched pic”) looks quite enticing. Thinking a daylight pic might not be.
Wasn’t the “Motel Des Nations”, or something similar to it, featured in Diehard II (IIRC)?
It was another model, known as “Motel Oscar” closed in 2017 in the South Shore suburbs, now demolished.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/longueuil-motel-oscar-debris-1.7138561
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMykGMuhSek
Here a view from June 2021 before its demolition. https://maps.app.goo.gl/tyHiSP5qjD1PqUE87
ah Taschereau quel merveille , https://passerellescoop.ca/nouvelles/motel-oscar
For a “moniker” like “Motel des Nations”. looks mighty “common”.
The giant cowboy (Wendover Will) from the Stateline Motel is no longer at the site itself (which has been renamed and is now a much bigger casino), but it is still in Wendover – on Wendover Blvd. on the western approach into the town.
It’s famous enough that Wendover Will worked his way onto the official seal of the City of West Wendover:
It’s interesting to look at Wendover/West Wendover on Google Maps. The main street (I-80 Business Loop) runs east-west and there are two huge casinos, one north and one south of it, built right up to the Nevada line with their parking lots in Utah.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wendover,+UT+84083/@40.7352646,-114.0442344,921m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x80ac230a0f07825b:0x87c925ec43c6bf40!8m2!3d40.7371524!4d-114.0375102!16zL20vMDEwZ2p0?entry=ttu
Definitely an odd place.
There is one interesting non-gambling attraction in Wendover. Wendover Airfield was a WWII-era air force base that closed in the 1960s, and the original buildings are still standing and (due to the dry climate) still in good shape. The original buildings operate now as a museum. I had wanted to stop there last time I was traveling on that stretch of I-80, but didn’t have time to stop that day.
In the Flamingo photo there appears to be a water bag hanging off the hood ornament of the reddish car with the white roof. Hard to make out for sure though.
Las Vegas is a gold mine for this sort of architecture, but it was common all over the USA, as a way to attract a driver’s attention and get them to stop and eat or sleep there, as TV was non-existent from the 1920’s through the 1950’s, and radio advertising was still too expensive for these “Mom & Pop” operations. Vegas has numerous examples even today, but many of the older sites are long gone, victims of the “creative destruction” mentality so common in places like Las Vegas, LA or NYC. Perhaps the most famous of the Vegas destinations that is no more was the Sands hotel, home of Frank Sinatra’s “Rat Pack”, and performing home for “Ol’ Blue Eyes”, as he was a part owner of the Sands hotel.
Thanx to all who provided links.
-Nate