Text by Patrick Bell.
On this first Sunday of March, we are going to travel around and view some hotels, motels and cars. This gallery is different than our usual hotel/motel fare as these are miscellaneous photographs, not the glamorized postcards. The photos are mainly from the fifties and sixties with a few extras as well. Come ride along as we take a look at these old establishments from another viewpoint.
Our first stop is at the Park Lane Motel in Spokane Valley, Washington, which is still in operation with an added RV park. It is located on the old Highway 10, now known as I-90 Business. It is a fairly typical design for the era, with individual cabins and in this case they are linked by garages. From the left a green ’60 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan possibly from California, light blue ’58 or ’59 Lincoln or Continental, white over light blue ’53 Chevrolet Bel Air 4 door sedan, and a V8 powered ’55 Chevrolet Bel Air Sport Coupe.
There is not much to go on for location in this image. The design from this angle looks like there are more garages than rooms, but I am sure that is an illusion. On the left side in the background is a ’49 Chevrolet Styleline, and on the right side are two Buicks, the one in the foreground is a ’46 or ’47 Super or Roadmaster 4 door sedan, and a ’49 Super 4 door sedan from California with some bumper stickers.
Another typical roadside motel, this one with no garages. Nobody is in or around the pool presumably because of the recent rain shower. In the foreground from the left a ’55 Ford Fairlane Town Sedan, ’56 Cadillac Series Sixty-Two Coupe de Ville, and a ’54 Oldsmobile Super 88 2 door sedan.
In the center row foreground a coral over white ’56 Ford Fairlane Victoria, white over coral ’54 Pontiac Star Chief Custom Catalina, black ’51 Lincoln Coupe, white over grey ’55 or ’56 Buick 4 door Riviera, and a two tone green ’55 Dodge.
It is not too hard to figure out a location on this one. The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles was completed in ’55, probably not too long before this photo was taken. Pastel colors were certainly in vogue as seen on the balconies as well as the cars. On the right side is a ’55 Ford Country Sedan, through it, I see a ’55 Studebaker, and then the roof of another ’55 Country Sedan.
On the left side a white over blue ’55 Chevrolet wagon, directly behind it is a grey ’55 Buick Special or Century 4 door sedan, to the right a white ’54 Lincoln Capri Special Sport Coupe, ’55-’57 Volkswagen Type 1, blue over white ’55 Oldsmobile 88 or Super 88 4 door sedan, and a ’50 Cadillac Series Sixty-Two convertible.
Here we have a tropical location with a golf cart under the awning and a train for the young at heart. Parked in front is a ’57 Dodge Coronet 4 door sedan with possibly a Texas license plate.
The Holiday Motel complete with Heated Pool, Air Conditioning, TV and Phones. The flowers have bloomed and there is a tall antenna in the background. The manhole cover says ‘Detroit Edison Co.’ so this is probably located in Michigan.
From the left a ’62 Oldsmobile F-85 Deluxe 4 door sedan, ’60 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Celebrity Sedan, the first of three ’59 Fords, a Fairlane 500 Galaxie Town Victoria, ’62 Pontiac Bonneville Vista, ’59 Ford #2, a Fairlane 500 Town Sedan, and on the right edge ’59 Ford #3.
This is the Holiday Inn in Durham, North Carolina. It was built in ’59 and demolished in 2013 to make room for an apartment building. The deck chairs are empty and I see only one person using the pool. Front and center is a lady loading or unloading a ’59 Ford Fairlane 500 Galaxie Skyliner, the retractable hardtop model. It has a Maryland license plate used in ’61 and early ’62 so they are far from home. The trim panel on the quarter panel behind the wheel is missing and the bumper is damaged. To the left is a ’58 Cadillac sedan.
Now we are at the Starfire Motel in Wildwood, New Jersey, across the road from the beach and it is still in operation. It was not too busy of a day with only one person out. From the far left a ’61 or ’62 Buick Electra 225 4 door sedan, ’57 Chevrolet Bel Air Sport Coupe, and a ’60 Chevrolet Biscayne 2 door sedan.
It is a cool morning in the early fall at this basic and likely inexpensive roadside motel. The ’59 Chevrolet Impala Sport Sedan is warming and the gentleman may be scraping the frost off the back glass. It is equipped with a continental kit and an accessory fake exhaust port on the quarter panel. It is unusual to see a continental kit on a four door. On the other side of it is a ’59 Chrysler New Yorker 4 door sedan that is also idling, blue over white ’55 or ’56 Ford Club Sedan, tan over gold ’57 Pontiac, and down one you can see the fins of a ’57 or ’58 Dodge.
Apparently this was a common motel design at least in Tennessee as I have found two examples sharing the ceiling height windows and balcony railing. One is the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. The building is still there but has been converted to a museum. The other is Helton Inn (yes, that is the correct spelling) in White Pine, Tennessee, which as far as I can tell in a short amount of research time no longer exists.
Either way this photo was taken before Dr. King’s assassination by a year or two. They were apparently working on the parking lot and either had a recent heavy rain or a serious water leak. On the left a ’65 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Sport Coupe with possibly a ’66 Utah license plate, ’66 Buick Electra 225 4 door hardtop with a ’66 Tennessee plate, and a ’66 Dodge Monaco 4 door sedan or hardtop with possibly a ’66 Florida plate.
Here we have a similar design using the same style windows and railing. The difference is this one has no staircase on this side of the building. In the foreground a ’66 Ford Fairlane 500/XL Hardtop. In the background left a ’59 Lincoln, ’66 Buick Electra 225 4 door hardtop, ’63 Chrysler, and a yellow ’66 Plymouth Fury III.
