Motels - Hôtels 1940's - 1960's

The Best Western Motel - also known as “The Harrington Motel”. Once located at 5224 Sunset Blvd - Between Vermont and Western in 1953.

One of the most memorable pieces is a 30-foot-long mural by Joan Miro that originally hung in the Terrace Plaza Hotel in Cincinnati.

SIXTY Hotels announced the latest addition to its collection, the Nautilus South Beach. Slated to open in the fourth quarter of this year, the Nautilus South Beach joins SIXTY Hotel's destinations in New York and Los Angeles, and will be the company's first Miami Beach location.

Originally built as the Nautilus Hotel, the 251-room, oceanfront property is located in the heart of Miami's art deco district at 1825 Collins Avenue. Designed by famed architect Morris Lapidus in the 1950s, the Nautilus South Beach will be renovated with homage to its original spirit and updated with the inclusion of a new restaurant, lobby lounge, extensive events and meeting room space, a pool bar, and a state-of-the-art fitness center. Revealing an extensive evolution of what the property once was and stood for, the Nautilus South Beach will feature a comfortable design that emulates a luxury beach house with public spaces, rooms and suites that will have an international and residential feel.

The air of approachable elegance begins in the 251 guest rooms, including 29 premium suites and two stunning signature penthouses—with dazzling ocean views—and a private garden terrace, dining area and kitchen designed to elicit the comfort of one's own beach home, with the added glamour of a modern and sophisticated Miami Beach hotel. A soothing color palette welcomes guests to their boldly modern rooms where comfortable and luxurious design and cutting-edge technology combine to create the perfect stay. All rooms feature custom, 400 thread-count SFERRA linens, gourmet mini bars and amenities by REN.

The hotel's public spaces will embody the same cultivated luxury that guests have grown to expect from a luxury Miami Beach property. The ample lobby in which the reception and concierge desks will be located will be outfitted with plush communal seating areas, providing space for guests and locals to "plug and play". Upon entering, guests will be immediately met with an unpretentious beach vibe with nautical accents and tufted grey linen sofas that and metallic orange leather chairs at the concierge desk brighten the space with eye catching pops of color. Furthering the beach home feel that the property brings as its design inspiration is the use of materials throughout the lobby area such as grey concrete, glove leather, various stones and linen chairs and sofas, reminiscent of those found in global beachfront estates.

In collaboration with Jeffrey Chodorow's China Grill Management and internationally renowned chefs Claude Troisgros and his son Thomas, the hotel will also reintroduce the iconic Blue Door to the Miami dining scene. The Troisgros' will carry on their tradition of melding French technique with Brazilian ingredients. The newly re-imagined restaurant and bar will accommodate 210 seats including an alfresco dining patio that will allow guests to regain what was South Beach's most popular terrace for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The bar area at Blue Door will come alive at night, serving a selection of creative yet sophisticated tropically inspired cocktails. Nautilus South Beach will also feature over 16,500 square-feet of indoor and outdoor event space.

The project is designed by Florida-based designer, Caroline Giraud-Sukornyk of CG Design and architecture is by world renowned Arquitectonica.
- See more at: http://dnahotels.com/blog/post/the-nautilus-miami-beach-to-join-sixty-hotels#sthash.13S2YKWs.dpuf

Durham finally has a destination-worthy hotel. Tasked with designing the Durham, Los Angeles–based firm Commune drew inspiration from the building’s previous life as the Home Savings Bank, the nearby Black Mountain College in Asheville, and midcentury designers such as Charles Eames, Albert Frey, and Arne Jacobsen. Inside, boldly colored rooms and suites are furnished with custom-designed furniture and blankets by Raleigh Denim, while the restaurant, led by award-winning chef Andrea Reusing, features soaring ceilings and hanging lights designed as a nod to Yoshiro Taniguchi’s chandeliers in Tokyo’s Hotel Okura.



When it comes to the overall design, the hotel is keeping its plans closely guarded. The building itself is known as the Home Savings Bank building, a mid-century modern classic built in the late 1960s. A major feature of the building is the view from its roof, which Reusing explains is unique in the city for its height and placement. "It's really magnificent," she says. With the construction coming together, Reusing shares more details about the 100-seat roof concept, which will feature a mix of indoor and outdoor space. "Part of it will be [year-round]," she explains. "There's all aspects of what you think of as 'rooftop.' There's indoor, then there's outdoor, covered, heated, and then there's [a] totally open-to-nature outdoor balcony around the edge. It's all phases of rooftop.

