California’s first motel website, the historic Motel…
America’s first motel — the roadside landmark that helped launch the great American street journey — is trying for a new proprietor.
The historic property in the Central Coast metropolis of San Luis Obispo, home to the unique Milestone Mo-Tel, later renamed the Motel Inn, has formally hit the market for the first time in a era.
Located just off the historic El Camino Real, the landmark is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of the fashionable motel, offering vacationers a place to park their vehicles and spend the evening a long time before roadside lodging turned an American staple.
The San Luis Obispo property that performed a half in inventing the great American street journey has formally hit the market. Omar Omar/CC BY
The unique Milestone Mo-Tel, later identified as the Motel Inn is the world’s first motel, having first opened in 1925. Obtained by CA Post
The motel is listed on the City of San Luis Obispo’s Historic Preservation List. Obtained by CA Post
The 4.21-acre parcel at 2223 Monterey Street, just off Highway 101, is being supplied by Hayes Commercial Group but without a public asking price.
Highway 101 is, in many methods, the fashionable incarnation of El Camino Real — the outdated “King’s Highway,” as it was then identified, that once stitched California’s 21 Spanish missions together, from San Diego to San Francisco to Sonoma in Northern California.
Laid down centuries later, the freeway still traces that same coastal hall, carrying today’s vacationers along the same historic backbone the padres once walked.
The Motel Inn was a labor of love from Pasadena architect Arthur S. Heineman. Obtained by CA Post
The 4.21-acre parcel at 2223 Monterey Street, just off Highway 101, is being supplied by Hayes Commercial Group. Hayes Commercial Group
The motel property is being supplied for sale for the first time in a era. Hayes Commercial Group
Today, only the refurbished foyer building with its bell tower and the facade of the outdated restaurant stay. Obtained by CA Post
Opened more than a century in the past on December 12, 1925 as a labor of love from Pasadena architect Arthur S. Heineman, the Milestone Mo-Tel was constructed particularly for the new age of car journey.
Guests may pull their prized rides proper up to the entrance doorways of their motel rooms — a radical and novel concept at the time.
Heineman, who was also an inventor, coined the phrase “motel” by mixing “motor” and “hotel,” and the title caught. The motel was positioned roughly midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, making it a natural in a single day stop when a day’s drive still meant exhaustion and numb buns, albeit with far less visitors than endured these days.
A rendering of the potential future lodge that includes 27 bungalow-style visitor buildings and a pool. Hayes Commercial Group
Now, the website is absolutely entitled for an 83-room boutique getaway. Hayes Commercial Group
An illustration of the proposed lodge redo show’s the refurbed bell tower, large home windows and a hilly backdrop. Hayes Commercial Group
Hollywood stars, including then-newlyweds Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, once handed through in the Fifties. The Mission-style structure (popularized in California from the Eighteen Nineties–Nineteen Twenties), full with its eye-catching three-tiered bell tower and copper dome, turned it into a local landmark.
The motel completely shuttered in 1991. Over the following a long time most of the unique buildings fell to destroy and had been subsequently demolished. Today, only the refurbished foyer building with its bell tower and the facade of the outdated restaurant stay, standing behind chain-link fencing as a quiet reminder of a bygone period.
Now, the website is absolutely entitled for an 83-room boutique getaway that includes 27 bungalow-style visitor buildings, a pool and a new sound wall. Construction permits are prepared to issue, making it one of the uncommon rockbreaker-ready lodge alternatives.
The renderings foretell a future high-end vacation spot that invitations company to keep for much longer than a typical relaxation stop. Hayes Commercial Group
Another rendering exhibits luxurious yet cozy communal areas on the proposed San Luis Obispo lodge website. Hayes Commercial Group
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“There is no comparable opportunity in California,” itemizing broker Nolan Tooley said in a release for the property.
“This is a shovel-ready, entitled hotel site on Highway 101 in one of the most supply-constrained lodging markets on the Central Coast.”
Because the motel is listed on the City of San Luis Obispo’s Historic Preservation List, what’s left of the property’s historic construction must be included into any future plans.
For a century, the Motel Inn has waited just 5 miles from the foot of the steep mountain go that is the Cuesta Grade. Someone new with deep pockets and a big creativeness might finally get to carry what was once a trailblazing motel into the twenty first century.
All they’ve gotta do is make an offer.
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