We are now in Ontario at the Park Motor Hotel in Niagara Falls. As far as I can tell it no longer exists. On the far left a ’75-’78 Mercury full size, in the upper level all I can ID is a ’71-’84 Chevrolet or GMC van, and to the far right on the lower level may be a ’72 Buick Electra 225 Sport Coupe.
My best guess is that this is somewhere in Texas in the late sixties. The newest car is a ’67 model, and Texas license plates were white in the odd years of that decade. The room prices on the sign most likely are weekly, and there is quite a variety of vehicles in this block.
On the far left a ’59 Ford, and in the driving lane heading away a blue ’51-’53 Oldsmobile 88. Against the right hand curb starting in the foreground a ’65 Buick LeSabre 4 door sedan, ’66 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 Cutlass Holiday Coupe, ’67 Chevrolet Bel Air 4 door sedan, ’57 Dodge 4 door sedan, perhaps a ’55-’58 Simca Aronde, and a black over yellow ’66 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe.
In the parking areas along the right side beginning in the foreground an ambulance/hearse bodied ’55 Oldsmobile, red ’55-’59 MGA Mark I, blue ’61-’64 Chevrolet Corvair 500 Club Coupe, green Volkswagen Type 1, white ’61-’63 Ford F-100 with an integral Styleside short bed, white over light blue ’62 Pontiac Tempest convertible, two red Volkswagen Type 1’s, and further down a dark over light green ’55 Plymouth 4 door sedan.
Thanks for riding along and enjoy your Sunday!
Love it! This so brings back some memories for me.
Are some of you old enough to remember paper bands wrapped around the toilet seat lid and seat? It was 1950’s style. The paper band would typically say “This toilet seat has been sanitized for your convenience.” Attached is the Days Inn at 155 Meeting Street in Charleston, SC. My wife and I stayed here for a few days in 2015 and enjoyed it. It is a 1950’s hotel with small rooms into which are now crammed queen-sized beds and updated amenities, such as coffee maker. Enter, and you see the bed on one side, the dresser on the other, the bathroom with open washbasin area dead ahead. I regretted that we were not traveling in a 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser Dour-Door Hardtop.
That was the standard motel-room layout I remember. Occasionally the bathroom was at the front of the room instead of the back, creating a small corridor when you walk in.
Those paper “sanitized for your protection” wrappers were still occasionally seen when I travelled frequently for work in the late ’90s.
A genuine challenge to make modest motels appear elegant, and somewhere you’d want to stay. Even, if for one night. With the close proximity to rooms, of often loud cars, coming and going day and night. It didn’t appeal to me as a kid, on family trips.
Before the mid 80’s, Southeastern Ontario was a very popular destination for wealthy American tourists. The kind that drove the latest Lincolns and Caddys. But they had their own summer homes here. It was their occasional guests and families, that would overflow into the motels.These people often driving, slightly less premium domestic luxury cars and wagons. Custom Cruisers, and Town and Countrys, often having US plates.
Wish I could post photos of Beverly Terraces in LA and Travelodge in SFO. Wonderful memories 💖 Beverly Terraces, I understand is still there, but even in 77 parking spaces were limited.
Motels move with the times or become homeless shelters. 2 or thee of the motels in Bend Oregon are homeless shelters, one or tw o have heavily modernized with bicycle rentals and other amenities and the rest get by. The little old motel we stayed in in Walla Walla had a bicycle room and a basket of phone chargers at the font desk. The parking lot was uninteresting with the usual modern pickups, grayscale cars and Subaru wagons.
It’s hard to choose the best photo.
They’re all beautiful.
Growing up in the ’70s I have fond memories of Holiday Inn and such in our yearly trips from Canada to Florida in our ’74 New Yorker. Having dinner in the restaurant associated with the hotel and if time/ weather allowed a dip in the pool. I think those trips at an early age got me hooked on cars. I even had a Holiday Inn sign I could use with the Matchbox cars. Good times! Thanks for posting as always!
Never had that one. Soo cool though!
The sleek, blue “60 Ford” ((lead pic)) looks so “modern”, next to cars just a few years old.
The pic of the “curiously smoking, Chevy” is a bit worrisome.
All the pics are a nice walk through nostalgia though.
The nearest rooms at the Beverly Hilton must have been suites, as it’s a long way to the first colorful divider. Love the way the two palm trees are attached to the building. They might as well have used fakes.
Going to high school every weekday, the city bus stop was directly across the street from the Beverly Hilton parking lot and had the view like that picture. I was there from 68 through 72. Across the parking lot was the Robinson’s department store. My mother worked there in the glove department before I was born in 1954.
When I was growing up in the ’70s we went on an annual trip from the DC area to Montreal, and usually stayed at motels of this sort. My parents carried along an AAA TourBook so they’d know which ones were nice. Although there were a few chains like Holiday Inn, Quality Inn, or Howard Johnson’s, the vast majority were one-offs we’d never heard of. Nothing like today where huge chains like Hilton and Marriott operate most hotels, each with about 12 sub-brands. The motels were mostly built in the ’50s and ’60s but were still fairly clean. Starting in the ’80s the images of motels really sunk; the drive-up-to-your-room arrangement was a security nightmare.
The photo I found of the Helton Inn (how did that name not result in a trademark-infringement lawsuit?) from at apparently the late ’70s has through-the-wall air conditioning units for each room not seen in the above photo with the flooded parking lot, so either it’s a different motel or the A/C units were added later. The Lorraine did have the A/C units in photos from 1968. I wonder if this same basic motel design was dropped in numerous locations.
Struck by the complete absence of imported cars save for that one oval-window Beetle.
Park Motor Hotel became a Comfort Inn, closing in 2015, demolished and replaced by entertainment complex.
Anybody ever stay at the Galloway Motel in Oneida TN in the 80s-90s?
Great tour, love the locales and neat cars from our past… funny to see the Mga with p!article draped over it..