Rather than try to hide its scandalous past, D.C.’s famed Watergate Hotel is embracing its history with a $125 million redesign that harks back to its midcentury roots. Originally designed in 1961 by Italian architect Luigi Moretti, the building features sweeping curves and dramatic lighting meant to create intrigue. Situated in Foggy Bottom, the Watergate is set to reopen in April with 336 rooms and suites (many of which will have a balcony overlooking the Potomac River), a whiskey bar, several restaurants, and a rooftop terrace. The hotel’s staff will wear uniforms by Janie Bryant, costume designer for Mad Men

Originally designed in 1952 by midcentury modernist architect William F. Cody, the revamped hotel, awash in soothing whites, gave us some serious inspiration for our backyard makeover, as it perfectly mixes the Palm Springs glamour that I love with the clean lines that Fred Baby craves. Now if only we could get Steve Hermann, the interior designer who gave The Horizon its multimillion dollar facelift, to come inject a little botox into our backyard, we’d be all set.

L’Horizon has been garnering lots of buzz, with a feature on Architectural Digest and one coming soon from my friends at Palm Springs Style. Officially opening on July 1st and featuring 25 bungalows on three acres, L’Horizon is slated to be the chicest new hotel in Palm Springs.

If there’s a mecca for midcentury-modern design, Palm Springs is it. There’s certainly no shortage of hotels, but L’Horizon is the most jaw-dropping of the pack. In Hollywood’s heyday, stars like Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable flocked to the property, designed in 1952 by famed Desert Modern architect William F. Cody. Now the iconic hotel has been reborn, with 25 private bungalows outfitted in bespoke and vintage furnishings, Frette linens, marble baths, and Le Labo bath products. As if that weren’t enough, Giacomo Pettinari, who cut his teeth at El Bulli, helms the stylish alfresco restaurant.

Located in the heart of the world’s most exhilarating city, The Manhattan at Times Square Hotel effortlessly merges the 24/7 excitement of Times Square with the age-old glamour of New York. Delighting guests with its prime location and classic Art Deco detailing, this landmark hotel was built in 1962 during New York City’s heady Mad Men-era. Its commanding Seventh Avenue location a testament to both longevity and lavish attention to detail.

Here is the Uptown Motel, the realization of Richard Crowther's architectural plans published yesterday on this page. It was located in Rawlins, Wyoming and built in 1958. Richard Crowther Architectural Records, WH1504, Western History Collection,

Vraiment sublime celui la!

Hats off to the folks at the Las Vegas Neon Museum for preserving the La Concha Motel lobby. The La Concha Motel was designed by Los Angeles-based architect Paul R. Williams. It was located on the Las Vegas Strip, near the Riviera (which is now closed - wah!) and was open from 1961 to 2003. Last week, I visited Las Vegas for the first time in many years. It was my first time seeing the La Concha intact. My last time at the museum, the building was in pieces. BRAVO



In Las Vegas, there is a neon graveyard located on three acres off North Las Vegas Boulevard. This outdoor lot is called the Boneyard, perhaps in reference to the legendary elephant graveyards of Africa. The lights may have dimmed on over 200 vintage neon signs, but they are not dead, only rescued and preserved by The Neon Museum. While French chemist Georges Claude invented the neon lamp, it was the competing hotels and restaurants of mid-century Vegas that turned them into art. Walking around The Neon Museum, the visitor sees the remains of Las Vegas kitsch—a 10-foot-tall martini glass complete with a lighted cherry, the giant glowing lamp from the Aladdin Hotel, thousands of incandescent bulbs, glittery signs and lots of neon glory (image 23). The Boneyard is also the home for one of Paul R. Williams’ most unusual buildings, the iconic 1,100-square-foot La Concha Motel lobby, his salute to Southern California Googie architecture.



The genealogy for the architecture of La Concha Motel is traceable to a Southern California restaurant designed by John Lautner, Googies, whose mascot was a cartoon waitress with fried egg eyes. Cheap, modern, flashy, where form does not follow function, Googie-inspired buildings were aesthetically unrestrained. Architectural historian Alan Hess described them as “cartoons in steel and glass, designed to catch the attention at highway speeds.” While the style was dismissed by intellectuals of the 1950s and 1960s as “a little too western, and a little too American for serious consideration,” it was immensely popular with the rest of the country.



When M. K. Doumani commissioned Williams in 1961 to design his 100-room motel, he envisioned something unique among the huge hotel-casinos such as Desert Inn, Dunes or Tropicana. (aerial image 3) He wanted his motel to be a memorable architectural sign, as memorable as the neon signage on The Las Vegas Strip. He wanted an architectural application that would set his hostelry apart and attract guests. (Paul Richard. Today's Family Digest. Nov. 1969) While La Concha did not have the amenities of the larger hotels, the drive-up motel Williams created was stylish, intimate and memorable.



