Motel
A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionaries after World War II, the word motel, coined as a portmanteau of "motor hotel", originates from the defunct lodging compound establishment, Milestone Mo-Tel in San Luis Obispo, California, which was built in 1925. The term motel referred to a type of hotel consisting of a single building of connected rooms whose doors faced a parking lot and in some circumstances, a common area or a series of small cabins with common parking. Motels are often individually owned, though motel chains do exist.
As large highway systems began to be developed in the 1920s, long-distance road journeys became more common, and the need for inexpensive, easily accessible overnight accommodation sites close to the main routes led to the growth of the motel concept. Motels peaked in popularity in the 1960s with rising car travel, only to decline in response to competition from the newer chain hotels that became commonplace at highway interchanges as traffic was bypassed onto newly constructed freeways. Several historic motels are listed on the US National Register of Historic Places.
Architecture
Motels differ from hotels in their location along highways, as opposed to the urban cores favored by hotels, and their orientation to the outside. Motels almost by definition include a parking lot, while older hotels were not usually built with automobile parking in mind.Because of their low-rise construction, the number of rooms which would fit on any given amount of land was low compared to the high-rise urban hotels which had grown around train stations. This was not an issue in an era where the major highways became the main street in every town along the way and inexpensive land at the edge of town could be developed with motels, car dealerships, fuel stations, lumber yards, amusement parks, roadside diners, drive-in restaurants, theaters, and countless other small roadside businesses. The automobile brought mobility and the motel could appear anywhere on the vast network of two-lane highways.
Layout
Motels are typically constructed in an I-, L-, or U-shaped layout that includes guest rooms; an attached manager's office; a small reception; and in some cases, a small diner and a swimming pool. A motel was typically single-story with rooms opening directly onto a parking lot, making it easy to unload suitcases from a vehicle. A second story, if present, would face onto a balcony served by multiple stairwells.The post-war motels, especially in the early 1950s to late 1960s, sought more visual distinction, often featuring eye-catching colorful neon signs which employed themes from popular culture, ranging from Western imagery of cowboys and Indians to contemporary images of spaceships and atomic era iconography. U.S. Route 66 is the most popular example of the "neon era". Many of these signs remain in use to this day.
Room types
In some motels, a handful of rooms would be larger and contain kitchenettes or apartment-like amenities; these rooms were marketed at a higher price as "efficiencies" as their occupants could prepare food themselves instead of incurring the cost of eating all meals in restaurants. Rooms with connecting doors also commonly appeared in both hotels and motels. A few motels would offer "honeymoon suites" with extra amenities such as whirlpool baths.History
The first campgrounds for automobile tourists were constructed in the late 1910s. Before that, tourists who couldn't afford to stay in a hotel either slept in their cars or pitched their tents in fields alongside the road. These were called auto camps. The modern campgrounds of the 1920s and 1930s provided running water, picnic grounds, and restroom facilities.Auto camps and courts
Auto camps predated motels by a few years, established in the 1920s as primitive municipal camp sites where travelers pitched their own tents. As demand increased, for-profit commercial camps gradually displaced public campgrounds.Until the first travel trailers became available in the 1930s, auto tourists adapted their cars by adding beds, makeshift kitchens and roof decks. The next step up from the travel trailer was the cabin camp, a primitive but permanent group of structures. During the Great Depression, landholders whose property fronted onto highways built cabins to convert unprofitable land to income; some opened tourist homes. The buildings for a roadside motel or cabin court were quick and simple to construct, with plans and instructions readily available in how-to and builder's magazines.
Expansion of highway networks largely continued unabated through the depression as governments attempted to create employment, but the roadside cabin camps were primitive, basically just auto camps with small cabins instead of tents.
The 1935 City Directory for San Diego, California, lists "motel"-type accommodations under tourist camps. One initially could stay in the Depression-era cabin camps for less than a dollar per night, but small comforts were few and far between.
