Winter time is upon us, and likely, many are longing for the days of summer and warm temperatures. To attend such longings, let’s revisit this updated gallery of motels, pools, and cars of yesteryear. So, here’s a series of images showcasing the old style idea of travel, pool time in nice weather, and the family car, a convenient short distance away. What else would anyone ever need?
We begin this tour of idealized traveling with the image above, at the Hillcrest Motel, in Oakland, CA.
Laurelwood Motel, Gatlinburg, TN.
Royal Palms Motel, Augusta, GA.
Camellia Motel, Columbus, GA.
The Heart Of Columbia, Columbia, SC.
Provo Travelodge, UT.
Va-Capri Motel, Vacaville, CA.
Fairlane Inn, Dearborn, MI.
Holiday House Motel, Houston, TX.
Villager Motel, Perry, GA.
Birchwood Motel, Chincoteague, VA.
Snook Motel, Sanibel Island, FL.
I was curious about the Hillcrest Motel in Oakland, the city of my birth so I found its address and looked at Google Street View. The location now seems to be a new multi-story apartment building, and the streetscape includes quite a few cars which may show up on CC in 50 or 60 years: a Rivian, a Polestar, and a Maverick pickup. All are of course shades of white, gray and silver. No bright colors and no tail fins in 2025.
From what I can tell, the Hillcrest developed an awful reputation as a den for all sorts of illegal activity. Bad enough that the City of Oakland sued the owners several times under Public Nuisance laws (and it probably takes a lot of bad stuff for Oakland to pursue that kind of action). Eventually, the City prevailed in a court case and the owners closed the place down. It was demolished in 2003.
Maybe that’s why the two FBI agents are surveillance the ladies at the pool.
Oh boy. Let’s dodge the cars in the asphalt road/parking area as we stroll over to the unshaded concrete pool surround. That’s living!
Or actually it was living in the 50s thru even the 70s. We’ve certainly become more accustomed to more luxurious amenities since then.
Here in Oregon we got wise by the 70s, two inexpensive places we stay have indoor pools with decor suggesting the 70s. The Black Bear in Salem is right by I-5 so the enclosed pool addresses both highway noise and western Oregon rain. The Eagle’s View in Enterprise gets less rain, but more cold. On the other hand the older places we’ve stayed in Albany and Oakridge have the traditional outdoor pool surrounded by parking
When we moved from Catonsville MD to the San Fernando Valley, in June 1966, it was done by car. I am thirteen and we took 7 days with stops along the way, I don’t really recall all the motels/hotels we stayed in. I can vaguely recall Howard Johnson due to their unique colors but that is it.
Never used one of their pools as we checked in early evening and were out by early morning. Once we arrived in the Valley we stayed in a motel for a week while the house was finished. Pretty much like above. I do recall the wicked sunburn I got using their pool. Couldn’t lay down for days and peeled three times. It was that bad. In the shots above I see only one pool looks to have a fence around it.
This one might get a kick out of. I transported, in a large styroform picnic box, two goldfish that I wouldn’t give up or flush down the toilet. Several years old they made it to the Valley, lived there two years, then moved to San Diego and ended up in a Koi pond I designed in the backyard. They lived there from 1968 onward. By the time my parents moved from San Diego they were around seven-eight years old as I could recognize them from other fish.
Good on you. You did a deed of good karma by those goldfish. As you may know, goldfish can live well over 20 years on average if afforded the proper conditions, and living in a Koi pond is good conditions (assuming they’re big enough to avoid becoming Koi dinner). Koi can live upwards of 100 years and generally over 50.
I once moved a 50 gallon aquarium full of fish from MA to KY, and then back to MA from KY, in the back of my BMW Bavaria. Like you, I had the fish packed in a styrofoam cooler, with a portable air pump, ice packs (it was summer going both ways), etc.
Great photos…and very iconic for anyone over the age of 50 who ever went on summer road trips as a child here in the US. Yeah, the asphalt could be hot going from the room to the pool, but that’s why God invented flip flops.
I never really questioned the aesthetics of a motel pool in the parking lot as, well, that’s just where the pool was. And as a kid, the pool was probably the best part of a motel (unless it was a Howard Johnsons motel where the pool competed for attention with the HoJos restaurant).
I do have to wonder about the pool placement at the “Heart of Columbia” motel pictured. I have to imagine that that pool was kind of a mess with parking lot runoff after a good rain storm. If it ever rains in Columbia, SC 😉
Finally, I recall how most of those pools, just like these in the photos, had slides and diving boards. Two things absent from most motel pools nowadays.
Great memorabilia! I wonder about building that pool in Columbia, SC on a hill. What fun to walk up to your room after a long drive! Only one pool does not have people beside it. Some are dressed in street clothing. Most are photos of young ladies or girls. Why do these photos at poolside not contain middle-aged hairy big-bellied men? They might be the heads of family who brought their wives and children to these motels. Thought that I should add reality.
