Motel 6 goes mod: Photos of the new decor

There are certain things in American life you can count on, right? Waterfront restaurants with killer views will serve so-so food. Late-night diners will wind up at Denny’s. Penny-pinching road-trippers, arriving at Motel 6 for the night, will find dowdy old guestrooms … .

Scratch that last one, America.

My penny-pinching, road-tripping family checked in to our favorite old Motel 6 last weekend—the one at the south end of Carpinteria, near Santa Barbara—and got a big shock.

The motel is still there, its exterior looking dowdy and functional and affordable as ever. The price was $105.99 for three of us on a summer Friday night, a bargain by Santa Barbara-area standards. But inside, a team of insurgent modernist designers had turned the place upside down. That Carpinteria motel is a brighter and bolder place these days.

Instead of all those predictable roadside American details— the busily patterned bedspread; the institutional carpet; the armoire holding the TV— we found a den of bold, sleek, frugal euro-modernism, all drenched in the color orange.

Imagine tuning in to “Hee-Haw” and finding the Modern Jazz Quartet. Or expecting Norman Rockwell but finding Mark Rothko. Or just picture Tom Bodett, that laconic pitchman who has spent so many years promising to leave the light on for you, with his feet up on one of those curvy plywood chairs.

I can’t be sure how the rest of North America is going to feel, but we were won over in about 20 seconds. The whole room seemed simpler and brighter, with more places to put things, a faint whiff of midcentury nostalgia in the air.

Dwell magazine blogger Sarah Rich described the new design as “a touch of modern minimalism and an air of modest luxury.”

And yet, as the Motel 6 PR people readily admit, it was done on the cheap.

The bedspreads featured two or three solid colors. The floor was laminate, mostly recycled material, that looked like bamboo (very sensible, given the many guests who return with beach sand between their toes, and sometimes a little tar, as well).

One wall was all orange (at other properties, the walls might be blue or green).

The TV — a 32-inch flat-screen model with obvious plugs for your portable electronics — was mounted on the wall. In one corner was a little banquette-style seat, next to a table with a half-round top. The beds, firmer than I remembered, were on platforms, making extra space for luggage.

In the bathroom, towels were stuffed into found holes in a mustard-colored cabinet, and the white sink was raised, vessel-style, above a dark counter. No art on the walls. When you flushed the toilet, air and water rushed to action with alarming speed and power.

I should note that some things were still the same inside. The Gideon Bibles were still there. Motel 6 still allows free local phone calls and offers free WiFi.

Also, some things could stand changing, like those small, thin bath towels.

But consider yourself warned: Motel 6 is a different place now. Or at least, 50 to 60 of them are different, with more to follow.

The chain was born in Santa Barbara in 1962, when rooms actually cost $6 a night. Then, as now, the managers aimed to offer the lowest prices of any national chain. (And then, as now, happily, they have plenty of competitors.)

These days, the brand includes more than 1,000 locations, most of them company-owned, about 30% franchised. Since 1990, the company has been a subsidiary of Paris-based Accor Worldwide.

The big redesign was launched last year and led by the British firm Priestmangoode, which has done a lot of work with airlines.

The goal was to spend no more on the new materials than the cost of the materials being replaced, Dallas-based Motel 6 spokeswoman Laura Rojo-Eddy said. She added that it could be three to five years before every location is redone.

“We were trying not to alienate anyone, not to put anybody off, but at the same time to give a nice injection of freshness,” Rojo-Eddy said.

Tom Bodett, she assured me, is still on board. And Motel 6 rates across North America continue to average $45 to $50 per night.

And if you miss the old Motel 6 look from 40 years ago, well, you can peruse these vintage images from the Motel 6 Facebook page.

—Christopher Reynolds, Los Angeles Times staff writer

Photos: Room 159 of the Motel 6 in south Carpinteria. Credit: Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 at 5:59 pm by Christopher Reynolds and is filed under California, Family & Kids, Hotels, News, Tips & Advice, Santa Barbara, Weekend Getaways. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.