Cowboy Motel, Amarillo, TX.
Lake Jefferson Hotel, Jeffersonville, NY.
Wildemere Hotel, Lake Minnewaska, NY.
Bavarian Manor, Purling, NY.
Grossinger’s, Liberty, NY.
Ramada Inn, Amarillo, TX.
Motel Inn, San Luis Obispo, CA.
Rexmere Hotel, Stamford, NY.
Hotel Phoenicia, Phoenicia, NY.
Delaware Inn, Stamford, NY.
Concord Hotel, Klamesha Lake, NY.
Hotel Intercontinental, Hilton Head Island, SC.
Tropical Oasis Motel, Myrtle Beach, SC.
Day’s Cottage, North Truro, MA.
The Castle motif in Amarillo I can’t see. The Spanish motif in San Luis Obispo I can see.
That castle-inspired Ramada caught my attention, so I had to look it up.
Turns out a Tulsa businessman started a small chain of castle-themed hotels in the early 1970s, called Camelot Inns. There were 3 in total – one in Tulsa, one in Little Rock, and then this one in Amarillo. The businessman, however, sold this hotel rather quickly; the Amarillo location was taken over by Ramada in 1974. Ramada probably wouldn’t have built a hotel that looked like this, but at the time, it was a nearly-new hotel that they probably picked up for a good price, so it made sense, even with the odd styling. It was called the Ramada Camelot Inn during those days.
Ramada sold the property in the mid 1980s, and it continues to operate as the Camelot Inn & Suites.
Google StreetView link:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/6E8rcuoa63fD7w736
Now it makes sense as that is not a Ramada Inn look, just like not a Holiday Inn look, or Howard Johnson look of the times.
I stayed at the Camelot Inn/Little Rock in about 1980/81. It was nice then; I remember having a room on the north side of the building with a view of the Arkansas River right out the window. Hotel is now a DoubleTree.
Correct on all counts. The Amarillo Camelot Inn was built and opened in 1971 at I-40 and Nelson and is still in operation today as the Camelot Inn, though it is now a low-budget operation that is nothing like it when new. It became a Ramada Inn in 1976 and operated as a franchise of that thain until 1984, when the hotel reverted back to the name Camelot Inn.
Our family generally stayed at ‘old reliable’ Holiday Inns, or the more modern post war mpytels. We never stayed at ‘Bates Motels’, the older ones where you drive up and park in front of your room that were laid out in ‘railroad’ style..
Last Photo: Day’s Cottage, North Truro, MS.
It appears the cottages still exist. However, they are now condos.
Just google “Days Cottages Condominiums, North Truro, MS” and pop to the street view. Work your way down the row till you get to the cottages marked “BlueBell” and “Marigold” which are the ones in the photo above.
Those giant, lodge-style wooden hotels had a reputation for burning down, especially in New England. Ones that escaped midnight lightning usually met the wrecking ball, as the tiny rooms no longer suited the typical traveler.
I think I remember the Hotel Phoenicia, Phoenicia, NY. Would brunch at a little place in the same neighborhood. I owned a summer cabin just outside of Phoenicia for a few years in the late 80s when I lived in NYC. Beautiful area about a 3-1/2 hour drive out of Manhattan. In the summer it was typical to leave work early on a Friday afternoon, load up the car with cats & dog, head for the cooler mountain weather. Would get there in time for diner and enjoy the wilderness, returning Sunday night. One of my cats (Nifter) would always barf just minutes before arriving at the cabin due to the twisting road. Tubbing down a river in the area was the big attraction, I just watched. Being city boys we planted flowers, laid a stone path, added dramatic landscape lighting, etc. The deer, or other woodland creatures, ate the flowers so that was the end of my gardening experiment. My near wilderness adventure ended the second summer when a bear tried to break in our front door in the middle of the night. What was I going to do, spray it with cologne I bought at Bloomindales? Our two cats and one small fluffy white dog were not fond of our woodsy neighbors and rested better with city sirens and the occasional gunshots. That was too much nature for me so sold the cabin in the mountains and rented a beach house on the Jersey shore for the following summer season. No fear of a shark breaking down the front door in the middle of the night. But the Phoenicia area was really beautiful and not overly developed at the time.
The “Hotel Phonecia” makes the hotel on the “Andy Griffith”, show look inviting..
I like that the Rexmere has examples of intermediates from the Big Three (plus a blue Vega hiding out behind the tree). All great photos! Oh, and that castle-themed Ramada looks too imposing than something that might have appealed to my sense of fun as a kid. Maybe in different colors it might have looked a bit more appealing.
“Rex” was calling gout to me as well.
The Day’s Cottage in “North Truro, MS” certainly does not look like Mississippi to me! And it turns out it is not. North Truro is in Massachusetts which is “MA”.
Please do NOT confuse North Truro with Truro, Ma.
In the summer of 71 while at Otis AFB in Cape Cod we participated in a July 4 parade in North Truro. The locals made darn sure we knew we were in the better of the two!
Thanks for noticing. That typo is fixed now.