According to local historian Dorothy Wright, La Concha could only have been created for Las Vegas. Blending "high design and hands-on construction" the motel was built on a shoe string budget with different Doumani family members pitching in. Two sons worked on the actual construction and various members of the family shopped at local hardware stores for off-the-shelf fixtures. The money saved was used to build "a huge, towering sign whose base was the distinctive stylized La Concha logo." (Desert Companion. December 2012)



But what about that “intersecting hyperbolic paraboloid” lobby of glass and thin-shell concrete? Was it a stylized conch shell, a butterfly or Williams’ playful take on America’s fascination with cars and science fiction? Whatever his intent, the building’s aesthetics were not out of character with elements in his previous work. Williams’ buildings were often filled with curves and circular details in the ceilings, building overhangs, arched entries, pool or lunch counter.



While Googie-style architecture has often been criticized as the crass work of anonymous draftsmen, the La Concha Motel is an example of the style as designed by a serious and respected American architect. Few examples of this populist style survive, but Williams’ La Concha Motel lobby has been saved through the hard work of Nevada preservationists and architectural historians. The Neon Museum hopes to convert the La Concha Motel lobby into their visitor center in 2011.

Fresh off the evening plane, and my friend drives us directly to the heart of Las Vegas Boulevard – The Strip. From the passenger seat, I soak in the throbbing lights, pirate boats, fountain shows and drunken revelers. But amidst the flash, what truly catches my eye is a tiny dark patch. Alone and deserted in the shadows is a round series of white clamshells, the strangest and most beautiful thing I’ve yet seen on The Strip. I ask my friend to please bring me back here in the daylight so I can get a better look at the building in the center of the Black Hole on The Strip.

Come to find out that within my first 5 minutes in Las Vegas, I fell in love with a building that’s scheduled to be demolished. But of course! As in St. Louis so it remains in Vegas: If I love it, it shall come down. For a person leaving St. Louis in disgust over how it wastes its evolving architectural heritage, Vegas was either the best or worst place to go, depending on what lessons I needed/wanted to learn.

The building is the lobby of what was the La Concha Motel. The motel portion was demolished in December 2003 but the famous lobby remains behind as the sales office of the company schilling space in the skyscraper condo slated to rise in its place. Considering that downtown Las Vegas regenerates itself about every 15 years, the La Concha – and it’s next door neighbor, the former El Morocco Motel – has been a tenacious little trooper. But times up, ta ta.

But wait up! Turns out there is a Nevada Preservation Society! Concerning Las Vegas, would this define the phrase “exercise in futility?” But their first successful “save” is the La Concha lobby, which will be cut into 7 pieces and moved a couple of miles away to serve as part of the anticipated neon sign museum. Yes, there are small pockets of people trying their best to preserve Las Vegas history, and you’d think in a town with such deep pockets it would be easy, but no.

Las Vegas owes its life to the building of the Hoover Dam, which was a WPA project in the 1930s, so “history” is a vague concept for this town. When locals say a building is old, they mean it might be 30 years old. When any city on the globe can be recreated with the proper props and financial backing, who cares about the physicality of a history that reaches back maybe 70-odd years?

Look to the mountains that 360-circle Vegas and you can feel the land’s history. It’s all insanely gorgeous, very Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. Step onto the foot of a mountain, stare up into the abyss and know that not even Steve Wynn can recreate something this awesome (sure he created a forest, but it has that 15-year shelf life). But because of that mountain ring, there is finite space to build, and since Vegas exists solely for gambling, the most important buildings accommodate that activity.

Gambling only requires a place for someone to sit down and bet. It truly doesn’t matter what the place looks like; money leaves you just the same at the Bellagio as it does at the slot machines in the gas station bathroom. With gambling, it’s not the container but the content, and if a particular building stops pulling in gamblers, then the building has to go. It’s that simple, and in a city where everything is a façade, I adore that rare form of honesty. Which makes the saving of the La Concha lobby all the more remarkably bizarre.


http://www.beltstl.com/2005/11/la-concha-motel-las-vegas/

Built in 1961, this former motel lobby was disassembled and relocated from its South Las Vegas Boulevard location to its current home at the Neon Museum in 2006. This wasn’t a Lego build-off my friends, preservationists raised $600,000 to save this crown jewel and make sure it was lovingly preserved for generations to come.

Not totally unlike a place you might see on The Jetsons, the La Concha is a great example of “Googie” design. Go ahead and Google Googie to see what we’re talking about. Confession, we just wanted to say Google Googie.



The mid-century design used thin-shell concrete and glass to resemble a seashell so it would be immediately recognizable from the street. Who needs advertising when you’ve branded yourself like a boss?