Travelers in search of modern amenities soon would find them at cottage courts and tourist courts. The price was higher, but the cabins had electricity, indoor bathrooms, and occasionally a private garage or carport. They were arranged in attractive clusters or a U-shape. Often, these camps were part of a larger complex containing a filling station, a café, and sometimes a convenience store. Facilities like the Rising Sun Auto Camp in Glacier National Park and Blue Bonnet Court in Texas were "mom-and-pop" facilities on the outskirts of towns that were as quirky as their owners. Auto camps continued in popularity through the Depression years and after World War II, their popularity finally starting to diminish with increasing land costs and changes in consumer demands.
In contrast, though they remained small independent operations, motels quickly adopted a more homogenized appearance and were designed from the start to cater purely to motorists.
Tourist homes
In town, tourist homes were private residences advertising rooms for auto travelers. Unlike boarding houses, guests at tourist homes were usually just passing through. In the southwestern United States, a handful of tourist homes were opened by African Americans as early as the Great Depression due to the lack of food or lodging for travelers of color in the Jim Crow conditions of the era.The Negro Motorist Green Book listed lodgings, restaurants, fuel stations, liquor stores, and barber and beauty salons without racial restrictions; the smaller Directory of Negro Hotels and Guest Houses in the United States specialized in accommodations. Segregation of U.S. tourist accommodation would legally be ended by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and by a court ruling in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States affirming that Congress' powers over interstate commerce extend to regulation of local incidents which might substantially and harmfully affect that commerce.
Early motels
The term "motel" originated from a lodging establishment called "Milestone Mo-Tel" in San Luis Obispo, California, which was constructed in 1925 by Arthur Heineman. In conceiving of a name for his hotel, Heineman combined the two words motor hotel into one word as mo-tel, after he found that he could not fit the words "Milestone Motor Hotel" on the rooftop. Therefore, the word "motel" and literally the first motel was born. Many other similar businesses followed in its footsteps and started building their own auto camps, as well as calling themselves "motels". Later, as a result of failing to obtain a registered trademark for the word "Mo-Tel" or "motel", Milestone Mo-Tel was renamed simply as "Motel Inn".Combining the individual cabins of the tourist court under a single roof yielded the motor court or motor hotel. A handful of motor courts were beginning to call themselves motels, a term coined in 1926. Many of these early motels are still popular and are in operation, as in the case of the 3V Tourist Court in St. Francisville, Louisiana, built in 1938.
During the Great Depression, those still traveling were under pressure to manage travel costs by driving instead of taking trains and staying in the new roadside motels and courts instead of more costly established downtown hotels where bell captains, porters, and other personnel would all expect a tip for service.
In the 1940s, most construction ground to a near-halt as workers, fuel, rubber, and transport were pulled away from civilian use for the war effort. What little construction did take place was typically near military bases where every habitable cabin was pressed into service to house soldiers and their families.
The post-war 1950s ushered in a building boom on a massive scale. By 1947, approximately 22,000 motor courts were in operation in the U.S. alone; a typical 50-room motel in that era cost $3000 per room in initial construction costs, compared to $12,000 per room for metropolitan city hotel construction. By 1950 there were 50,000 motels serving half of the 22 million U.S. vacationers; a year later motels surpassed hotels in consumer demand. The industry peaked in 1964 with 61,000 properties and fell to 16,000 properties by 2012.
Many motels began advertising on colorful neon signs that they had "air cooling" during the hot summers or were "heated by steam" during the cold winters. A handful used novelty architecture such as wigwams or teepees.
Expansion
The 1950s and 1960s was the pinnacle of the motel industry in the United States and Canada. As older mom-and-pop motor hotels began adding newer amenities such as swimming pools or color TV, motels were built in wild and impressive designs. In-room gimmicks such as the coin-operated Magic Fingers vibrating bed were briefly popular; introduced in 1958, these were largely removed in the 1970s due to vandalism of the coin boxes. The American Hotel Association became the American Hotel & Motel Association in 1963.As many motels vied for their place on busy highways, the beach-front motel instantly became a success. In major beach-front cities such as Jacksonville, Florida, Miami, Florida, and Ocean City, Maryland, rows of colorful motels such as the Castaways, in all shapes and sizes, became commonplace.