I read it, mistakenly, as “MA”. Didn’t notice the “MS” until I read your correction. Looked like a “New England”, beach to me.
Sorry, one more observation – in the photo for the Concord in Klamesha Lake, NY, I just zoomed in on the photo and it appears to show a blue Ford Granada coupe featuring something I used to see on most examples I’d spot by the ’80s: a flapping or missing piece of trim that no longer hides the rear fuel filler! What an accurate throwback.
The Lincoln goes very nicely with the Motel Inn in SLO
Nice hotels .
I wish I’da ever been able to stay in one back in the day .
-Nate
Fabulous pictures! I have stayed at The Concord when the New York State Fire Chief’s Convention was held there. I was an exhibitor for Cummins Diesels. The rooms were large and made for vacationers to enjoy the resort. No ice cream if meat was served at the meal. Only sherbet. As for Alfred, right across the street is a great ice cream parlor. We pass through Phoenicia as part of our fall foliage tours. Thanks again for all of these photos of Americana. North Truro? Oh, bell captain, when is the next train to Hyannis, please?
Thought many attractive hotels here, a number of the structures strike me, as potential fire traps.
Speaking of distant fires, one of the best one hit wonders of that era.
Funny you should mention that. When I was comparing the then-and-now pictures of the Camelot Inn in Amarillo, I noticed that one of the few changes was that windows were added to the upper story of the turret. I wonder if that was due to fire regulations? With those slit-type windows, the turret would have been inescapable.
No question. Some of the multi-storey wooden structures appear like they would burn up in minutes. Combined with dense smoke, they’d be near impossible to escape, on the top floors.
I just remembered the first motel I ever stayed in. It was on our first summer vacation drive to the Rockies in 1961, at the Tower Lodge in Holdridge, NB. And our room was directly under the tower!
When moving from Catonsville, MD to Canoga Park, CA in June 1966 over a period of 7 days we stayed in several motels. I can’t for the life of me recall any of them. Then when we arrived in the San Fernando Valley we had to stay at a motel for one week for the new house to finish. Don’t recall anything about the hotel except for the pool where I spent all day the first whole day. At the end of that day, at the age of 12 I suffered the worst sunburn of my entire life on my back.
Between age “7-15”, had so many sunburns! All were east coast, burns though.
Made it to “30ish”, before the next one. Last big one was age “47”.
That one; fell asleep in the chaise! ((roof deck)) “OUCH”!
I saw that first picture and thought that looks like Highway 66. Just something about it. I was right, except I was thinking more to the west in Az/NM. But still good old 66.
The blue, compact, fastback, car in “Myrtle Beach”; “Mazda”?”Nissan”? Something else?
Has a certain, mid “70’s”, subcompact, air about it.
From a distance, a bit hard to tell. But it could be a Buick Opel by Isuzu. A shape better known in Europe as the Opel Kadett C and that was sold later in the US as the Isuzu I-Mark.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/vintage-reviews/1976-vintage-rt-review-buick-opel-by-isuzu-once-you-get-past-the-name-its-not-a-bad-car/
Ah. Ok, t/y.
As a child in the 1950s to early 1960s we were an Air Force family and traveled extensively East Coast to West Coast and everywhere in-between. We moved so frequently I have more memories of motels then some of the houses we lived in. Between moves my parents always took their time for us to see the sights and I think I have been on roads in every state except Alaska. Road trips of 3-4 weeks were not uncommon with my family. No Interstate highways, no Internet to make reservations in advance, no AC in our car, and always our cat ‘Smoky’ traveling with us. Choice of motels absolutely required a swimming pool, even for one night stopovers. A day in the car seeing the USA, and a night swimming in a pool was wonderful. My parents would get one room and an adjoining room for me and my older brother (let the fun begin).
As an adult motels have resulted in other memories. Once I was on location for a new retail store pre-opening where I was onsite to see of an expansive jewelry collection arrive at the new construction vault. After a day on-site all I wanted was sleep. 11 PM got a call from another room in the motel: “Hey ‘we’ saw you today and your are really cute, come over to ‘our’ room for a few drinks”. I might have been cute but not stupid. Ignored the first phone call, then received a second phone call. It was now 1:00 AM in the morning and I called our head of security on the other side of Texas. Within 1/2 hour people arrived, moved me to a 4-Star hotel under another name, took my rental car and replaced it with another, rented under yet another name. Must admit that motel experience spooked me a little. From that day afterward my employer never booked me into anything less than a 4-5 Star hotel. A few years later, my partner and self, moving from Houston to NYC, overloaded U-Haul attached to my Eldo convertible, cats, dogs, etc. So tired after hitting the road from Houston. Just needed to rest so pulled off the Interstate somewhere in AL or MS to a motel. Pulled into the parking lot, we both said at the same time “Bates Motel”!. We were tired, its just one night. The clue was all the windows in our motel room were painted black. Second clue the bathroom only had hand towels. It was the sound of gunshots in the early morning that got us up and out and on the road.
Roadside motels not what they use to be.
Sad Most of those hotels up in the Jewish Alps All gone. I’m sure too expensive to maintain