“We are incredibly gratified that the State of Nevada has recognized the La Concha as a significant historic site,” says Danielle Kelly, executive director, Neon Museum. “Roadside architecture like the La Concha lobby, as well as the irresistibly alluring neon signage synonymous with Las Vegas, collectively function as aesthetic traditions cherished by Nevadans.”

The historical significance is a pretty big deal. The motel was designed by the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects, Paul Revere Williams and, because Googie was not recognized as a “legitimate” architecture style until recently, this is one of the few examples of the roadside design and a stellar one.

The Royal Motor Inn was built in 1967. It was originally part of the Royal Inn Motor Hotel chain. The Burrito King restaurant on the right was built at the same time as a Sambo's restaurant.

Richard Crowther's striking Riviera Motel, on neon-studded Colfax Avenue in Denver, 1956. Crowther was so adept at graphic design that his architectural firm often provided turn-key services to clients, including sign design and printed promotional material.
Richard Crowther Architectural Records, WH1504, Western History Collection, The Denver Public Library.


Description:
Series C-20105
• 46 Luxurious units. • Room Phones. • Heated Swimming Pool. • Restaurant. • Cocktail Lounge. • Refrigerated Air conditioning. • Steam Heat. • Tv. Superbly situated on US Highways 36, 40 and 287, The Riviera Motel is just 15 minutes form downtown Denver and 5 minutes from Stapleton Airfield. Complete shopping and recreational areas are within easy distance. The Rocky Mountains, playground of the West, are but a half hour away. Open 24 hours a day and any time of day or night you will be chauffered to and from the airport with our compliments

9100 E Colfax Avenue
Aurora, CO 80010

The Satellite Motel Sign, Beaverton, Oregon. What can I say? Perfect. Once located at 13295 South-West Canyon Road.

The Voyager Motel was designed by the architects Morris Lapidus & Kornblath, Harle & O'Mara. It comes up in Lapidus' project list in 1957 but I don't think that the motel opened until 1958. The Voyager's claim to fame, however, was never its architecture. It was a filming location for the movie Deep Throat in 1972. The motel was demo'd in 2010.

Promoted as “San Francisco’s Most Elegant Motor Hotel,” the Villa Roma opened around 1962 in the city’s North Beach district. The Villa Roma, once located at 1212 Columbus Ave., offered the utmost in modern furnishings, a view with every room, and a fabulous cocktail lounge. Alas, the Villa Roma disappeared in the 1990s, only to be demolished and replaced by a bland mega-Marriott Hotel



ACT: Steve Jobs moved to Mountain View in 1960 when he was 5 and no doubt made many visits in his formative years to San Francisco, the city of his birth.

FACT: Young architect Norman Foster in 1962 found his way to San Francisco, where he worked briefly before returning to his native England.

WILD SPECULATIVE LEAP: The model for their too-perfect-to-be-true Apple headquarters in Cupertino — a futuristic cross between a spaceship and a doughnut — is Fisherman Wharf’s long-gone Villa Roma motel.




I present as evidence the above photograph of “San Francisco’s most elegant motor hotel” when it opened in 1961. The Chronicle marked the occasion with a plug for the 60-room inn “said to be the only circular motor hotel in America. … Features include a garden restaurant and cocktail lounge, Finnish Sauna bath and a 100-foot ‘Eiffel Tower’.”

The last word in 1982 was provided by Herb Caen, who took note that “the circular and remarkably ugly Villa Roma at Columbus and Bay will be razed next week.”




Now the block holds a forgettable Courtyard Marriott, while in Cupertino, Apple is grading 178 acres that will hold a thickly landscaped corporate campus. The centerpiece will be a four-story, 2.8-million-square-foot headquarters that forms a perfect circle large enough for 12,000 workers. It’s metal and glass, with a smooth custom sheen.



All this is quite a step up from the old Villa Roma, which had a $1 million price tag. But the refined echo of mid-century tourist-themed Americana is palpable in its own crazy way.

FACT: Foster, one of the world’s most-lauded architects, has a love of pure form that’s part of a larger design philosophy that biographer Dejan Sudjic in 1986 wrote “aspires to smoothness, perfection, minimal thickness and elegant, slim jointing.” Jobs had the same ethos, and the same love of logical perfection. “It’s a little like a spaceship landed,” Jobs said in 2011 at his last public appearance, when he presented the proposal to the Cupertino City Council. “It’s a circle, and so it’s curved all the way around.”

Do I think that either Foster or Jobs consciously set out to prove Caen wrong? No. But I love the idea that the hula hoop hostelry at Fisherman’s Wharf was tucked into subconscious of these visionaries all these years — and when they joined to collaborate on the ultimate architectural iCon, Villa Roma was reborn.