Remaining Motel Properties
As of July 2012, a few motels from the Wilson era remain under the chain, after the closure of the motel wing in Athens, GA in 2010. These properties would typically have a full-service hotel and restaurant on the property.
- The Holiday Inn Baton Rouge-South, located on 9940 Airline Highway, opened in April 1968. The two-story U-shaped structure centers around a pool and surrounding courtyard, a popular design for motels of the period. An on-site restaurant provided guests and others with meals. In 1984, the company, going on a capital spending spree, decided to construct a new six-story Holidome on the location of the motel's registration and restaurant sites. Both the 1960s motel and the modern hotel flourished well into the 1990s, which was the case for many other HI motel properties. In 2008, when IHG began the global relaunch, the company pressured the hotel to demolish the original portion, or to close the structure to guests, like so many others were forced to do. The hotel refused to do so, and after several disagreements, a deal was made to allow the motel portion into the new chain, mainly due to the hotel's independent ownership. Today, it is one of the few classic-style Holiday Inns still with the chain. The hotel's website calls the motel portion the "Exterior Courtyard". The motel's original outdoor swimming pool and courtyard still remain.
- The Holiday Inn in Goleta, California, located off Highway 101, opened in the early 1970s. It is one of the few remaining full-service motel properties left in the chain. It was constructed in the 1970s Holiday Inn U2 style (2-story U-shaped motel with a pool in the center, and a lobby and restaurant in front). It still remains with the chain as of July 2012.
- The Holiday Inn in Indiana, Pennsylvania, is located on Wayne Avenue near the intersection of US Routes 119 & 422. The hotel opened with 80 rooms in January 1965. In July 1966 and March 1969, the hotel underwent renovations, both adding an additional 40 guest rooms. In 1977, the hotel enclosed the central courtyard to create the famous Holidome. The hotel has undergone several remodeling updates, but still retains a layout reminiscent of the Wilson era. It currently has 158 guest rooms, a dining room and lounge, and a large ballroom. The Holidome recreational area has been converted into an indoor courtyard and features the original pool and courtyard tile. While many guestrooms have been enclosed by hallways, several guest rooms on the hotel's exterior still open directly to the outside.
Read more about this topic: Holiday Inn
Famous quotes containing the words remaining, motel and/or properties:
“If you teach a poor young man to shave himself, and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it; but in the other case, he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths, and dull razors.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“The hotel was once where things coalesced, where you could meet both townspeople and travelers. Not so in a motel. No matter how you build it, the motel remains the haunt of the quick and dirty, where the only locals are Chamber of Commerce boys every fourth Thursday. Who ever heard the returning traveler exclaim over one of the great motels of the world he stayed in? Motels can be big, but never grand.”
—William Least Heat Moon [William Trogdon] (b. 1939)
“A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert, as well as of a flute; strength of a host, as well as of a hero.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)