Motel Monday: Lobbying

This week's Motel Monday focuses on the entrance/lobby of the motel. Some of these places feature the bare bones essentials for greeting customers (chairs, couch, pamphlets) and some feature an extravagant place to congregate.

Starlite Motel - Los Angeles, California

Charnock's Motel - Rochelle, Illinois

Covered Wagon Lodge Motel - Vincennes, Indiana

The Castaways - Miami Beach, Florida

Blue Mist Resort Motel - Miami Beach, Florida

O'Hare Concord Inn - Des Plaines, Illinois

University Hotel Court - Athens, Georgia

Towne Point Motel - Dover, Delaware

Motel Modernaire - Winchester, Virginia

Memphis East Ramada Inn - Memphis, Tennessee

Ramada Inn - Phoenix, Arizona

Hyatt Chalet Motel - Flagstaff, Arizona

Motel Monday: Capri

This week's Motel Monday takes a trip to the Island of Capri; where Italian in Capri pants roam the countryside as far as the eye can see. Ok. We aren't actually going there. We are going to take a trip around the United States and see some motels with Capri in the title. Some of these motels tried to conjure up the Italian island, some used the color (a color halfway between azure and cyan) as their inspiration. Either way, there are some cool looking motels in this set.

Motel Capri - Redding, California

Capri Lodge - Yakima, Washington

Capri Motel - Santa Clara, California

Motel Monday: The Orange Roof

This weeks Motel Monday theme is all about Howard Johnson's Motor Lodges. Howard Johnson's was originally a restaurant and then expanded successfully (until the late 1970s) into the Motel Business. They are still a chain of hotels all of the globe but these postcards are dedicated to their motel past and their signature orange A-framed roof. See all 12 images after the jump.

Here's a little history (from Wikipedia):

By 1954, there were 400 Howard Johnson's restaurants in 32 states. About 10% were company-owned turnpike restaurants that were extremely profitable. The rest were franchises.

Also that year, the company decided to open the first Howard Johnson's motor lodge in Savannah, Georgia. The company employed architects Rufus Nims and Karl Koch to oversee the design of the rooms and gate lodge. Nims had previously worked with the company to design Howard Johnson's restaurants. The restaurant's trademark simple Simon and Pieman was now joined by a lamplighter character in the firm's marketing of its motels. According to cultural historians, the chain became synonymous with travel among American motorists and vacationers in part because of Johnson's ubiquitous outdoor advertising displays.

In 1959, Howard Deering Johnson, who had founded and managed the company since 1925, turned the reins over to his son, then 26-year-old Howard Brennan Johnson. Howard Deering Johnson would observe his son's control of the company until his death in 1972. He died at the age of 76.

By 1961, the year the Howard Johnson's Company went public, there were 605 restaurants, 265 of them company owned and 340 franchised, as well as 88 franchised Howard Johnson's motor lodges in 32 states and the Bahamas.

In 1961, Johnson hired famed New York chefs Pierre Franey and Jacques Pépin to oversee food development at the company's main commissary in Brockton, Massachusetts. Franey and Pépin developed recipes for the company's signature dishes that could be flash frozen and delivered across the country, guaranteeing a consistent product.

Haverhill, Massachusetts

Ithaca, New York

Motel Monday: You're Movin' In With Your Auntie and Uncle in Bel Air

This week's Motel Monday theme has nothing to do with Will Smith and everything to do with Bel Air. Here, we have a dozen postcard that use varying versions of the Bel Air name to add an air of upscale sophistication to their motel. See if they succeeded after the jump.

Bel Air Motel - Redding, California