Most of these photos are obviously posed.
Here’s a photo that could have been used for the motel pool. What a geat photo to draw customers to your motel! Yours in mirth (and my girth) – Tom
Small independent motels like these were still respectable places for families to stay overnight when travelling in the ’70s; they didn’t have the seedy reputation they’ve had more recently. I don’t remember any of them having pools that were that close to the driving areas though, nor any that allowed parking on the pool perimeter.
I like the International Travelall in the Houston shot.
Interesting how less than half of these pools had any meaningful fence around them, and are on the same level as the parking lot. No wonder Keith Moon could drive a car into the pool (at a Holiday Inn).
No security fences around these pools, it was a more innocent – and less litigious! – time…
During a 1965 motel stay in Chattanooga on of our road trips, a kid wandered out to the pool during the night and drowned, causing a big hub – bub, mom told us not to go out gawking at the tragic scene…
Along the same lines, no barriers between the pool and the parking lot. In the first picture, there hardly seems room for cars to back up without hitting Mr. Sitting-at-the-pool-in-business-attire.
Yeah, this reminds me of those 50’s illustrations showing cars parked directly next to a swimming to evoke a “luxury” image… here’s a ’59 Mercury ad:
From the 1960 Imperial brochure:
All of these images make me happy! It looks like the motel on Sanibel Island is still there, though under a different name. That’s no small feat given how catastrophe-prone that part of the country is.
I’d stay in any of these motels today if I could be assured of no bed bugs. I remember one particular stay as a kid in one “Lucky Motel 7” probably in TN or GA, which had a pool I had been so happy existed. My brothers and I got into our trunks, and Dad took us down to the pool… only to find some really nasty water and some fizzing device in it that was maybe used to “purify” the water.
Dad took us right back to the hotel room. I might have been consoled with my own fun-sized box of Kellogg’s Corn Pops.
I remember when that breakfast cereal was called “Sugar Pops”, before the widespread purging of the word “sugar” from cereal names sometime in the ’80s (but not the sugar itself). I liked those single-serving cereal boxes too, with perforations in the front of the box so you could turn it into a makeshift bowl that could hold milk if you cut the inner bag just right too.
In the late 60’s indoor pools started to become a “thing”. I remember a summer 1966 trip to Door County, Wisconsin, and the first indoor pool we encountered; it was “the height of luxury”, as swimmimg did not depend on the vagaries of outdoor weather… I bragged about it to my fellow school mates when we returned, lol…
I don’t understand the reasoning of indoor pools. How are you expected to get any sun? And the echo from screaming children…ugh. The water is for the kids, you rarely see an adult swimming. The adults are at the round tables with a beer or laid out on a chaise.
I like the Laurelwood in Gatlinburg. It looks like detached units of two. Much quieter and more private. Later pictures appear to show that they were made one long line in later years. Demolished in 2010 after the owner’s death. If any of these still exist, it’s 50:1 odds that an Indian couple owns it.
I also love how the Travelodge in Provo has a phone booth nearly attached to the motel’s main sign. I’m guessing there were not “In-Room Phones” (one of the many things that motels of the time loved pointing out as amenities on their signs/advertising) at the Travelodge.
I don’t know about Travelodge, but I’ve heard that was true of Motel 6 in the early days — no in room phones, instead there was a pay phone in the lobby. That was one of the ways they cut costs in order to offer their famous $6/night rate.
ISTR some of the in room phones of that era were sometimes directly connected only to a motel/hotel switchboard, and “outside” calls were made via the switchboard, and thence to an outside operator; calls made via this route could be very expensive. Also, “direct dialing” was not yet very widespread, so going through an operator was necessary…
So an outside phone booth made sense, it was a cheaper alternative to the in room phones…
[ One thing I do *not* miss about “the good old days” is the very expensive phone service, including the rural “party lines” I grew up with (even in snazzy New York City, telephone party lines were the major plot point of the 1959 comedy hit movie “Pillow Talk”)…]
“One thing I do *not* miss about “the good old days” is the very expensive phone service”
You got me thinking about that. I think the first “landline” phone that I paid for (it was just a phone then!) was around 1983. I’m pretty sure it was $25 or $30 per month and “long distance”…
(Would kids today even understand the concept of a long-distance phone call??)
…was extra. I still pay $30 a month for telephone service, but it fits in my pocket and has unlimited calling anywhere in the US. And data.
Yup. I worked at motel desks in the 70s, and switchboard was always part of my job. The motels usually had a pay phone in the lobby.
Expensive for sure! Residential phones were around.$30 a month, which is like $200 in today’s terms. Once I stupidly talked to a girlfriend in another state for two hours and it cost $120.
