Industry
Part of How to Research Roadside Building Case Studies
Stay inside the finished project: booking near roadside building case studies
Stay in a completed project and you get the case study as accommodation: the owner, the building and the decisions, all available over breakfast.
What to take away
- A restored motel is a completed case study you can book. Nothing else gives that kind of access.
- Choose a town with several restored properties, not one with a single finished building.
- The setting counts as much as the building. A restored motel on a dead strip is half a project.
- Book direct, stay two nights, and ask the owner about the work rather than the history.
Case studies are usually something you read. On this subject a good proportion of them rent rooms, which turns research into accommodation you needed anyway. Booking near roadside building case studies means sleeping inside the finished work. The owner, the building and the decisions are all available over breakfast.
Why staying beats visiting
A guest has time. You see the building at three in the afternoon and again at seven in the morning, in different light, with the owner around and nobody waiting for you to leave.
You also get access that no tour provides: the walkways, the forecourt at night, the room fabric close up, and the small failures that only show after a few hours.
Ask about the work rather than the history. Owners hear the history question constantly and the work question almost never. The questions worth asking before booking a historic property draw the same distinction, since most of them are about the building rather than the room.
Choose a town with several restored motels
One restored property on a strip of vacant lots is a nice night and a thin trip. A town where several buildings have been done gives you comparisons, which is what a case study is for.
Six restored roadside properties
Blue Swallow Motel
- Town
- Tucumcari, NM
- What it is
- 1939 Route 66 motel
- Rate
- $130 to $180
El Vado Motel
- Town
- Albuquerque, NM
- What it is
- 1937 boutique motel
- Rate
- $150 to $250
Wigwam Motel
- Town
- Holbrook, AZ
- What it is
- Concrete teepee motor court
- Rate
- $80 to $130
Why some towns recover and others do not is a subject in itself, and the Environmental Protection Agency's material on smart growth is a decent primer on the development patterns behind it. Those patterns decide what makes a main street viable and what draws investment to the edge of town instead.
Look for a town with a working main street, a couple of independent businesses that stayed, and more than one property that has had money spent on it.
Six restored roadside properties show what a bookable case study looks like. Published rates in 2026 typically run:
| Property | Town | What it is | Typical published rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Swallow Motel | Tucumcari, New Mexico | Restored 1939 Route 66 motel with a neon sign and garages between rooms; book direct. | $130 to $180 in season |
| El Vado Motel | Albuquerque, New Mexico | Restored 1937 Route 66 motel, now a boutique motel with a courtyard and food pods. | $150 to $250 |
| Wigwam Motel | Holbrook, Arizona | Restored concrete teepee motor court on Route 66; small rooms and a classic sign. | $80 to $130 |
| Motel Safari | Tucumcari, New Mexico | Restored 1959 motel with retro rooms and a rebuilt neon sign. | $90 to $140 |
| Boots Court Motel | Carthage, Missouri | Restored 1939 Route 66 motor court; rooms named for travelers, including Clark Gable. | $85 to $125 |
| Lincoln Motor Court | Bedford, Pennsylvania | Restored 1940s motor court on the Lincoln Highway with separate cabins. | $100 to $150 |
Rates shift by season, so confirm direct with the property.
The setting is part of the case
A building is not the whole subject. The forecourt, the planting, the walls, the way vehicles move around the site and what the building looks at across the road are all part of what was, or was not, restored.
The National Park Service's pages on cultural landscapes explain how settings are understood as heritage in their own right, made up of circulation, plantings, boundaries and small structures rather than buildings alone.
Applied to a motel this is a good test. A project that restored the building and paved the entire forecourt in fresh black asphalt has done half the job, and it will be obvious the moment you look for it.
What to ask when booking
- What year was the work completed?
- Which parts are original, and which were rebuilt?
- Is the owner usually on site?
- Are there other restored properties nearby worth seeing?
That last question routinely produces a list nobody has published.
Booking questions
- What year was the work completed?
- Which parts are original?
- Which parts were rebuilt?
- Is the owner usually on site?
- Other restored properties nearby?
Two nights, not one
One night gives you an evening and a departure. Two gives you a full day in the town and the morning light on the building. A second conversation with the owner can happen after they have had time to think about your first question.
Booking
Book direct. On small properties the platform takes a real share of the rate, and the money is going into the maintenance you came to look at.
The method for reading these projects is in the case-study approach, and what a first visit to a live project involves is the other half. Some of the best towns have a project underway as well as a finished one.