That TraveLodge may have had phones in rooms. In the postcard below that appears to be of a similar vintage (and also shows the phone booth under the sign), the back of the postcard mentions “Direct-dial Telephones” as an amenity.
Well, I’m old, but maybe not so old such that Direct-Dial Telephones would make me choose the Travelodge over another motel. I do remember how expensive “long distance” used to be, but I came of age during the reign of 800# long distance dialing services (something originated by MCI, Sprint, etc.) so as long as I could get to an 800#, I was good.
That postcard is interesting in that it shows a Village Inn restaurant in the background of the photo. I’d forgotten about these, but looked it up and apparently the Village Inn chain is still around (although it’s been in bankruptcy and leveraged buy out more often than it’s sold pancakes). Village Inn is notable for having won awards for its pies from “The American Pie Council”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Inn
Who even knew that there was an American Pie Council? Or much less that pie needed a lobbying group? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pie_Council
Only in America.
My family rarely traveled when I was a kid, but when we did, I recall dad telling us not to make any phone calls, so I presume hotels would charge quite a bit for the privilege of using those phones. I bet for many folks, using the pay phone was a better alternative.
Like Evan and Polistra mention above, I’m glad those days are gone.
Oh, and the American Pie Council is a new one for me too.
I recently stayed at a chain hotel in Bellingham, WA. That’s on the coast, way up near the Canadian border. It’s a pretty temperate place, with winter lows around freezing and summer highs in the low 70s. The hotel had an outdoor pool. I’m not sure why.
Still see some in downtown Reno like this one on Sierra. Not the top of the line given the cliental. Most of downtown Reno, when I was walking it in the morning hours was mostly homeless or a notch above in places like this. No pool though but asphalt yes.
For Jim Gray: Minolta SRT-102, 35mm MC W Rokkor HG 2.8, Agfa APX 25 B&W
Next door to the the one above. As yu can see downtown Reno, on the weekend is pretty dead. Homeless men and a surprisingly strong counter culture as in Berkeley and the Haight. Now there is a four story Travelodge farther up the street. Maybe get that one in August.
Those bean-shaped pools were a big deal for a while in the ’50s. I remember seeing them featured in architecture-type magazines. The fad went away fast.
Access to a pool was a novelty to most in the 50’s and 60’s which was a selling point for many court yard hotels. By the late 70’s, pools were showing up with more frequency in many backyards. Also, franchise hotels (Holiday Inn, Travel Lodge, Best Western) were setting minimum standards plus the introduction of the Interstate were hurting many small independent hotels along the old Federal highways.
My Dad played with the idea of a pool (six kids), but Mom shot it down.
Birchwood Motel, how about that? That was our go-to motel in the 80s and 90s when we visited Chincoteague Island with our young sons. Back then, there were no chain hotels on the island. I don’t recall if we ever used the pool.
Now, many of the chains are present, and while the Birchwood still exists, I wouldn’t recommend it.
The kind of modern looking, cheerful motels swimming pools that our family looked for on our road trip. We used to avoid the older ‘Bates ‘ style motels like the plague!
Many of you might have grown up in one town or city but I grew up in an Air Force family moving frequently, almost yearly. Moving frequently from post to post was an adventure. If we weren’t moving out of country, we would take weeks to drive across the states, see the sites. Mom, Dad, brother, and always one cat in the car for weeks at a time. This was before the Interstate and so many motels. Didn’t make reservations in advance, just got tired of driving and looked for motels that had a swimming pool and perhaps that new concept of color TV’s. Had to have a swimming pool! I loved swimming after a day in the car. My older brother and me would stay in one room, my parents in an adjoining room.
I have so many memories of motels but one sticks in my mind. We were moving to a post in GA, where Dad was to be base commander at a SAC Air Force Base. We stayed at a motel in Atlanta with a high diving platform and think it was called Heart of Atlanta motel. Scared the hell out of me but I jumped off the high platform.
I didn’t remember those swimming pools not having fencing .
We traveled a lot in the 60’s but never stayed in any motel .
Nice pictures overall .
-Nate
Out of all those vintage motels and pools, I would have to choose the Va-Capri Motel to stay in at that moment in time.
The adjacent Pancake House is only a bonus to the scenery.
Here in Daytona, on Highway 1 (the old main road) in a 3 block distance I count 13 of these old courtyard motels on the road. Over on A1A (the beach road there are a lot also. A testament to how busy they were in the 50s and 60s. Now most are empty or renting rooms by the week.
I wonder where the Holiday House in Houston was. I don’t recall ever seeing that one, so perhaps it was on the southeast side of town (which we seldom went in). I grew up in the SW suburbs, and most of our time in Houston was in the SW part. Hobby Airport is on the SE side of town so maybe it was near there?
I fondly remember the Chief Motel on South Main, near the Astrodome…it had a beautiful full color neon sign on the north end of the building, of an Indian chief’s head with the full feather headdress.